Manchester City’s bleating is laughable – did they expect Arsenal to just roll over?
Champions’ hypocritical complaints at title rival’s use of the ‘dark arts’ reveal how much Mikel Arteta’s side have got under their skin
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/09/23/man-city-bleating-joke-did-they-expect-arsenal-roll-over/
https://archive.ph/FsCqt
What is the appropriate response to the prospect of playing for 55 minutes against Manchester City, at the Etihad Stadium, with 10 men?
In the eyes of Pep Guardiola’s players, it seems, the dignified approach would be to roll over and simply wait for the thrashing to begin.
To actually defend your own goal? To slow down the match? To do everything in your power to cling on to your lead? Based on the response of the City players to Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Arsenal, such tactics are nothing but an insult to the beautiful game. “There was only one team that came to play football,” claimed an indignant Bernardo Silva.
Evidently, Bernardo and his team-mates preferred it when Arsenal responded to a red card by staging a comical defensive meltdown at the Etihad, as they did in August 2021.
On that occasion, Arsenal lost Granit Xhaka to a first-half red card and went on to lose 5-0. Safe to say, there were few complaints that day about Arsenal’s tactical approach.
Clearly, there is a belief within the City dressing room that Arsenal are morally compelled to play Guardiola’s side at their own game. To attack, to open up, to trade punch for punch and see who triumphs.
City players need to wake up to reality
It is a nice idea but it is not one that is rooted in footballing reality, where Mikel Arteta and his players must operate.
From the moment Leandro Trossard was shown a red card on Sunday, Arsenal’s only obligation was to grit their teeth and make the second half as challenging as possible for their opponents.
In an ideal world, Arteta would no doubt have loved to play City off the park at the Etihad, to defeat his old mentor with a flowing passing game. This was not an ideal world, though. Not only because of Trossard’s dismissal, but also because Arsenal arrived in Manchester without Martin Odegaard, their most important figure and the playmaker through which their entire game flows.
At which point, City supporters will likely point out that Kevin De Bruyne was missing for the hosts. The difference here is that De Bruyne’s understudy is Ilkay Gundogan, while Odegaard’s deputy is 17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri. Gundogan has the same number of trophies on his CV as Nwaneri has senior minutes on his.
As the debate has raged over the past 24 hours, Arsenal supporters have been understandably quick to point out that their team were, for years, accused of being too soft on occasions such as these. Now they are maligned for being too nasty. Those fans, and certainly Arteta himself, would much rather draw ugly than lose pretty.
City no strangers to the ‘dark arts’
The bleating of City’s players is especially hard to stomach because it suggests that Guardiola’s squad believe themselves to be the high priests of all that is right with the sport. Which, frankly, is a laughable notion. Yes, City play fabulous attacking football, but they are just as streetwise and cynical as any team in the division.
To accuse Arsenal of being masters of the “dark arts” is to ignore City’s own excellence in this field. One of the defining features of their success under Guardiola, for example, has been their ability to make tactical fouls. In 2019, Rodri said he had learnt “tactical fouling” under Guardiola’s management.
This is not to criticise City for such antics. All of the top teams are at it, all of the time. That is simply the nature of elite-level football in the modern game. Indeed, Arsenal have been on the other side of this particular stylistic fence, and will be again at various points of this season. Last December, at home to West Ham United, Arteta’s side lost 2-0 against a team who had just 26 per cent of possession.
The West Ham manager that day was David Moyes, who has always seen beauty in these spirited defensive stands. On punditry duty with BeIn Sports on Sunday, Moyes described Arsenal’s performance as a “brilliant, brilliant defensive job”. Moyes, lest we forget, was Arteta’s manager for six years at Everton.
From Arsenal’s perspective, the complaints of City’s players will be regarded as evidence that they have truly got under the skin of their opponents. This could be seen at the full-time whistle, when a furious Erling Haaland told Arteta to “stay humble” and then called Gabriel Jesus a “f------ clown”.
Haaland tells Arteta to 'stay humble'
Watch as City striker goads Arteta and argues with Gabriel Jesus
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Gone are the days when City would patronise Arsenal after thumping them on the pitch. Now, there is genuine needle and pettiness in this rivalry, with Bernardo pictured making a “zero” gesture with his hands, seemingly in reference to the number of league titles won by Arteta’s Arsenal.
Whether that changes this at the end of this season, of course, remains to be seen. There is a long way to go. But the Arsenal of 2024 know where they want to be, and they are evidently willing to get there in any way they can - whether the neutrals, pundits or their opponents like it or not.
