Whether it be challenging for a spot in the Champions League or pushing for the Premier League trophy, Mikel Arteta has often stressed the importance of slim margins. There is no greater example than this season’s title race between Arsenal and Manchester City.
Arsenal hoping their north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur would keep City at bay on Tuesday night was the penultimate chapter of the 2023-24 campaign, but it should not be viewed as the game that decided their fate.
Every Premier League season is 38 matches long and Arteta and his players have been consistent about needing to do ‘their jobs’ rather than worry about what happens elsewhere. They have successfully done that for large spells of this season, especially in 2024. Since a New Year’s Eve defeat to Fulham, Arsenal have only dropped points twice — the 0-0 draw at City and the 2-0 home defeat against Aston Villa — breaking attacking and defensive records along the way.
Their run over the past four months is unprecedented by their standards, but introspection is a necessary part of improvement. It was evident just days after Arsenal lost 4-1 to Manchester City during last season’s run-in, when Arteta said: “We don’t want to accept that. You have to recognise that, on the day, when they took the game to a different level, we didn’t reach that level.”
‘Recognising’ but not ‘accepting’ is key. This season, Arsenal have improved again and can still win the league on Sunday, but their shortcomings must be recognised — most coming in the first half of the campaign.
Their matches against Fulham, who they took one point from this season, are symbolic of this period for different reasons.
The August encounter at the Emirates started with an unforced setback as Andreas Pereira swept an under-hit Bukayo Saka back pass around an out-of-position Aaron Ramsdale in the first minute. It was the third time Arsenal had conceded inside 60 seconds in 2023, giving them another mountain to climb. Two second-half goals brought victory in sight for Arteta’s side, only for an untracked Joao Palhinha to score from a corner and make the full-time score 2-2.
Martin Odegaard after Arsenal’s December defeat to Fulham (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
At Craven Cottage, Arsenal took the lead early on but failed to acknowledge the warning signs, allowing the game to drift. Fulham’s equaliser came from a pattern that had occurred four times beforehand, and then Arsenal were unable to change the momentum of the game and generate “enough threat”, according to Arteta, before and after Bobby De Cordova-Reid struck the winner in the 59th minute.
Those themes of unforced mistakes and passivity cost Arsenal in multiple games around that period. They have made the joint-third-most errors leading to goals in the Premier League this season (seven), with five in the first 19 games (the second-most).
As well as the 2-2 draw at home to Fulham, there was the 2-2 draw with Tottenham after Jorginho was needlessly caught on the ball less than a minute after Saka put Arsenal ahead. They then had to come from behind to rescue a draw away at Chelsea when David Raya’s aggressive positioning was caught out by Mykhailo Mudryk’s cross-cum-shot. Arsenal got three points from a possible nine in that trio of games, with each match including preventable goals.
That passivity became more apparent as winter drew nearer. Most of the discussion around Newcastle’s winner at St James’ Park in November centred on the decisions from the video assistant referee but before those incidents, there was time for Joe Willock’s cross to be closed down.
The failure to track runners meant a costly start to the 1-0 loss at Villa Park in December, while a positive start against West Ham United, also in December, was made irrelevant with a mix-up at the back post resulting in their opener en route to a 2-0 loss for Arsenal at home.
Physical and mental fatigue may have been a factor at that point, with many players used three times a week to cope with the Champions League and domestic fixtures, which made January’s winter break so important.
Either way, these are the moments where Arsenal stumbled this season. It meant that going into 2024, there was little margin for error and, from their perspective, there hasn’t been.
They entered the year having suffered already four draws and four defeats from 20 league games. In the following 17 matches, they have added just one to each of those columns. At the start of the year, Manchester City were level on points with Arsenal but with a game in hand. Since then, City have failed to win more times than Arsenal but with three draws — against Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal — have still earned more points (Arsenal have picked up 46 points in 17 games to City’s 48 points in 18 games).
Manchester City have not been perfect across the season, which is why there is still a possibility of Arsenal triumphing on the weekend. City also stumbled in the winter, going winless in the league for four games, which may be the period they look back on with regret if they stall against West Ham on Sunday.
For Arsenal, this season was about proving last year’s title challenge was not a fluke: that they belong in that race. They have more than done that this year but, as has been the case in each of their seasons under Arteta, there is still room to widen the margins for success.
Throughout the second half of this season, they have shown they can reach that higher gear — a promising sign even if they fall short.
(Top photo: Mikel Arteta by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
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