Arsenal lost crucial points at Anfield after leading against Liverpool by two goals. There’s no doubt Arsenal have performed incredibly well this season, going from a fifth place finish last season to being title contenders this campaign. Under Mikel Arteta, who has developed one of the most dynamic squads in Europe while admirably adhering to his basic values, they have surpassed all expectations.
To win the Premier League, however, they are not nearly ready yet. The latest example of that was Sunday’s 2-2 draw against the Reds, where they let a two-goal lead slip in front of a boisterous Anfield crowd and were fortunate to escape with a point. Although having played one more game, Arsenal are only six points ahead of Manchester City, and they still have an all-important trip to the Etihad Stadium coming up.
The second half of Arsene Wenger’s tenure at the club saw the Gunners held down by mental frailty, and Arteta deserves enormous credit for resisting that tendency. Yet his side is currently in an unknown territory. City thrives under pressure to deliver results when it counts, and they won’t give up on their quest for a fifth title in six years. Arsenal will ultimately be unable to hold off their narrow lead at the top, with Pep Guardiola’s side eventually winning the title, and here’s five reasons why so will happen.
Arsenal’s languishing lack of depth
Arsenal still lacks the strength and depth of the roster that teams like Manchester City boast, albeit it isn’t as serious of a problem as it once was. There are still certain irreplaceable players in that Arsenal starting XI, as was evident when a meltdown occurred against Liverpool where they gave up a 2-0 lead. Arteta struggled without appropriate bench options who would have absorbed the Anfield pressure.
Both the teams brought on three new players; Liverpool sent Roberto Firmino, Thiago Alcantara and Darwin Nunez to impact the game and the Brazilian striker did notch the equaliser. Whereas Arteta sent in Kieran Tierney, Leandro Trossard and the highly inexperienced recruit Jakub Kiwior. Clearly, Liverpool’s bench had a clear influence than Arsenal’s.
The January arrivals were beneficial, and now that Gabriel Jesus has returned, there aren’t many worries about the attack. Trossard’s quick adaptation makes the fact that the Gunners passed up Mykhaylo Mudryk in favour of Brighton’s Belgian star, one of the season’s most serendipitous moments, but further back, there are still issues to be resolved.
No prior experience of winning the title
Although the Gunners brought in Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko in the summer, who were four-time Premier League winners with Manchester City, Arsenal still lack players who have done it with them. Apart from Jesus and Zinchenko, no other player from the Arsenal roster has ever collected a Premier League winners’ medal.
Meanwhile, City boast several winners are their team. Ederson, John Stones, Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan, and Kevin De Bruyne have all been in this situation previously. They are proven winners with four Premier League title wins on their CVs. Even Jack Grealish, who only joined from Aston Villa in the summer of 2021, has already won a title with City – in his debut season.
The Gunners lack this kind of experience. That naive streak was brutally on display at Anfield as the Arsenal were unable to secure a victory despite an outstanding first-half performance in which they completely outplayed Liverpool. We can safely assume that the upcoming weeks will bring more of the same.
City’s knack of building winning streaks
In the bulk of Guardiola’s six seasons in charge at the Etihad Stadium—certainly the four in which his club won the title — City have demonstrated their ability to churn out winning streaks of 10, 15 or even 18 games in a row. It was only last month Guardiola had said:
“The feeling I have right now is quite similar to that I had in previous battles with Liverpool, when we were able to win 17 or 18 games in a row to be champions. I have the same feeling.”
In the 2017/18 season, when they won their first title under Guardiola, City won 18 straight games from August to December, breaking their previous winning streak record. A year later, from February to May, there were 14 straight wins. It just so happened that these were the final 14 games of the campaign, and their winning streak allowed them to win the title by one point over Liverpool.
In the 2020/21 season, City went on a 15–match winning streak in the league, breaking out of an 18–month slump in the month of December and sweeping to the league’s top to ensure that, when they did eventually lose, in a Manchester derby in early March, they had built up such a sizable lead that they could not be overtaken anyway.
They won 12 games straight between November and January of the previous season, which helped them capture back-to-back titles. They are eight points behind Arsenal with 10 games to go, with a game in hand, and you can sense another winning streak in the making.
Erling Haaland’s flurry of goals
With 14 goals this season, Martinelli is currently Arsenal’s leading scorer in the Premier League, followed by Saka (13) and Odegaard (10). Yet none of them even come close to City’s Erling Haaland. The summer signing scored his 30th Premier League goal during the 4-1 demolition of Southampton on Saturday, further taking his season total across all competitions to 44.
He now shares the record for the most goals scored for an English club in a single season with Mohamed Salah and Ruud van Nistelrooy. Simply put, he is the most dangerous striker in the game at the moment, and his presence always gives City the advantage. With a player like Haaland scoring 30 goals in just 27 games, it seems almost impossible that City would lose the title.
The ultimate City vs Arsenal clash
City still has some difficult games left, including away contests against Fulham, Brentford, and Brighton, but their biggest game will at home to Arsenal on April 27. The clash is already looking like a potential title-decider, after the Gunners lost points at Anfield, which instead would have decided the title. Arsenal have never won, or even managed a draw at the Etihad under Arteta, losing all of their three league games there, on top of a FA Cup clash.
Moreover, besides from the fact that they have never won at the Etihad, the Gunners have only managed one win against City across the eight games in all competitions; a 2-0 win in the FA Cup semifinals in the 2019/20 season. If we go deeper with the numbers, Arteta’s men have conceded a whopping 18 goals in 8 games against the current league champions, of which 13 have been given in the Premier League.
With such a poor record against City, and having already lost 3-1 at home earlier this season against them, there is only a little hope that Arsenal ‘win’ at Etihad. Although there will be some hope given they raced to a two-goal lead at Anfield, the question again is, will the north Londoners manage to hold on it?
While the Reds only managed to come from back and manage a draw, we must not forget City can do one better, as they did against Aston Villa on the final day of the last season, coming from two goals down at home, to win the game 3-2 and eventually the title as well in a thrilling encounter which almost saw the Premier League trophy head to Merseyside with red ribbons.