The stakes could not be higher at Emirates Stadium tonight.
Victory for Arsenal will move them six points clear of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League with a game in hand. Defeat will mean their title rivals move above them for the first time since August and shift momentum towards the team from the Etihad.
Arsenal have a miserable record against City, losing their past 10 Premier League games against them. Their last win in a League meeting came in 2015, when Arteta was still playing.
As a manager, Arteta has suffered at the hands of Pep Guardiola, who he was assistant to for more than three years at City. The two friends have faced each other eight times, and seven times Arteta has lost, with his solitary win coming in an FA Cup semi-final in 2020.
Now would be the perfect time for the apprentice to get one over on his master.
Tonight’s game is one of the biggest at Emirates Stadium since it opened in 2006, not that you would know it listening to the press conferences of both managers yesterday.
Before Guardiola had even started his briefing, the boss shifted focus away from the match by apologising to Steven Gerrard for comments he made about the Liverpool great last week.
Down in London, Arteta pounced on the first question of his press conference to slam VAR official Lee Mason after he failed to rule out Brentford’s equaliser on Saturday despite Christian Norgaard and Ethan Pinnock both straying offside in the build-up.
“We [had] a huge anger and disappointment because that wasn’t a human error — that was a big, big, big [case of] not understanding the job,” said the Arsenal manager.
It was an unusual approach from Arteta, who tends to play things with a straight bat in press conferences ahead of big games. Indeed, he returned to type later on in his press conference, starting short answers to four questions in a row with: “I don’t know”.
There was clearly genuine anger in Arteta’s words about the VAR call that cost his side two points at the weekend, but it felt like a calculated move to deflect focus away from his team.
VAR turned into the main talking point yesterday and not the run of three games without a win that has caused Arsenal to wobble in recent weeks.
It is a clever tactic used by some of the best down the years.
Arteta has created a siege mentality around his squad after the Brentford game and his words will have whipped everyone up ahead of what could be a pivotal night in the title race. This evening promises to be an intriguing encounter, as two possession-based sides go toe to toe.
Both sides may have to surrender the ball at times and, even as the home team, Arsenal will be wary of leaving space in behind for Erling Haaland, who is set to be fit despite an injury scare.
The striker was kept quiet when City beat Arsenal 1-0 in the FA Cup last month but that came at a cost for the Gunners, with Rob Holding booked and taken off at half-time.
William Saliba will be tasked with halting Haaland tonight and it is one of many intriguing individual clashes, including Bukayo Saka v Nathan Ake and Kevin De Bruyne v Martin Odegaard.
The fourth-round FA Cup clash at the Etihad lacked intensity and felt like two boxers sizing each other up without throwing any real punches.
Tonight is too early to land a knockout blow in the title race, but one side can seize the initiative going into the championship rounds.
