The expectation – perhaps the fear – was that Manchester City vs Arsenal would be like their two league games last season: undoubtedly high quality and excitement, but a little tepid, lacking the blood and thunder to linger in the memory of neutral viewers. Instead, what unfolded was a classic, a game with a million subplots, full of controversy, brilliance and dullness that almost ended up being a reenactment of José Mourinho’s Inter knocking out Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona in the 2010 Champions League semi-finals.
Arsenal have kept nine clean sheets in 11 away league games this year, with last week’s win over Tottenham, via a header from a corner after a suffocating defensive display, making it clear that Mikel Arteta, despite having served an apprenticeship as Guardiola’s assistant, is in no way a Guardiola clone. Many have even said he has a touch of Mourinho (who himself of course trained in the Barcelona method (before he filmed it), but few expected him to embrace the role with such enthusiasm on Sunday afternoon.
In 2010, Inter went to the Camp Nou with a 3-1 lead after the first leg of their Champions League semi-final and, after Tiago Motta was sent off after 28 minutes, a decision they hotly contested, they retreated to their bunker, defended deep, barely bothered to pose a threat on the counter, and messed up and wasted time at every turn. Inter lost 1-0, but that was enough to go through on aggregate, which he considered Mourinho’s finest moment, so much so that he had a life-size cut-out of him, finger-raised, celebrating the final whistle and having it installed in his office when he was manager of Real Madrid.
Inter had 19% possession in that match; Arsenal had 12% in the second half on Sunday. City were predictably furious about Arsenal’s playsmanship (and rightly so – what can be almost comically brazen in a one-off match would quickly lose its charm if it became a habit) with John Stones calling them “clever or dirty” and Bernardo Silva accusing them of playing “to the limit of what was possible and allowed by the referee”.
But what was extraordinary was how badly City handled the situation. They had 28 shots in the second half. Of those, 13 were from defenders – the last of them, John Stones’ late equaliser, following the precedent set by Gerard Pique’s late strike in 2010. Another four were from Mateo Kovačić, who has scored just 18 league goals in a career that began six months after Mourinho’s Camp Nou triumph. Eighteen of the 28 shots were from outside the penalty area. Only one, before the goal, had an xG higher than 0.1.
That is partly a testament to how well Arsenal defended, the eagerness with which they reverted to their 5-4-0 formation, occasionally a 6-3-0, just outside their own penalty area. There was a moment in injury time when the ball was played to Rúben Dias on the edge of the area and for the first time Arsenal had no one to stop him. It was a real chance but Dias was so upset after four misses from distance, the last of which had provoked a grunt of frustration from the crowd, that he paused and played a sideways pass instead.
But it also highlighted the strangeness of the modern City. Guardiola is the great manipulator of shape; his entire philosophy revolves around creating overloads and putting players in the positions where they can be most effective. Yet the two players who had the most touches in the second half were Dias and Manuel Akanji (152 between them, as opposed to 120 for every Arsenal winger combined); while both fine players, are they really the men most likely to find their way through a low block? Of City’s 13 league goals this season, 10 have been scored by Erling Haaland, which is on the one hand a testament to his prodigious ability but, with all the caveats about how few games have been played, might also suggest a dependency. At the very least, it is a testament to how far Guardiola has departed from his old vision of a team of 11 diminutive, almost interchangeable midfielders.
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The other player City will be counting on is Rodri, and his injury could be the biggest fallout from the game. The only team City beat in the league last season without him were Luton. He is vital to how they play and if he is out for a long period, it will be harder for City to control the game.
Arsenal would almost certainly have drawn before kick-off, and again after Leandro Trossard’s red card. There was something great about their resistance, and yet it wasn’t enough – an unfortunate trope for Arsenal. A win would have lifted Arsenal above City; as it is, the feeling, given how the game went, is that they may have missed an opportunity at the Etihad for the second season in a row.
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This is an excerpt from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, the Guardian US’s weekly look at the game in Europe and beyond. Register here for free. Got a question for Jonathan? Email him at soccerwithjw@theguardian.com and he’ll feature the best answer in a future edition