Mikel Arteta responds to Pep Guardiola after Man City boss declared ‘war’ on Arsenal and asked his former No 2 to clarify his pointed comments after their heated 2-2 draw

They’ve been trying to put out the fire here all week. The fire that Mikel Arteta lit on Tuesday with just twenty words in his discussion of Manchester City’s accusations about Arsenal’s ‘dark arts’.

It’s hard to believe the Arsenal manager didn’t appreciate his words about his time at City: ‘I was there for four years. I have all the information. So I know. Trust me’ – could be open to multiple interpretations, at a time when City are defending themselves against accusations of financial cheating in the Premier League. But few could have foreseen the escalation, which had reached incendiary levels when Pep Guardiola sat down to respond on Friday.

It was a shame that in the week when the bombs hit Lebanon and killed innocents, City’s manager should have described events between the two clubs on Friday as ‘war’. City will argue that Gabriel was the first to use the word in last Sunday’s fevered aftermath.

Arteta overcame this on Saturday evening and stated at a press conference in which topics such as Leandro Trossard’s disallowed winner and Riccardo Calafiori’s performance were discussed that there had been no malicious intentions. He ‘loves’ Guardiola, he said. Considers him ‘a friend.’ And that ‘information’ he said he had about them? No more, he insisted, than the knowledge that they are indeed working very hard ‘to maintain the hunger’ City had shown to find the equalizer in the 98th minute.

He had his own players to thank for giving him the platform to talk about those qualities, given the way they managed to win a match that, almost unbelievably, they seemed to have thrown away after an embarrassing level of superiority in the first half.

Emotions ran high during the fascinating Premier League match between the two teams last week

The former City assistant had angered his old boss Pep Guardiola with comments he made after last week’s ill-tempered draw

It was all, Arteta reflected in the aftermath, much more ’emotional’ than he had hoped it would turn out to be, but the tirelessness is why Arsenal believe they can finally eclipse the team they were last level with . night.

Leicester goalkeeper Mads Hermansen, who we can expect to see much more of in the top flight of British football, performed in a way that few others in his position will this season and it was starting to look like victory would elude Arsenal when Trossard’s shot in the 94th minute was deflected to prove that Arsenal, like City, have a late goal-scoring ability.

The struggle that the game became for them does raise questions for Arteta. Calafiori, who was influential from box to box and left Declan Rice in cover while exerting influence in the centre, did not find the defensive contribution to match. He made a mistake by giving James Justin the freedom to score a brilliant equalizer. He struggled with the pace that Facundo Buonanotte brought as Leicester started to pull away at Arsenal in the second half.

Kai Havertz lacked the ruthless finishing that could have kept Arsenal out of sight. A disallowed first-half header was a half-hearted attempt to defend a free-kick before Justin’s header was deflected away from him for Leicester’s first goal.

This was certainly not superhuman football: the kind of football that Arteta said he left City with foreknowledge.

Leandro Trossard (right) put the home side ahead in the 94th minute before Kai Havertz made the score more comfortable six minutes later

“I’ve never seen anyone work as hard as the coaches and everyone at that football club to be consistent in winning,” he reflected.

There’s pressure and then there’s real pressure. ‘I wouldn’t mind being in Mikel’s shoes,’ thought Cooper when asked for his thoughts on Arteta’s difficult week after a defeat that left his side in fifth place with just three points. But this was an object lesson in how to lower the temperature.