As Arenal navigate their path to the Premier League finish line, they must feel on a far steadier footing now their trip to Manchester City is behind them.
The Etihad is where legs so often go to jelly and the ground gives way, even for the best teams. To emerge unscathed is no mean feat.
Last season, the journey to Manchester came a month later, but Arsenal were barely standing by the time they got there. They were a zombie version of the team that had raced into a 10-point lead at the top of the Premier League, fatigued by weeks of energy-sapping drama and a squad over-reliant on too few players.
This time, Arsenal look steadfast, cold-blooded. The way they were able to execute a second-half rope-a-dope strategy on Sunday without looking mentally or physically stretched suggests they have energy conserved for these final two months.
All three title challengers have a run-in free of direct head-to-head clashes, but it has been widely acknowledged Arsenal’s fixture list looks more daunting than the one facing City or leaders Liverpool.
In their final five away games, it is hard to imagine Arsenal having a tougher time of it — unless the Anfield genie served Jurgen Klopp a final wish of a winner-takes-all replay of December’s 1-1 draw, or the PGMOL sent Mikel Arteta back to St James’ Park for a second round after his VAR rant in November.
Arsenal’s title hopes may well depend on how they handle their remaining four away fixtures, against Brighton & Hove Albion, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United — all top-half teams and two of them major rivals.
They navigated the first and most difficult test exceptionally well, leaving the Etihad with a point for the first time since May 2016.
It was not a first league win — a drought which stretched even further back to January 2015 — but it ended a sequence of eight defeats, which had come at an aggregate score of 23-6 in City’s favour. In this context, not losing felt just as significant.
Ending away hoodoos is something Arteta has done consistently in his four-and-a-half years in charge. One by one they have been put behind them, each time removing a layer of scar tissue and replacing it with the muscle memory of victory.
In November 2020, Arsenal beat Manchester United 1-0 at Old Trafford to earn a first victory there since September 2006 (when Emmanuel Adebayor scored a late winner).
In May 2021, Emile Smith Rowe’s goal meant Arsenal won 1-0 at Stamford Bridge and ended a decade of London derby pain. It was their first away league win over Chelsea in nine attempts since a Robin van Persie hat-trick fired Arsene Wenger’s team to a 5-3 win in October 2011. The aggregate score during the preceding winless sequence had been 20-6.
In January 2023, Arsenal beat north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 away after another run of eight Premier League visits without a win, dating back to March 2014, when Tomas Rosicky’s second-minute goal was the difference.
They may not have got over the line against Liverpool at Anfield in either meeting this season or last, but given it was their most egregious record — an aggregate score of 32-10 from nine games stretching back to September 2012 — two consecutive draws felt like another bold full stop that signalled fierce resistance, if not assured dominance.
Arteta spoke about the impact eliminating such winless runs can have on the team’s psychology.
“That belief comes by starting to win at grounds you haven’t won at for many years,” he said.
“You do it somewhere else and that belief takes momentum. Now they approach away games very similarly to home games. You cannot replicate it, but at least mentally. The purpose they play with is very similar.
“We try to play the same way away as we do at home and have that belief and aggression in our play. You have to play every team twice and we know the fixtures that we have, but I’m looking forward to it.”
Overall, Arsenal took 39 points away from home last season — two more than next-best City — and this year they are top again on 30, one better than City and two better than Liverpool.
Do Arsenal approach away games in the same way they do home matches?
City was an exceptional case due to the importance of not losing and the ability of Pep Guardiola’s team to dominate territory, but overall there is not too much stylistic difference between Arsenal at the Emirates and Arsenal on the road.
They have slightly more possession and, surprisingly, rely slightly less on set pieces and direct attacks away from home. They even press slightly more aggressively.
At home, they produce a slightly higher volume and quality of shots, while they also dominate the percentage of final-third passes by an extra eight per cent, but that number sitting at two-thirds away from home is very healthy.
They have become a team capable of handling the big games intelligently. As a sign of their ability to deal with emotions and intense atmospheres, they went 17 London derbies unbeaten between May 2022 and the 2-0 home defeat by West Ham United before New Year — the third-longest run in Premier League history.
Styles make fights. Just as the clash of Guardiola vs Klopp throws up football slugfests and Guardiola vs Arteta produces chess stalemates, Arsenal’s games against Brighton and Tottenham should be very open.
Both teams can be impressive on their day, but they are not the finished article yet. The combination of their bold build-up styles and Arsenal’s profile as arguably the best defensive team in Europe should mean there are plenty of counter-attacking opportunities.
Old Trafford does not hold the fear it once did. Arsenal will fancy their chances of going and dominating possession as Erik ten Hag persists with his mish-mash of pressing high and sitting deep.
Arguably, the game that looks the most like a banana skin is Wolves. Gary O’Neil has taken 24 points from 14 home games in his first season, including wins over City, Chelsea and Spurs, and they have shown how stubborn they can be defensively.
Arteta has used various psychological tools before big games. In November 2021, he blared out ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ on speakers while his players trained to replicate the Anfield atmosphere and against Brighton in April 2022, he used a light bulb to transmit the message that he wanted his players to be “connected” and “turn the light on”.
Last season, he also started to give away dressing rooms a homely feeling by bringing club livery to adorn the walls. After a 3-0 win at Craven Cottage last March, a replica of Arsenal’s iconic clock that was brought over from Highbury to the Emirates was being held by the players as they posed for a celebratory picture.
Since Spurs and City completed the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’ in 2009-10, Arsenal averaged a points haul of just 10.5 from a possible 30 in the 10 games against their rivals each season, up to the start of the 2022-23 campaign.
Their best had been 13 points, achieved three times, but last year that number shot up to 19 points. This season they are already on 13 points from a possible 21, with City on 12 points from 27 and Liverpool on just eight points from 24.
Arsenal have the potential to take 22 points from 30 without losing to a single ‘Big Six’ side. Do that and there is every chance it will make the difference in their pursuit of Premier League glory.
(Top photo: Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
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