Category: Football (Soccer)

The possession that once defined the Spanish manager’s sides has evaporated, and it’s hard to see exactly why

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We really are now through the looking glass with Pep Guardiola. Eyebrows had been raised by the way Manchester City approached the second half of their commanding derby win last week, sitting off, allowing United the ball and picking them off on the break. But their performance in drawing at Arsenal on Sunday was on a different level entirely: just 34% possession, the lowest any Guardiola side has ever registered in a game. By the end they had four central defenders, two holding midfielders and a full-back on the pitch.

But even that doesn’t get to the heart of how strange this was. In the previous five seasons there have only been 10 occasions when City did not have more possession than their opponents in a Premier League game. Only once before in the Premier League has City’s possession under Guardiola dipped below 40% – when they registered 37% in beating Arsenal 3-1 in February 2023, a decisive game in that season’s title race as it pulled City level on points with Arsenal at the top, although they had played a game more. That fixture, though, was an extreme version of the United game: City sitting deep, looking to strike on the break and, as it turned out, scoring twice in the final 20 minutes to seal their win.

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Bernardo Silva has accused the fixture schedulers of lacking respect and common sense, saying they put Manchester City at such a physical disadvantage for Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Arsenal that it was “not fair” and “just not right”.

The City captain said he and his teammates could not be at their best level for one of the biggest games of the season after being asked to play in the Champions League on Thursday night; they beat Napoli 2-0 at home.

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Pep Guardiola becomes ever more the traditional English football man. As his Manchester City stay extends to 10 seasons, he relies ever more on the principle that big players can win big matches. Hence his late-career conversion to employing a wrecking ball striker in the peerless Erling Haaland. As for his former assistant Mikel Arteta, Arsenal looked stuck in the weeds of over-thinking. Benching Eberechi Eze, who tortured City in last season’s FA Cup final, till half-time was just too clever by half. Arteta’s recent talk of using rugby strategy, of thinking of substitutes as finishers, in the style of South Africa’s “bomb squad” is all very well. Even if the substitute Gabriel Martinelli scored the equaliser from an Eze long ball, a talented, capable squad playing one-dimensional fare is far less explicable. This is not the City who previously dominated the Premier League. They showed their own limitations, particularly once Haaland, brilliant as attacker and defender, was removed. John Brewin

Gabriel Martinelli’s injury-time goal cancelled out a beauty from Erling Haaland and denied City an old-fashioned away win

4 min Arsenal have started pretty well. Trossard makes a surging run down the left before being eased to the ground with a hint of disdain by Khusanov. No foul given.

1 min And they’re off. City have started with Phil Foden on the right and Bernardo Silva as the right-sided No8, a swap from the last two games. This is their revised line-up.