Irony is playing a cruel game in the upper levels of English football, where two of the game’s so-called tactical geniuses are killing the life of what should be the Premier League’s marquee fixture. Manchester City versus Arsenal has turned into a masterclass in mutual destruction, a chess match where both players are so scared of losing that they have forgotten how to win.
When Fear Trumps Philosophy
Matches between Pep Guardiola’s City and Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal have gotten to such a level that they come with a health warning: boredom is highly probable. The encounters have become tactical straitjackets, where imagination is not even used, and the most daring move could be just a sideways pass.
The numbers are very revealing. In their last clash at the Emirates, which ended with a 2-2 draw, City had the ball for only 32.8% of the time they possessed it, which was the least in Guardiola’s 600-game managerial career. Quite surprising from a coach who used to be like a monk with his ball, whose Barcelona side was a model of high art in dominating possession. Yet there he was, watching his players scrap for territory like a garrison under siege, rather than chasing Premier League points.”
“I couldn’t live in this country with another record,” joked Guardiola later, though the chuckle was a bit empty. This was not the stepping stone of tactical brilliance, but the very opposite.
The Mutual Assured Destruction of Modern Football
One of the vexing things about these matches is how each side’s cautiousness feeds into the other’s suspicions. The situation has turned into a vicious circle where one defensive mentality leads to another until we have games that are barely entertaining enough to qualify as a Sunday pub league.
Look at the personnel decisions that have characterised the encounters in the recent past: the three-man midfield of Declan Rice, Mikel Merino, and Martin Zubimendi that Arsenal put out. The combined creativity of these three players would not even be enough to upset a League Two defence. On the other hand, Guardiola reacted by putting Phil Foden, one of the most talented attacking players in England, in charge of following Riccardo Calafiori wherever he went.
This is tactical clash at its finest, complexity just for the sake of complexity, without any consideration for the spectator who is watching and who paid to be entertained.
The Arsenal Problem: Safety, First Football
Arteta’s shift from being Guardiola’s zealous follower to a wary man of reason has been one of the saddest changes in contemporary football. The man who once absorbed every detail of the tactics from his mentor is now more focused on ensuring his team does not concede rather than thinking about what they could come up with.
The proof is unquestionable. That mutual encounter at Emirates saw Arsenal repeating the same midfield trio that disastrously capitulated in the 1-0 loss at Anfield. Rice, Merino, and Zubimendi, three players that one would choose if the intention was to impede the opponent rather than defeat them.
Arteta’s tardy half-time call for Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze at half, time only served to emphasize the poverty of his original choice. As soon as it was substituted for the starting XI, Arsenal transformed from being a collection of anxious men into a football team. Eze’s basic but, in this situation, revolutionary skill of receiving the ball on the half, turn drew applause from the fans craving for invention.
City’s Identity Crisis
On the other hand, if Arsenal’s safety, first football is foreseeable, City’s recent cowardly tactics are truly surprising. This was the team that set the new standard for attacking football in the Premier League, and yet there they were in North London, dropping into a back five and going through the motions like relegation candidates.
Guardiola’s choice to take Erling Haaland the most clinical striker in the world off the pitch for defensive support was a signal of a mindset that would have been impossible to imagine just two seasons ago. You have completely lost the plot when your Plan A calls for the removal of your best attacking weapon.
The moment when City were playing with five defenders, four midfielders, and Jeremy Doku as a stand, in striker was like watching Michelangelo paint by numbers in the football world. Technically you cannot fault it, but it is completely without soul.
Liverpool’s Beautiful Counter-Argument
While these two pseudo giants are entangling themselves in their own intricate tactical webs, Liverpool have been showing up with the most fitting answer to this fear, based philosophy. Arne Slot’s team have taken offensive football to the next level, as if they were new believers, to such an extent that they have brought in attack, minded full, backs, creative midfielders, and pacy forwards.
Looking at it from a different angle, the Reds now have as many victories as Arsenal and Manchester City have together. This is definitely a piece of information that should prompt the audience to think twice before siding with this downward competition. Liverpool’s approach is a testament that ambition and entertainment are not antagonists when it comes to success.
The Mourinho Prophecy
Perhaps Jose Mourinho, now back in the dugout at Benfica, saw this coming years ago. “We’re in a generation where we see coaches trying to do things that just don’t work and they die,” the Portuguese observed. “But they say, ‘I died, but I died with my idea’. My friend, if you died by your ideas, you are stupid.”
The irony is that both Guardiola and Arteta are doing the opposite of what they are saying, they are not getting rid of their ideas but, by each cautious team selection and defensive substitution, they are slowly suffocating them.
The Road Back to Sanity
Top-level football should be about breaking new ground, not hiding behind the old ones. These two, having been gifted with some of the most skilful squads in world football, are more concerned with who can be the most pessimistic rather than with playing football.
The worldwide attraction of the Premier League was founded on spectacular football, on the heroes of the game stepping up and on unforgettable clashes. But what we’re receiving is just tactical chess performed by grandmasters who are no longer playing to win but merely to avoid losing.
Until the day when a manager among these two has the guts to go against this pattern of mutual assured destruction, we will still have to watch matches that seem like sophisticated war games rather than football matches. The beautiful game deserves better, and so do the fans forced to watch this slow-motion tactical suicide.
