While Mikel Arteta had no issue with Arsenal watching the Manchester City game before their own, the reality was they didn’t have much of a chance to. They were “in and out” on the coach, as the manager put it, meaning they couldn’t really register Pep Guardiola’s repeatedly going in and out of Liverpool’s defence.
You could say that’s just as well given what a statement it was from the champions, as City ominously made it 17 goals in three games and seven consecutive wins.
Except, Arteta has already ensured his team have become very good at only focusing themselves, and that has inevitably played its part in the leaders enjoying a similar run of their own.
Arsenal have claimed six successive league wins since their own defeat to Manchester, hitting 14 in the last four. The epic against Bournemouth apart, those four have also involved hugely forgiving wins, where Arteta’s side pretty much had the job done by half-time.
It was much the same against Leeds United, even if it did require Ben White to get the second just after half-time to really seal it.
That may well be more important than just getting the points required, or even conserving energy and emotion for what it is to come. It is really that Arsenal have so far shown they have found a way to win these games in an ultra-comfortable and controlled manner that is actually reminiscent of City.
While Arteta would no doubt have picked up some of this from his time at the champions under Guardiola, much of it is obviously his own influence, and it’s all the more impressive given that this is a young side with no previous experience of being in a title race.
They have managed to keep a series of opposition sides at arms length, just at the point when everything around the title race tightens.
So much of that of course stems from the way Arsenal play, which inherently involves taking full control of matches by taking the game forward. It is not leaving anything to the opposition. It is imposing yourself.
That is also amplified, however, by the mentality that Arteta has developed to complement that.
An approach that involves taking the game on is naturally served by actually seeking to enjoy it, by showing no hesitation or fear.
That’s what’s so conspicuous right now. It would be understandable, and probably even seen as inevitable, if Arsenal began to endure some doubts or even hesitation in key moments. That’s what has traditionally tended to happen in such races, especially for those facing them for the first time. It can get to teams. They start to think about it all.
It’s why so many repeat champions talk of the “relief” of victory rather than the enjoyment, among them the ultimate winner in Roy Keane.
Arteta has been consciously going for a different approach.
He has been repeatedly telling the players to “just enjoy the moment we are in”; to savour the sense of being involved in something special.
There was a telling moment when he was asked about this, and did a kind of gasping gesture to explain his point.
“We have nine games to go but we have a training session today that is going to enable us to be better as a team. If we go through the journey day by day, when the game comes we are in the right state of mind. We are really looking forward to it. We have oxygen to grab instead of [gasps] ‘next game, next game’. We go to the next target and we go for it.”
Arteta was then asked whether he can enjoy these games, given there are repeated testimonies that managers so rarely do.
“I do. More now than before!”
The best may be yet to come, but also the most testing.
As many previous champions might also tell the current Arsenal, there’s a difference between winning games comfortably now, and winning them comfortably when there’s six, five, four games to go.
Then again, that is what all this is about. It’s not just about trying to put Arsenal in a comfortable position by then by preserving or even extending this lead. It’s that they approach it in the right frame of mind, that they don’t feel that unbearable weight.
Arteta has clearly done that part. Now comes the part that matters most.
