Arsenal - Man City: The key match
The two brightest candidates for the 2022-2023 Premier League title race meet for the first time this season. The match was supposed to take place on September 15, 2022, but was postponed because Queen Elizabeth II died a week earlier. The positions of the two teams in the tournament have not changed once after five months.
Arsenal have won their first five games of the season, and have been leading since the third round, pushing City down to second. After 20 matches, the position of the two teams remained unchanged, but at this time Pep Guardiola's army was closer and grasped the right to self-determination of the championship. They are three points behind Arsenal and have played one more game than the host, but the two teams still have two more encounters. The only way for Arsenal to deprive City of self-determination is to win at the Emirates.
"Arsenal need to win this game because they are playing at home," former striker Ian Wright told the BBC. "Man City to Emirates and will climb to the top of the table if they win the host. Arsenal unfortunately dropped points against Brentford but this is an opportunity for the team to find the victory again."
Not only Wright or Arsenal fans, coach Mikel Arteta also wants to win this match, and he made it clear in the press conference. "It doesn't matter that I have never won against Guardiola, but Arsenal need to beat Man City," he said. "The next match is just like any other, it means three points."
This focal match is also attractive, because Man City and Guardiola also want to win even though they have to be guests. "Arsenal want this title? Let's fight," Guardiola told the press conference. "We want to defend the title to the very end."
Guardiola probably did not expect that when he let Arteta, defender Oleksandr Zinchenko and striker Gabriel Jesus come to Arsenal, there would be a day when Man City would regret it. Arteta worked as an assistant to Guardiola in the 2016-2019 period at Man City, while Zinchenko and Jesus also won the Premier League four times with Guardiola. But these three have contributed significantly to helping Arsenal to lead and possibly win the league for the first time in 19 years.
Arteta has always lost to Guardiola in the Premier League, and Arsenal have always lost to Man City in the last 10 matches in the tournament. However, this is the best opportunity for Emirates Stadium owners to break the bank, even though they are not in high form. In the last five matches, Arsenal have dropped more points than the previous 16. They won Tottenham and Man Utd, but stumbled against Newcastle, Everton and Brentford.
But Man City have also not done well when they have to go recently, with a three-game losing streak against Southampton, Man Utd and Tottenham. Guardiola once said that if Man City continued to play like in the defeat to Southampton, they would be destroyed by Arsenal.
Another issue that bothers Guardiola is that striker Erling Haaland has left the possibility of playing due to injury, although he has returned to training with his teammates. The form of the Norwegian striker is also a problem when he has lost the last three matches. And in eight games since the beginning of 2023, Haaland has only scored in two.
Haaland will face another Norwegian player who is also playing impressively, home captain Martin Odegaard. The 25-year-old midfielder is playing the role of Arsenal conductor, when he has scored 13 goals in 20 games. However, in the last four matches, Odegaard did not contribute to any goals.
Arsenal and Man City have both been out of breath in recent times, letting Man Utd draw the gap down. However, the championship race is probably still in the hands of Guardiola and Arteta's teachers. The two teams have never been able to compete for a two-horse championship in the Premier League at this stage, and the confrontation between them will bring new breezes to the fans of the tournament.
