The 2021/22 Premier League title race was a close-run affair between Manchester City and Liverpool. It went down to the last game, and City lifted their fourth Premier League title of the last five years following a dramatic comeback win against Aston Villa.
There were a number of similarities in style of play between the City and Liverpool sides of the 2021/22 campaign. They both enjoyed dominating possession and suffocating their opponents by playing a brand of football which requires an extremely high intensity.
Partly due to these similarities, both Premier League fixtures between Liverpool and Manchester City last season produced 2-2 draws while their FA Cup semi-final saw a narrow 3-2 win for eventual cup winners Liverpool.
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Defending champions City have not faced current league leaders Arsenal this term so we don’t yet know what a game between the two sides would look like. But the stats tell us to expect something vastly different to City’s encounters with Liverpool last season. Manchester City were last season’s top scorers in the Premier League, finishing on an impressive 99. They were closely followed by Liverpool who finished on 94 goals. City and Liverpool were also close to each other when it came to completed passes last season with City topping the Premier League’s chart for that statistic, while Liverpool completed the league’s third-highest number of passes.
But this season, City face a different challenge in terms of the difference in style between themselves and the Arsenal side most likely to prise the Premier League trophy away from Guardiola’s men. Manchester City are by far the best passing team in the league with 8,542 completed passes meanwhile Arsenal sit sixth in the Premier League on that particular stat with 6,230 completed passes. City are the division’s top scorers with Arsenal sitting second on the goal-scoring charts.
So both sides are clinical. There are key differences between the sides though. Arsenal have kept one more clean sheet than Manchester City, and they concede fewer goals per 90 minutes than City. Although both of these stats favour Arsenal marginally, it is exactly these sort of fine margins that make all the difference when two top sides face off against each other. City have the edge offensively meanwhile Arsenal fare better when it comes to defence-related statistics.
This is unlike last season where both Manchester City and closest challengers Liverpool were better at attacking than they were defending. Arsenal could prove difficult for Manchester City to break through, but De Bruyne and Haaland can cause chaos against any defence.
Premier League fans can strap themselves in for a potentially close ran title race between City and Arsenal, and fixtures between the two sides which could prove vital.
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