Man City vs Arsenal: betPawa BIG match insights
The BIGGEST match of the 2022/23 Premier League season takes place on Wednesday 26th April as champions Man City host leaders Arsenal. Here’s how things look heading into the potentially season-defining clash:
The Premier League table
Arsenal passed up the opportunity to extend their lead over Man City to 7 points when they were held 3-3 by bottom club Southampton last Friday. Had they done so, they would’ve been able to retain control of the title race even with a draw at the Etihad, as the Citizens wouldn’t have been able to overtake them with their games in hand.
Instead, the gap at the top is 5 points, with Pep Guardiola’s men having played 2 fixtures fewer than the table-toppers. That means that if this match is a draw, City would overtake the Gunners by winning their remaining matches. If they win, they’ll move to within 2 points of Arsenal with 2 extra games to try to overtake them with.
But while the momentum has moved in Man City’s favour, a victory for the Londoners here would change everything, increasing their advantage to 8 points and refuelling their belief.
The recent results
Whereas Man City were tripping up fairly frequently between mid-October and mid-February, they’ve appeared to strike the fearsome form that characterised past title triumphs recently.
The defending Premier League champions have won their last 6 matches in the top flight, scoring 18 goals in the process. Rather than wear them down as their rivals hoped, their FA Cup and Champions League outings have helped them build momentum. They’ve achieved 11 wins in 12 across all competitions, netting 41 and only pausing for breath with a 1-1 draw at Bayern Munich in a Champions League quarter-final tie they already led 3-0 on aggregate.
Arsenal’s goalscoring form has been similarly impressive, striking 30 times in their last 10 Premier League games and firing at least twice in the most recent 8 of those.
However, it’s leaking at the other end of the pitch that has trimmed their advantage over Man City to 5 points. They’ve gone 5 league encounters without keeping a clean sheet, giving up 2 goals to Liverpool and West Ham to drop points after building early 2-0 leads and then 3 to struggling Southampton, 2 of those in the first 14 minutes, before rallying to draw 3-3.
The head-to-head record
This is arguably the BIGGEST psychological obstacle for Arsenal to overcome at the Etihad, even more than their recent setbacks or Man City’s run of wins.
When the Gunners hired Mikel Arteta from Man City in December 2019, one of the benefits they may have anticipated was his inside knowledge of their setup having worked under Guardiola. Indeed, in their second meeting after his appointment, he engineered a 2-0 victory over his former side in an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley.
Since then, Arsenal and Man City have met 7 times across 3 competitions and Guardiola’s men have won on every single occasion by a 17-3 aggregate scoreline. 2 of those successes have arrived already in 2023, with the Citizens beating the capital club 1-0 in the FA Cup in January and 3-1 at the Emirates in the league in February.
Bukayo Saka grabbed both of Arsenal’s goals against Man City in their 4 collisions over the last 2 years. Curiously, Rodri was the only City player to grace the scoresheet in more than one of that quartet of matches. Erling Haaland got the final goal in the latest showdown, though 1 strike in 180 minutes against the leaders is below par given his remarkable overall record this season of 48 goals in 42 appearances.
The reasons for Arsenal to believe
There’s no denying that current form, head-to-head results and the betting odds all favour Man City, but that doesn’t mean all is lost for Arsenal.
For all the pessimism their April stumbles have generated, they’re still unbeaten in 10 Premier League games and they’ve collected 24 points in that period. And whereas the draws at Liverpool and West Ham felt like defeats because they led both matches 2-0, it was their resolve on display against Southampton to turn a 1-3 deficit in the 88th minute into a point.
Their previous 90th-minute goal came against another relegation-threatened South Coast side, Bournemouth, last month, and that lift translated into them winning their next 3 league fixtures by 3-goal margins.
They’ve responded positively to adversity once already this season. The home defeat to Man City in February marked the last time they went 3 league outings without a victory and saw the champions replace them at the top of the table. Many assumed their title challenge would fade away but instead they reclaimed top spot with 7 wins in a row.
The Gunners have by a distance the Premier League’s best away record in 2022/23 with 11 triumphs from a possible 16. Man City’s home league stats are intimidating (W13 D1 L1), though their only loss did come against London opposition in Brentford, as in fact have all 4 of their home league defeats in the past 2 years (Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Tottenham and Brentford). Can Arsenal add their name to that list and give the title race another dramatic twist?