Three weeks ago Mikel Arteta unveiled a new analogy. A speaker of seven languages, his English often contains vivid comparisons and his take on motivational techniques before big games was no different.
“It is not something you can do on the day, to change the outcome of the next three weeks. It is something that you do daily,” Arteta said.
“I call it a drizzle. If you go out there and don’t wear an umbrella, you are constantly getting wet every single day and then, before you know it, you are soaking wet and you are ready because it is every single day as a habit.”
On Sunday, Arsenal had to withstand a literal downpour in Manchester, but they left Old Trafford with a 1-0 victory and their waterproof reputation burnished as they set a club record for most points in a season against the ‘Big Six’.
Compare Arsenal’s big-game presence now to the team Arteta joined in January 2011 as part of an Arsene Wenger trolley dash in the wake of a humiliating 8-2 defeat by Manchester United. They were seen as meek and were regularly swatted aside by their rivals.
It is no wonder he has sought to pay extra attention to the psychology around these matches.
“You cannot train the players in the zoo and then go to the jungle,” he said before a trip to Anfield last March, echoing the theory that exposing his players to every conceivable pressure in training readies them for the intensity of battle.
Sunday’s win means Arsenal have taken 22 points from 30 against Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham and Chelsea.
Arteta has transformed Arsenal into a modern, all-in-one team but their psyche has also been overhauled.
His players look comfortable being the protagonist or the counter-puncher. There is a self-confidence that has emerged this season in these duels, which started with the Community Shield win over City in August.
While the Arsenal boss has previously used outside-the-box methods in an attempt to rally his players, they now look like a team capable of self-assessing their emotions without the need for prompting.
Last season, Arsenal made a huge leap by taking 19 points from the 10 games against the league’s elite clubs but a year later, they have jumped to 22 and, tellingly, have done so without suffering a single defeat.
City have the record as they picked up 25 points in 2018-19 but even that included a 2-0 loss to Chelsea.
Nevertheless, only them, Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea in 2013-14 and Manchester City in 2017-19 (both 24) have beaten Arsenal’s total this season, while Roberto Mancini’s 2011-12 City team and Liverpool in 2019-20 also amassed 22 points.
The only teams to go unbeaten across the full 10 games are Chelsea in 2013-14 and Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool in 2016-17 and 2021-22. Oddly, in that 2016-17 campaign Liverpool finished only fourth, on 76 points.
In political parlance, commentators talk about parties having a ‘narrow path to victory’. It is to say that, while they are up against the odds, if they follow a well-disciplined, strategic pattern, the maths could get them to power.
When a team is unable to inflict direct damage on their rivals, it severely limits their chances of winning the league. By going unbeaten in the ‘Big Six’ mini-league, taking four points from six against City in the process, Arsenal broadened the margin for error ever so slightly.
Some will state that all football matches are worth the same and that taking one point from Fulham and none from Aston Villa is unforgivable, but in most seasons these are standard setbacks.
In Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola era — which may come to be known as something else depending on the outcome of their 115 Premier League charges — the path is more like a tightrope.
Liverpool had to go to 99 points to guarantee a single title, as 97 and 92 have proved insufficient in other seasons.
At the start of March, Arteta was asked to estimate the points haul his team would need to get over the line after 84 proved six short last season.
“You always ask me this question and I never get it right,” he said.
“The demands, you might have to win every game. I don’t know. I have no clue. There are a lot of games and we are all going to have crazy schedules and this league might be different to last season.
“Anything under 90 points I think would be very difficult.”
His maths dictated that Arsenal would need 32 points from the final 36 available to stand a chance. They are on track to take 31 but. if City win their last two, that will not have been enough.
For Arsenal fans looking to Tottenham Hotspur for an upset when Ange Postocoglou’s side face City on Tuesday, there is a crumb of optimism to be gained from Guardiola’s team’s past four league visits to the stadium all ending in goalless defeats.
Their current total of 12 points from a possible 27 this season is also their worst return against ‘Big Six’ sides apart from Guardiola’s first two seasons, which only brought eight and 10 points respectively.
They have won only two of nine this season and, while they may have gone up a couple of gears in recent months, the three games they have drawn in 2024 were against Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal.
Arsenal banished the inferiority complex against City by taking four points from six and not conceding a single goal. Declan Rice showed the temperament Arsenal were missing last season as he seized back momentum at Anfield just when it looked like they may be sinking, while William Saliba’s last-ditch tackle against Alejandro Garnacho at Old Trafford epitomised the steeliness the team now possess.
There are more examples from the other meetings but Arsenal’s ability to swim in the same waters as their rivals is what could be looked back on as the fundamental difference if they do get their hands on the trophy.
(Top photo: Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
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