For all the stylistic differences between Arsenal and Manchester City, the future of both teams is pinting in the same direction. Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta have arrived at similar conclusions from almost opposite needs.
The dreadfully boring draw between the two sides showed two coaches more willing than ever to accept that verticality and chaos already rule the Premier League. On one side, Arteta has found it hard to not use a bit of chaos to prop up his attack. On the other side, Guardiola has finally shown a willingness to heavily protect his team from the threat of verticality. They now must coexist within this new context.
The timing couldn’t be more convenient. Both managers arriving at those conclusions almost simultaneously produced a dreadful match — in line with their most recent encounters — that won’t remain in collective memory.
Yet this game could still have a considerable impact on both Arsenal’s and City’s seasons.
At Arsenal…
Arteta has long spoken about that he is working on adapting his team’s play to take greater advantage of transitional situations, whether that is after regaining posessions or through artificial transitions created in build-up. An adjustment in style that is both cause and consequence of the work done during last summer's transfer window by Andrea Berta, Arsenal’s sporting director.
Viktor Gyökeres is one of the poster boys of the modern striker, and pretty much the blueprint for the modern striker, with the kind of attributes you’ll see in plenty of the forwards of the future: strength, power, directness, and pace. Choosing the Swede — considering the availability and price of other options — clearly reveals Arteta’s intent to embrace controlled chaos. The kind of situations Gyökeres thrives at.
Along the same lines, Arsenal also signed Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke, two players well-suited to direct, vertical football: one through passing, the other through dribbling. The former Crystal Palace man ranked among the top 15% of wingers in terms of line-breaking through balls (passes in behind the defensive line). Meanwhile, 59.43% of Madueke’s carries were progressive (those that move possession at least 20% closer to the opposition goal).
The first five games of the season already provide insightful signs of Arsenal’s transition towards a less combinative, more vertical style of play.
Most striking of all is the drop in Expected Assists: from 1.6 two seasons ago to 0.7 this year. This is an Arsenal side more focused on generating threat through individual actions and transitional situations. Transitions are often built on sequences of individual actions like carries or dribbles, requiring less combination.
Still, Arteta has yet to fully commit to this shift — and that has been a problem for his team's fluidity in attacking patterns which has ultimately hampered Arsenal's chance creation. Their 1.19 open-play expected goals per game this season falls well short of the 1.62 they averaged in 2023/24.
Much of this has to do with Arteta's squad selection in key matches. Against Manchester City and Liverpool, his midfield three were Zubimendi, Declan Rice, and Merino. Players who excel at organizing and beating the first line of pressure, but who struggle to receive between the lines and under tight space.
Looking at Arsenal’s pass map into the final third this season (only those originating from deeper areas), we can see the absence of a player capable of receiving between the lines in central channels.
Without these high-and-central receptions, opponents can plan for a team whose first option will always be to play wide. That makes them predictable as Manchester City proved, despite Martinelli’s late equalizer.
By being compact between the lines and defending closer to their box, Man. City managed to isolate and disconnect Gyökeres and Madueke from the game. Conveniently, Rice, Zubimendi, and Merino all appearing almost on the same vertical line in the pass map highlights just how much Arsenal missed a creative link between the lines to connect with their attackers during the first 51 minutes.
Adding to this, Arsenal’s full-back choices against City — Riccardo Calafiori and Jurrien Timber — did not help their attacking play either. They are very different profiles from what Arsenal needed on the day. But this is something they don't have in the squad. Timber is not the ideal full-back to overlap outside Madueke or Saka, and Calafiori is far from the league’s best at receiving in half-spaces and tight spaces to free Trossard or Martinelli out wide.
However, the equalizer highlighted exactly how much Arsenal could have benefited from starting a player capable of quick execution and vertical passing, particularly through the centre. With just 23 passes, Eze accounted for 18% of Arsenal’s expected threat (xT) in the game. His chipped ball over City’s backline was all Arsenal needed to level the score.
At Manchester City…
Guardiola is also trying to tackle the challenges of verticality and transitions, which were the main reasons for his team’s struggles last season. In a different approach from Arteta, Pep is trying to figure out how his team can take advantage of the growing chaos in the league. Guardiola has deduced that in order to benefit from this increase in verticality, his team first needs to better protect itself against it.
Our sample is heavily influenced by the Arsenal game, but with Arrigo’s metrics — particularly the Spatial Coverage pack — we can observe two things.
The less-significant first is that Guardiola has slightly adjusted his defensive line distance: from 35.1 meters from goal down to 32.5. It’s not a huge difference, but it signals that the Catalan has opted for greater protection rather than doubling down on his previous approach. Still, City’s defensive line remains much higher than the league average. The real change lies elsewhere.
Guardiola’s number-one adjustment this season has been between the lines. Out of possession, the distance between City’s defensive and forward lines has dropped from 38.2 meters to 30.3 meters. In possession, it has moved from 38.8 to 29.4. In both phases, City has reduced its line spacing by at least 8 meters, becoming a shorter, more compact unit.
Last season, City struggled in transition because of the large gaps within their block — exacerbated by Rodri’s absence. Now, with the Spaniard back, Guardiola has gone further to make his side tighter, defending, moving, and advancing as one.
Once City consolidate this adjustment, they will need to face face the ramifications those changes will have on City's on-ball approach.
They still average a high share of possession (50%), but it’s down from last season’s 60%. This may suggest Guardiola is more willing to let opponents have the ball higher up the pitch so they expose themselves and leave space between the lines and in behind.
With more space available to attack, City are looking to play much faster than in previous years once they win the ball back. Though the sample is small, their possession speed has risen to 1.48 meters advanced per second, compared to 0.81 last season — almost twice as fast.
Faster progression usually goes hand in hand with fewer passes per sequence. Looking at City’s four shots against Arsenal, none of the shot.ending sequences involved more than five passes.
Guardiola is embracing this rise in verticality and trying to exploit it: City have already matched last season’s tally of goals from fast breaks (3) and generated half as much xG from them. One of those goals opened the scoring at the Emirates.
The downside of such verticality is more rushed decisions (7.2 turnovers in the first 40 meters this season compared to 4.55 last year) and fewer long spells of controlled possession (sequences of 10+ passes have dropped from 21.4 to 13.2).
The Arsenal match magnifies it all. Never before had we seen Guardiola so openly concede territorial dominance. In the past two seasons, only four games saw City’s field tilt drop below 50%. The draw at the Emirates was the only one in which Guardiola’s side failed to reach 30%.
Guardiola and Arteta are coaches obsessed with control. They don’t want to leave anything to chance. But Sunday’s match, although low in quality and soporific in entertainment, suggests that both have reached a point where they are beginning to embrace the idea of controlled chaos.
In the midst of chaos came Haaland’s surge, and it was City’s defensive disorder that Eze exploited to assist Martinelli. Manchester City played with a clear idea (sitting back and countering) that we will surely see again this season. Arsenal, on the other hand, allowed creativity through the central lane, with Martinelli’s runs assisted by Eze.
The Premier League is in a state of verticality. Teams that fail to take advantage of it will be missing a unique opportunity.
