Arsenal and Manchester City have been battling for the top price for the past couple of years now and their rivalry has been heating up now.
Manchester City has won seven Premier League titles in the last eight years with only Liverpool being the other winners in 2020. Other than that City have been relentless in the league finishing first with close margins and sometimes dominating the league. Liverpool were the only closest rivals since they finished second on multiple occassions and that rivalry has been a heated affair. Anyway in the past couple of years Mikel Arteta and Arsenal have been equally battling it out with the other two for the league title. They even came close last season pushing the title race into the final matchday. This rivalry between Arsenal and Man City have been heating up now which involves multiple dimensions involved.
ARSENAL VS MANCHESTER CITY RIVALRY HEATING UP
Mikel Arteta joined Arsenal in 2019 replacing Unai Emrey as their head coach. Despite having zero experience in single handedly coaching a senior team Arsenal trusted their former player. His life at the Emirates didn’t have the best of the starts. His style was often criticized and Arsenal lose to their main competitors in City, Liverpool and Spurs. Anyway the Arsenal board trusted him and stuck with him. When his team losses or underperforms Arteta used the famous phrase ‘Trust the process’ which was often trolled and memed. But he trusted in him, the Arsenal faithfull trusted in him and look what happened, fast forward to 2024 they are among the closest rivals to Manchester City in the title race.
On the other hand Manchester City under Pep Guardiola has been outstanding and made the toughest league in the world a monopoly. In his nine years in England, Guardiola won seven Premier League titles. He even broke the league record for most points in a single season corssing the 100 point mark. Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp were the only closest competitor for City during these years.
During the last couple of years we saw Arsenal finish as runners up. Arteta has built a system, a group of players who are ready to go through the walls for getting matches over the line. The Gunners have shown real gunning mentality this year, we can see that in their previous match against Man City. How they clashed with the City players?. How Arsenal challenged Manchester City at their home despite going a man down?
Different from the rivalry between City and Liverpool where there is lot of respect in it. This one doesn’t care for respect at all nowdays. Perfect old school rivalry.
MASTER VS DECIPLE
Mikel Arteta started his coaching tenure under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City as part of his coaching staff. Guardiola who has been an inspiration for so many new generation football managers was the master of Mikel Arteta. After sepending 3 years under Pep he mastered the craft before getting hired at his former club Arsenal as a successor of Unai Emery. Since the appointment so many doubts were generated since he had zero experience heading a senior team.
It was a rocky start at the Emirates often criticized for his style of playing out from the back. But, Arsenal kept their trust in him, Arteta believed in himself. As the criticisms rose on one side he ‘trusted the process’ fans stood patiently untill he got players who can excell in his style. Anyway Guardiola kept on winning titles while he also saw his deciple grow into one of his arch nemesis.
Recent war pf words hinted at some fluctuations in their relationship but Arteta has been vocal abotu his respect for his master.
GABRIEL VS HAALAND
We have seen a lot of player rivalries in football over the years but Gabriel vs Haaland is the latest one in the light of the incidents in the recent match between the duo. In a heated rivalry like this, it is normal to have players having war of words. And we can also assume that these things have happened during the match also.
After City scored a stoppage time equaliser in the match we saw Haaland throwing the ball to the back of Gabriel’s head. And we saw them calsh during the match. Anyway Gabriel was seen playing all these down and normalising those incidents.
He said “It’s normal, they were happy after scoring in the last minute.”
“It’s a battle, a war, so it’s normal to have provocative acts in football, it’s part of the game. Now this is over and we are waiting for them at our ground.” Taken from GOAL.com
He also pronounced it as a war and like an army general has warned his arch nemesis abot the return leg.
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