Manchester City v Arsenal: the games no one will tell you about

 

 

• Atalanta goalless, but it is far from doom and gloom
• How Arsenal away are so different from Arsenal at home

By Tony Attwood

According to the record books the first three games between the club that went on to  become Arsenal (but at the time were Woolwich Arsenal) and the club that went on to become Manchester City but were then called Ardwick (although I guess if we’d been writing about them then we’d have called them Aardvark), were all  won by Arsenal.   Across those three games Arsenal scored six and Manchester City scored two.   

But in the next 12 games Arsenal went on to win just one game, while Manchester City won nine.  The other two, rather obviously were draws.  Then Arsenal recovered and won the next five in a row, and so the scene was set of dominance by one and then the other.  In the early 1930s Arsenal won eight games in a row, and in the late 1930s Arsenal went 14 games without losing to Manchester C.

So it went on with Arsenal being the absolutely dominant side overall until late 2017 when things changed.and in 16 games Arsenal won just one and that was an FA Cup match.  A semi final in fact.  Aubameyang got both goals.

However, the last three games have been different. 6 August 2023 in the Charity Shield it was a 1-1 draw.  The following October Arsenal won 1-0 in the League at home, and then on 31 March in the away game it was a goalless draw.

But there was worse to follow with just a brief respite on 18 July 2020 when Arsenal won  2-0 in the FA Cup final.  But since then there have been 11 games in which Arsenal have not scored more than one goal

However the last three games have given us a ray of light.  6 August 2023 in the Community Shield it was 1-1, and Arsenal won on penalties.   Then in the next match on 8 October that year in the league, Arsenal won 1-0.   The last game was away at Manchester City and was a goalless draw.

So yes it is true that Arsenal still find it tough to score more than one goal against Manchester City, but nevertheless, we have gone three games in a row without defeat against them.  The last time Arsenal managed that was the 2014/2026 run of six games between the two clubs in which Arsenal won three and drew three.

So yes we all know that Manchester City have had the better of Arsenal in recent years, and we all of course know exactly why that is, but what we must not forget is that of late Arsenal have been reversing the trend.  True only for three games, but all new trends start somewhere!

Overall of course Manchester City have a very long way to go to catch Arsenal with Arsenal having won 100 games to ManC’s 65. with 46 having been draws.  But of course it has to be admitted that either by cheating or by fair means Manchester City have been catching Arsenal up in recent years.

So after pondering that for a moment I thought it might be interesting to take the top five clubs after four games last season and see where they are this season.

For a start, the league table looks very different.  Yes the top five clubs are the same top five as after four games last season.  In the third column, you can see the change in goal difference for those five.   ManC are up two, Tottenham down five, WHAM down six, Arsenal up one.

In terms of points Arsenal and ManC are exactly where they were one year ago but Tottenham and WHAM are the big losers each down six, and of course in the final column we see how the not so mighty have fallen.   Tottenham are down 11 places and West Ham down 10.  Arsenal are up three.

Although they are not in our chart we noticed en route that Newcastle were 14th at this stage last season whereas today they are third.

 

Pos 2023	Team	GD 2023	GD 2024	Pts 2023	Pts 2024	Pos 2024
1	Manchester City	9	11	12	12	1
2	Tottenham Hotspur	7	2	10	4	13
3	Liverpool	6	6	10	9	4
4	West Ham United	5	-1	10	4	14
5	Arsenal	4	5	10	10	2

 

The point here is that although over the last two seasons, the top two have remained the same elsewhere there is a lot of shifting around, and the habit of journalists of taking one season’s league table and suggesting it will be the same the next season is deeply flawed.

But what is more to the point is not just that the top two of the last two seasons have remained the same, but the gap has narrowed.  

In 2022/23 ManC had a goal difference that was 19 above Arsenal’s.  Last season the two clubs had the same goal difference.  In 2022/23 ManC gained five more points than Arsenal. Last season of course it was just two.

Of course in reality a lot of this season will be defined by ManC’s legal case against the league, and the league’s legal case against ManC, and what the clubs do about those results.   But still, it’s fun to look at the tables and imagine none of that is happening.