The following article is excerpted from Miguel Delaney: inside football communication.
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Even in rare moments of relaxation, thoughts can’t help but wander “elsewhere.” Pep Guardiola was away on Sunday, enjoying a surprise trip to his old club Serie C side Brescia, but of course, he was aware of what was going on at Arsenal.
Then, no sooner had Mikel Arteta enjoyed the relief and joy of a win over Tottenham than the Basque was asked whether he would heed the advice of his Manchester City boss in the rare absence of a game in midweek.
Guardiola joked after the 2-1 win over Newcastle United that he wanted his side to “drink a lot of caipirinhas and daiquiris” during the three-day break.
It’s hard not to wonder if this was targeted, because a common comment made about Arsenal after the 2-2 draw with Wolves – and with a degree of seriousness from fairly senior football people – was that the team actually needed a good old-fashioned ‘whipping night’. That’s because they looked like they needed release, and the different kind of team bonding that comes with this admittedly anti-sports science pursuit.
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However, like Manchester City and most modern players, few Arsenal players actually came into contact with alcohol in any way. In 2026, this will no longer be the case. Many more are quite religious and avid readers of the Bible.
To Arteta’s credit, he handled the aftermath well for Wolves. Seeing the team’s sluggish form to the point where some of the players were having disputes, he once again tried to point out the positives to change people’s minds. Arteta reminded them that at any moment over the past few years – even in their youthful dreams – they would have loved to be in this position: five points ahead in February.
And, after losing to Manchester United, it worked. In the north London derby, they were focused and intent on making amends for Wolves’ loss.
The ensuing victory for the top two, and the rare lull that followed, might narratively fit into the broader story of the title race.
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Because, starting next week, it all gets very real. The game turned into a grind. The two teams already have a tough match this weekend – Manchester City travel to Leeds United on Saturday, then Arsenal host Chelsea – and now it looks like another match on Wednesday is a rarity: two teams playing at the same time, with Arsenal playing Brighton and Manchester City hosting Nottingham Forest. It definitely created a pretty old-school dynamic, and a decent back-and-forth for the night.
After that, the number of remaining games has been reduced to single digits and a unique duo has formed in the title race, where the actions of one team can only affect the other.
This dynamic might even be amplified to an extreme by the potential for Arsenal and Manchester City to meet each other in all competitions over the past three months: a grand series; an almost unsustainable level of tension.
Given some of the signs that have emerged from both clubs over the past few weeks, that prospect may be too much even for the Premier League’s renowned sense of narrative…
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