EPL TALK: In chasing Manchester City all season, Mikel Arteta has replaced weary Jurgen Klopp in every sense

ONE manager is relaxed and smiley with his players. The other is a twisted coil of tension. Their emotions appear upside down. Jurgen Klopp’s title challenge has slipped away, but he’s never looked happier. Mikel Arteta is on top of the table, but perhaps resigned to the prospect that the industrial winning complex will turn up late and bulldoze the table once more.

Arteta has become the man that Klopp used to be, not last year, but last month, when Liverpool’s title hopes were decisively crushed, when Klopp could accept his fate, exhale, and enjoy his mini-farewell tour. Klopp’s legacy is already secure. He took on Manchester City and mostly failed – along with everyone else – but he got the closest.

That’s the ludicrous yardstick now, the benchmark to measure success in the era of state ownership. Everyone else falls short, obviously, but how near was the miss? How heroic was the failure? Liverpool reached 97 points in 2019. No matter. Manchester City reached 98. Arsenal are currently leading the standings in the final week. No matter. Manchester City are expected to do what Manchester City usually do, which is to play along with the illusion of a close race, before pulling away and waving to the crowd as they cross the line, revealing that there was still plenty in the tank.

That illusion broke Klopp in the end. He must say otherwise of course. He’ll go out speaking about family, age, health and mortality and not being able to give “100 per cent” and it’s probably all true. But he won’t mention the unmentionable, that he probably feels like Adrian Balboa screaming, “you can’t win.”

Even though he did. He won everything, just at different times. Klopp flirted with omnipotence, but with eye-catching lightning raids, like guerrillas launching the occasional snatch and grab against an autocratic regime. There were memorable victories, but nothing that could be sustained against a football factory whose most potent weapon remains serenity. Manchester City just keep calm and carry on crushing it.

And like a kind of John Wick in a Liverpool tracksuit, Klopp kept climbing the staircase as new enemies leapt out from all angles. Oh, look, there’s Erling Haaland. And now there’s Jeremy Doku. There’s even Josko Gvardiol. Where did he come from? No time to question the absurdity of all these fresh bodies, just fight on until the spirit finally gives way. Even John Wick needed a lie down in the end. Why should Klopp be any different?

But one man’s weariness is another man’s opportunity. Arteta’s fist pumping in the rain at Old Trafford mimicked the manager he’s now replacing. The Arsenal coach is looking more like an identikit Klopp, assembling the best pieces in the hope of replicating a similar outcome. Like Liverpool, the Gunners couldn’t match Manchester City’s compendium of creative forces, so they minded the gaps at the other end.

Gabriel and William Saliba are among the least-dribbled-past defenders in the league, with the latter an astonishing metronome of consistency. Saliba has featured in every league match this season and still touched the ball more than anyone else at Old Trafford (99 times) and excelled in all the passing, tackling and clearance stats, allowing Arsenal to play with a rare conservatism against Manchester United and prevail.

Arsenal's and Arteta's defiances invigorates title chase

It’s been a familiar theme. The traditional big six have all failed to beat the Gunners. Six wins and four draws were recorded against Manchester City, Liverpool, United, Chelsea and Tottenham this season. Declan Rice has a lot to do with that, the signing of the season, but Arsenal’s durability comes from having the most dependable central defence of the season, too. Like Klopp after 2020, Arteta has wisely taken care of the fundamentals first.

And Kai Havertz puts him closer to the class of Klopp and Pep Guardiola, which would’ve been a surreal claim to make in September. After Havertz's pivotal role in Arsenal’s winner at Old Trafford, he told Sky Sports that he spotted Casemiro, loitering with no intent, and demanded the ball from Ben White. Havertz accepted the invitation to skip to the byline and find Leandro Trossard with a gift-wrapped assist. Seriously, who is this guy?

At Chelsea, Havertz lacked the ingenuity, confidence and playing routine to ponder such a creative outburst, let alone execute it with swaggering bravado in a bum-squeaking encounter. At Arsenal, Havertz is a better player, thanks to Arteta. The Gunners manager is doing what they take for granted at Manchester City and Liverpool. He’s making good players great. See Havertz, Rice, Trossard and central defence for more details.

See Manchester United for what the opposite looks like.

Arteta’s players are beginning to look like Klopp players. An impressive 27 victories and 89 goals scored are Klopp-like stats and the willingness to prop up that illusion of EPL equality is also reminiscent of the retiring Red. The Spaniard is even starting to sound like the German. “We have opened that box of dreams to live the final day of the season in front of our people – we want to live that moment, it’s part of our journey, to live the occasion,” Arteta said.

That’s the kind of chest-thumping, slightly melodramatic oratory typically associated with Klopp, especially when he sought to confuse logic, cold data and hard numbers with a florid call to arms. It only worked once in the English Premier League for Klopp. It may not work at all for Arteta. Rhetoric isn’t usually enough to take down an industrial winning complex.

But it’s the defiance that invigorates, the refusal to accept the oppressive reality of a fourth consecutive title being churned out by a purring machine with no off switch.

Arteta probably won’t topple Manchester City on Sunday, but he’s closed the gap. He’s following Klopp as the wannabe usurper, a role that left Klopp emotionally spent. And for that reason, Arteta deserves only gratitude and sympathy for pursuing such a thankless task.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 28 books.

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