Man City vs Arsenal can become Premier League’s defining rivalry in post-Klopp era

It’s time for the rivalry between Manchester City and Arsenal to ignite.

The secret to a fearsome club feud is for regular consequential fixtures between two sides with trophy ambitions on the line. For a consecutive year, the outcome of the second Premier League meeting of the season between City and Arsenal will have a massive influence on who wins the title.

Just as tantalising is the prospect of a Champions League semi-final. Should they navigate past Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, the competitiveness between City and Arsenal will be elevated to another level. In elite sport, familiarity sometimes breeds contempt. City and Arsenal players may be sick of the sight of each other by mid-April, but it will make compelling viewing.

The potential is there for their meetings to join the list of great English rivalries of the last 30 years. I am thinking Arsenal versus Manchester United in the Arsène Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson years, Chelsea versus United when Jose Mourinho first came to England, or more recently Pep Guardiola versus Jürgen Klopp.

Guardiola versus Mikel Arteta is not there yet and the animosity levels may never be fully comparable, but it is creeping ever closer because the stakes are so high now. When Klopp leaves England this summer, Arteta is the best placed coach to fill the void as Guardiola’s biggest adversary. Whatever happens this season, Arsenal will not be going away while Arteta is in charge and his squad remains intact and is strengthened.

There has been a respectful ‘master versus apprentice’ relationship between the coaches over the course of previous meetings, with Guardiola’s former assistant landing his most telling blow in their last league meeting. The most obvious sign of how unconcerned Guardiola was by Arsenal was when he sold them Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko in the summer of 2022. I doubt he will gift Arsenal such quality again.

The dynamic started to shift last year, but ultimately Guardiola had the upper hand and City’s 4-1 victory over Arsenal in the corresponding game at the Etihad in April 2023 ended Arteta’s title bid.

Sunday will be the truest measure of how far Arsenal have come since. They have fewer points but in every department they are more impressive, better equipped to resist pressure and control games.

One of the clearest indicators of this is the xG difference, which informs us which teams have the right balance between attack and defence. Basically, it is the difference between the expected goals for and against and is a useful indicator of which teams create the most goal scoring opportunities and concede the fewest chances.

For the past four years, City’s have topped this data chart. Now Arsenal are leading it, reflecting what our eyes have been telling us all season. They are still creating plenty but are more secure.

The reasons for that are self-evident given Declan Rice has been an outstanding acquisition strengthening the midfield, adding a layer of protection in front of the defence and supporting the attackers, while William Saliba’s fitness is critical to Arsenal’s chances and all those early season questions about goalkeeper David Raya’s signing have disappeared.

The Etihad trip is especially significant for Saliba. Ask any Arsenal fan about the turning point of last season and they will argue it was Saliba’s injury. The title effort may not have run out of steam as quickly as it did without him.

It’s been a strange week for the Arsenal centre-half. He has become one of the Premier League’s outstanding defenders but was criticised by France coach Didier Deschamp.

“He does things I do not like,” he said.

The only thing Arsenal fans do not like about their French defender is when someone has to fill in for him. With respect to Rob Holding who deputised for Saliba at City a year ago, the difference was telling.

That adds to the pressure on Saliba, though. There are many who see him as the natural heir to Virgil van Dijk as the Premier League’s best centre-back. Van Dijk is still number one and reaffirmed that status when he nullified the threat of Erling Haaland when they met at Anfield.

The gauntlet has been thrown down to Saliba. Should he win his duel with Haaland – one of the many that will decide who wins on Sunday – Arsenal can anticipate producing a much better performance than they did on their last trip to City.

They will not be short of confidence. In the head-to-heads between Arsenal, City and Liverpool, Arteta is the only coach with a win this season. And since Arteta’s appointment in 2019, only City have won more points in meetings with the ‘big six’ – adding Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

Despite all these positives – an improved team, outstanding players at the top of their game and going into the fixture top of the league – most neutrals still expect City to win on Sunday and go on to win the title.

Another statistic provided to the Monday Night Football team every week – the Opta predictor – suggests Arsenal are the least likely of the three contenders to end the season top.

Why? Partly because City are so good and history tells us this is the moment in the season when they move into fifth gear.

The immediate aftermath of the March international break in 2023 led to City playing the highest quality sequence of games I have seen by any English side. They won nine consecutive league fixtures in addition to winning the Champions League and FA Cup. They know how to time their sprint to the finish line.

Arsenal also have the toughest run-in of all the contenders, with trips to Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United the most eye-catching. There is also still a concern about their squad depth, although such fears have been overplayed so far. Nevertheless, even when everyone is fit, Arsenal’s bench is not as strong as those of City and Liverpool.

A win at the Etihad would erase any lingering negative assessments of Arsenal. They will be favourites if they beat City as it would give them the confidence to believe they can and should win all their remaining games.

For me, 90 points will win the title this season. If so, the margins are so small that anything more than a couple of draws for one of the contenders will spell the end.

That’s what makes Sunday so huge.

Whenever fixtures as important as these come around, the temptation is always there to describe it as ‘the most important league game for years’ for the club seeking to end a title drought. The same could have been written before Arsenal travelled to City last season.

But there is no doubt this feels different. After being top for so long, it was not that much of a title fight by the end of the 2023 campaign. The chasm between the teams when they met was not reflected in the final five point gap.

Last April Arsenal went to City with hope. Now they go with belief and expectation.

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