The night Guardiola will reach Arteta

This Wednesday it will be held at the Emirates an important Premier Arsenal-Manchester City, where Pep Guardiola’s team, if they win, will see Mikel Arteta at the top of the table, although the ‘gunners’ have a game in hand. This is another rivalry between friends, Guardiola and Arteta, teacher and disciple. And, if Erling Haaland plays in the end, another rivalry will take place between two great Norwegian figures, Martin Odegaard and Haaland himself.

In the Norwegian team, Odegaard feeds Haaland’s assists. Tonight the midfielder and the striker are on different sides. But Haaland suffered a knock in Sunday’s Premier match against Aston Villa which prompted Pep Guardiola to replace him with Julián Álvarez at half-time. Everything indicates that the top scorer in the Premier (with 25 goals) has recovered, but Guardiola remains anonymous and says that he will not take risks if there are doubts.

Arsenal vs Manchester City

Arsenal: Ramsdale; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko; Xhaka, Party; Then, Odegaard, Martinelli; nketiah
coaches: Mikel Arteta
Manchester City: Ederson; Lewis, Dias, Laporte, Ake; De Bruyne, Rodri, Gundogan; Mahrez, Haaland and Grealish
coaches: Pep Guardiola
Referee: anthony taylor

tonight is a pending match which turned out to be crucial in the match for the Premier. The Emirates team, at the top, is looking to win its first English championship title since the 2003-04 season, but it did not reach the rivalry against City to the best of its ability: the ‘gunner’ team just lost against Everton (1-0 ) and draw against Brentford (1-1). Meanwhile, in the last two days the ‘citizens’ fell against Tottenham (1-0) and beat Aston Villa (3-1). Haaland assisted Ilkay Gündogan on the second goal after a great attack.

This Tuesday, in a press conference, Guardiola said that this Arsenal is “the best Arsenal The one I have faced since I arrived in England and currently the best team in the Premier”. And, regarding the advantage or not of him and Arteta knowing each other so much, Pep indicated in this regard: “I would say yes if there were only two games, but there are many more games to play.”

psychological significance

Guardiola recognized the psychological importance of this meeting for the future. On January 27, City eliminated Arsenal from the FA Cup and, after this Wednesday’s meeting, they will meet again in the Premier on April 26 at the Etihad.

Before the FA Cup match, Arteta admitted that he would rather “face others than Pepto whom I wish all the best.” The truth is that Arteta, Guardiola’s former assistant at City, wants to win his first league match against today’s team, the only one in the Premier that he has not yet beaten.