Gavin Cooney

WAS THIS THE day that Pep Guardiola was finally worn down by English football? 

He arrived to a chorus of scoffs from the grandees who told him his style couldn’t work here, but smiled blankly and unmoved as he told them he “doesn’t coach tackles.”

And after a rocky start, he swept away the competition with the most dominant side England has ever seen. (Present asterisk notwithstanding.) As the Athletic’s Jack Pitt-Brooke memorably said, Guardiola won because he refused to meet TalkSPORT halfway. 

But today’s flinty, stern and cautious draw at the Emirates was his equivalent of slinging on a pair of headphones and joining Jason Cundy on air to shout that the England manager should be English and that Russell Martin is woke. 

Pep. What the hell was this? 

This performance and result would be pragmatism in the mind of any manager but heresy to Guardiola. Or so we thought. 

City ended the game with 32.8% possession, the lowest figure a Guardiola side has ever recorded. While their first goal was a masterful flourish of brutal, counter-attacking intent, after that their counters were instances of luck more than judgement. They treated the ball with stunning disregard. At one point, Erling Haaland intercepted a cross in his own box, paused to assess his options, and then punted the ball high up the pitch like he was kicking off the Superbowl. At another, City chucked a throw-in directly out of play.

Guardiola doubled down as the game trundled on, throwing on defenders like a gambler chasing losses. Off went Foden; on came Nathan Ake. Off went Erling Haaland; on come Nico Gonzalez. He went from 4-3-3 to 5-3-2 to 5-4-1. This, as Declan Rice noted afterwards, had never happened before. 

Haaland was withdrawn as he was exhausted: one of the benefits of City’s regular, possession-hogging approach is he has to do so little running that he can easily clock up a full 90 minutes. But here he trudged off exhausted, his arm slung around Guardiola in a kind of relief. 

The irony is that this style is anathema to Guardiola but it’s where Haaland looks at his best. Some pundits critique Haaland’s lack of all-round play but the truth is that he has rarely been allowed showcase in the narrow tramlines his manager sets for him. But amid today’s punt-and-rush, he was irresistible, knocking Gabriel about like a rag-doll, bullocking into acres of space. 

His goal was virtuoso. Having initially shown some Rodri-style deftness to pop a pass around a thicket of opposition bodies to Tijjani Reijnders, he then hit the throttle and left Gabriel bobbing along in his wake. There was never any doubt about the finish as soon as he had the ball at his feet again. 

After that goal, City sat off to frustrate an easily-frustratable Arsenal. The Emirates crowd were quickly riled any time Gigi Donnarumma took more than a couple of seconds over a restart, but this felt like an act of displacement. Do Arsenal fans acknowledge how long their team take over their corners and throw-ins? 

This succession of set-pieces were part of a recognisable, painful labour in possession. Arsenal didn’t have an attempt at all until just after the half-hour mark, while Noni Madueke registered their only shot on target in first-half stoppage time. Mikel Arteta was again guilty of excessive caution as, like at Anfield, he chose to leave Ebreche Eze on the bench. Why sign this guy if not to play him in games like these? The preferred midfield trio of Zubimendi, Rice, and Merino didn’t exactly sparkle with intent and creativity. 

Arteta fixed his original error by introducing Eze and Saka at half-time, though curiously slotted Eze into the Martin Odegaard position to the right of Arsenal’s midfield. Eze made his name at Palace playing a similar role but off the left, but he is now playing under Arteta’s stringent rules, where nobody aside from apparently the left-back Riccardo Calafiori is given great freedom to roam about. 

Arsenal’s late equaliser came from the blue. Aside from a spasm of activity at half-time, they failed to lay siege to City’s heavily-buttressed rearguard. City, though, were inexplicably caught high in stoppage time, and so Eze quarter-backed a gorgeous pass for Gabriel Martinelli, whose deft lob was superb. 

Given City had decided to squat deep and hold what they had, it was unforgivable to be undone so easily. You might forgive them it, though, given they are not exactly used to playing this way. 

Guardiola told Sky Sports after the game that City do not want to play like this all of the time, but he said they had to adjust to the rigours of their schedule, with this their third game in a week. Roy Keane correctly skewered these complaints. While a Thursday/Sunday turnaround is difficult, City’s prior two games were at home. They have also had no such problems sailing through this fixture cadence in years previous. 

While this was an exaggerated approach from City, something has definitely changed this season. They won at home to Man United but with 45% of the ball, and today they almost won at Arsenal in a manner that would make José Mourinho bloat with self-regard. 

Guardiola has always been adaptable to a degree that has never been acknowledged, but that was always with respect to his tactics. The core fundamental of his strategy – that we must dominate possession – has never changed. Until, it seems, now. 

Perhaps this is in line with a trend in the game seen during the dreary first half between Liverpool and Arsenal at Anfield, where the game has evolved to become more about counter-attacking than it has about attacking.

This was another turgid spectacle that truly neither side deserved to win. 

Where the Manchester City manager looks unsure, the Arsenal manager looks too sure of himself. Combine both, and you can mark this down as Liverpool’s sixth win of the season.