What Arsenal did during Man City collapse speaks volumes for Premier League title race turnaround

Mikel Arteta knows the feeling. He has been there at Arsenal when the shoe is on the other foot. He has faced up to the press looking more bedraggled than usual after a game - although not with cuts on his face from the self-torture of watching on, it must be said.

That is what Manchester City have done to clubs, managers, and players over the past five or so years and the numerous close title challenges. They elicit such astronomically high standards that defeats in August are pondered over. Arsenal dropped points to Brighton (a strong and impressive Premier League team) and had their credentials questioned, despite it being the first time they had failed to win.

In December last year, it was the inevitable sense of City creeping that meant losses to West Ham and Fulham almost wrote off Arsenal's season before the halfway stage. In the 2022/23 run-in, City's looming shadow played a huge role in the emotional and footballing implosion for Arsenal away to Liverpool, away to West Ham, and at home to practically relegated Southampton.

So even though Arteta wasn't aware of just how much things had flipped as he led his players out to the travelling away fans in Lisbon on Tuesday night, there was certainly an element of 'finally' to it. His Arsenal team have seemingly gotten over a tough run of results and left City scrambling in their own pool of panic.

This for City is now a crisis. It's a crisis in their own way, anyway. Five defeats in a row followed by a draw. Six without a win in all competitions and possibly ending gameweek 13 with as many as 11 points off runaway Liverpool. It is the manner, more than anything, of the last few days that really matter.

Arsenal had been four league games without victory before they welcomed Nottingham Forest - third in the league earlier this month - to the Emirates Stadium. Coming back from the international break and starting without Kai Havertz or Declan Rice, the demons of that run disappeared with a flash on Saturday.

Then, heading to the ground where City had been beaten up in an eventual 4-1 defeat to Sporting CP, Arsenal put in their most complete performance of the season. They turned the narrative on its head and thumped the Portuguese champions 5-1.

City, instead, were taken apart by Tottenham on their own patch. A soft, Rodri-less, ageing underbelly was exposed. It had been spoken about over the fortnight leading into the game, but very few expected such a damning vindication so soon.

The response? To be 3-0 up without any frills in the Champions League. City were back. Until they weren't. Feyenoord conducted their own Istanbul moment in Manchester, scoring three times in 15 minutes to leave City reeling. 3-3 it was. Rarely has a draw felt so much like a defeat.

Pep Guardiola, as mentioned, was left trying to pull out the hair he doesn't have. Erling Haaland looked shell-shocked. He stormed from the pitch at full-time like a player, a bit like a kid, really, who had never been told no in this way before. He might have scored twice, but his problems since telling Arteta to 'stay humble' when Arsenal and City met earlier this season are frank.

Haaland reacts like this when things don't go his way. He screamed and shouted at officials when City drew 3-3 to Tottenham last season and isn't shy of simply flipping out. This is not the way that a cool, calm killer would be moving if things were perfectly fine, even if frustrations did boil.

This is what pressure does even to the most insulated environments. Arsenal weren't to know it all as they enjoyed a serene clap and fist pump session at Sporting, but the effect was clear.

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They are now a better position to attack the hectic period of fixtures coming up. City go to Anfield on Sunday, and Arsenal know at least one of their direct rivals at the top will be dropping points. It is hard to see how City can overcome this mental annihilation quickly enough to match Arne Slot's controlled juggernaut.

Arsenal, meanwhile, go to West Ham, a much more favourable game. They are buoyed by a strong four days that have seen them pick up their mojo once more. It was all there in the brief overlap on Tuesday.

The full-time whistle was sounded at Sporting, with Arsenal searching for a sixth. City, on the other hand, were passing the ball around the Feyenoord box knowing that the referee was about to inflict more pain following a collapse.

The stark contrast on show at the two grounds, hundreds of miles apart, could not have been more timely for Arsenal.