It was a winning goal hardly befitting the importance of this encounter, but one that perfectly encapsulated the style of the game.
With four minutes remaining in a clash between last season’s top two, a centre-back launched a big diagonal ball for a big strapping to defend to nod the ball down. Then there was a lay-off, a shot, a deflection, and ultimately the most significant goal of the Premier League season so far.
It is striking that this incident summarised a game like this – in 2023, between Arsenal and Manchester City, two talented technical sides coached by former cultured midfielders who speak about the importance of dominating possession.
When Pep Guardiola first took charge of Barcelona, he was famed as much for his footballing ideology as much as his success – and this is a coach who won the Treble in his first season as a manager. Mikel Arteta, his former assistant, has inevitably taken many cues from Guardiola. And yet the two seemed content to play out a match like this – entirely cautious, the major incidents centred on midfield tackles, the half-chances coming only from set-pieces.
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It brings to mind a dig that Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas had at Mark Hughes, whose Blackburn side played out a boring 0-0 to force an FA Cup replay here in 2007. “Are you sure you played for Barcelona?” Fabregas shouted at him. “Because that wasn’t Barcelona football.”
Well, it wasn’t quite that bad. But there has been a notable shift away from purely technical football from both managers in recent years. It’s more noticeable from Guardiola, who once disliked pure centre-backs so much that he left his squad understaffed in order to turn passing midfielders into defenders. In 2023 he has regularly fielded four centre-backs together – and, when combined with defensive midfielder Rodri, suspended here, he has used five players who played at centre-back at last year’s World Cup.
This clash between Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola turned into a slugfest (Lexy Ilsley – Manchester City/Manchester City FC via Getty Images)
Arteta has, more subtly, done something similar with Ben White, previously a centre-back and now a right-back. And it was once assumed that Declan Rice’s inevitable move to a Champions League challenger would go hand-in-hand with him becoming a permanent defender – it’s certainly the role Frank Lampard had planned for him had Chelsea been able to lure him a few years ago. But no. A player with the profile to play centre-back a few years ago is now a player with the profile to play in midfield. Considering their brief summer interest in Rice after the departure of Ilkay Gundogan, it seemed Guardiola and Arteta agree.
And in a match where both sides were without their key attacking player – Bukayo Saka and Kevin De Bruyne – both Arteta and Guardiola were risk-averse with their selections. Arteta brought in Jorginho to play alongside Rice while Guardiola, having witnessed Mateo Kovacic being overrun against Wolves last week, used Rico Lewis (somewhere between a midfielder and a full-back) alongside him and Bernardo Silva behind.
And while it might seem curious to consider using a brilliant playmaker like Silva deep in midfield a defensive move, he was clearly told to put his foot on the ball, slow the tempo and play short passes, rather than offer any creative thinking. Besides, the need to beef up the centre with three midfielders meant Julian Alvarez, City’s brightest attacker this season in something of a second striker role, was forced out wide. His most notable contribution was shutting down David Raya and nearly tackling the ball into the goal, which was telling in itself.
Julian Alvarez almost forces David Raya into an error (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Even the situation up front was interesting. Whereas once both these managers might have started this game with a false nine who could come short, link play and create, here it was two old-fashioned nines, Eddie Nketiah and Erling Haaland, both considered penalty box strikers who offer little in deeper positions.
Both were completely disconnected from their teammates – one of many conclusions you can take from the passing networks, none of them particularly positive.
There were, of course, some interesting tactical situations and some excellent examples of playing out from the back and into midfield. Both sides’ bravery in deep positions speaks of their managers’ belief in good passing. But the moments that got the crowd off their feet were a Jorginho tactical foul, and then a Kovacic lunge, and then another Kovacic lunge, and then tackles from Nketiah and Martin Odegaard which they followed by turning to the crowd and celebrating like they’d scored.
And fair enough, because for long periods it felt like we wouldn’t have any actual scoring. City created just two chances – both for defenders, Nathan Ake and Josko Gvardiol, at early corners. Arsenal’s two quarter-chances from decent positions were also from corners, both for Nketiah.
It’s not like either manager used substitutes to try to win the game, either. The changes were either like-for-like, or defensive. Guardiola introduced yet another centre-back, John Stones, in place of Lewis. Arteta replaced a creative roaming full-back, Oleksandr Zinchenko, with a primarily defensive full-back, Takehiro Tomiyasu. He, of course, ended up making the crucial knock-down in the opposition box, which Arteta jokingly acknowledged afterwards was hardly part of the plan.
All this said, this wasn’t a truly terrible game of football. It was tense and competitive. The technical quality was very good. There were lots of crunching tackles, which English crowds always enjoy. And this is hardly the first clash between title contenders that was a little cagey.
But ultimately it was a game packed with defenders and physical players, with minimal imagination or invention in open play, with both sides seemingly content with a 0-0. This wasn’t what we once expected of a clash between Guardiola and his protegee.
“We didn’t create much, and they didn’t create much,” conceded Guardiola afterwards. It was tough to argue with that.
(Top photo: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
