AND SO AT the end of an act of stalemate in Manchester, Liverpool won 0-0.
Their advantage is slender but it’s an advantage nonetheless: if all three of the leading trio win their final nine games, Liverpool will be champions.
They did their bit of the work by beating Brighton at Anfield, and then sat back and, like the rest of us, popped some matchsticks into their eyes to make it to end of Manchester City against Arsenal.
If the Klopp/Guardiola era gives way to the Arteta/Guardiola era, then the Premier League will be going back to the future: the latter duo appear to becoming the Benitez v Mourinho of their age.
Hell, Jorge Valdano might even get to reprise his old “shit on a stick” line around a Champions League semi-final.
Klopp and Guardiola served up a series of classics because of their clash of styles: Klopp is the game’s most successful ideological reproach to Guardiola.
Arteta, as you might expect, sees the game in the same way as Guardiola, and hence this season they have served up a couple of drab exercises in mirror and negation. How can you create space and overloads if the opponent are doing exactly what you are doing? Playing in this game is like trying to pick your way through a hall of mirrors.
In terms of a spectacle, opposites attract and similarities repel. And if you were looking for entertainment, then this game was repellent.
Today’s goalless draw was very similar to the earlier game between the two sides at the Emirates, missing only a deflected winning goal: each side had three shots on target between them today, the same number as they accumulated earlier in the season.
But with nine games to go and the gap to Liverpool small enough to be overturned in a single matchday, both managers felt they couldn’t gamble the point they started the game with.
Arteta’s blossoming at Arsenal is accentuating a fundamental and misunderstood truth about Guardiola: he is a primarily defence-minded manager. But unlike Mourinho, Benitez and all of their superannuated disciples, Guardiola’s defence is build on having the ball rather than conceding it.
Hence Guardiola shed an attacker today in favour of Mateo Kovacic, while Arsenal played as expected. Perhaps the game’s result could be forecast by the team-sheets, which featured eight centre-backs and one out-and-out striker.
Arsenal were governed by caution. They sat off City, their wide attackers tracking back to create a flat back six at times. It was the canniest move: Arsenal’s title hopes were smithereened here last season when they pressed high and City pinged long balls on top of Haaland. But, unlike last season, Arsenal had William Saliba available today, and he and his partner Gabriel dealt admirably with City’s Norwegian goalador.
A draw is clearly a good result for Arsenal, given they have been beaten in all of their last seven games away to City. Their defensive effort was flinty and outstanding, and it resulted in City failing to score at home for the first time in 58 league games.
There is still a niggling sense of an opportunity missed for Arsenal, given Nathan Ake’s early injury meant City were missing four of their first-choice back five.
A draw was a means of evading damage: a win would have put Arsenal top and dealt a shattering blow to one of their two rivals.
Arsenal found some joy when they did press high, especially when they pinched the ball from the somewhat hapless Gvardiol. It was from one such situation which Gabriel Jesus missed Arsenal’s best chance, caught too far behind Saka’s squared pass.
City were curiously one-paced, though, with anything resembling a winger left on the City bench, meaning they didn’t have anyone to open up the pitch by beating their man one-on-one. Bernardo Silva did have some joy against Jakub Kiwior, but City failed to stress David Raya in any meaningful way.
The result means City have yet to beat any of the top five in the Premier League this season, though they can change that against Aston Villa on Wednesday. They have also failed to win any of four games against Arsenal and Liverpool, and there’s a sense of something missing. Riyad Mahrez’ one v one ability is a loss, as is Ilkay Gundogan’s decisiveness in the final third. Plus, with Erling Haaland scoring only once across those games, his shortcomings in general play have been underlined, even if Roy Keane equating it to League Two standard is a tad harsh.
This was a dreary draw which is accepted by both teams with a kind of cautious optimism: the drab vigilance of both sides’ approach will only be vindicated by what happens from here on.
But both still sit on Liverpool’s shoulder, so perhaps this was a dull job done well.
On Easter Sunday, this was a game defined by two managers aiming not to need a late-season resurrection.
