Tension between City and Arsenal reaches a new level

Mikel Arteta tried to cool the rivalry after Pep Guardiola’s comments but more flashpoints in the title race look likely

- MIGUEL DELANEY

Mikel Arteta eventually felt he had to speak, specifically in order to quieten things down. You couldn’t have a clearer indication of how the Manchester City-Arsenal tensions had reached a peak,after all, than Pep Guardiola himself willingly bringing up the “115 charges”. Some City officials had previously bristled at the media or anyone else mentioning the prospect of the club being punished, and yet here was their most important football figure putting it front and centre of the week’s biggest story.

That showed how affected Guardiola had been by Arteta’s admittedly open-ended comments from Tuesday. The Arsenal manager had spoken about how he has “all the information” on City, having worked at the club for almost four years. Arteta was actually talking about gamesmanship, given all the criticism of his own team over “dark arts”, but the way it was said could have easily been portrayed as talking about the hearing. Guardiola evidently felt that way. This was also why Arteta took the opportunity to indeed make clear what he meant, and cool those tensions a bit.

Arsenal initially didn’t want to say anything, out of concern that this all might escalate further. There had actually been some satisfaction within the club at City’s response to last week, and even a feeling that the champions were “rattled”. Some Arsenal players spoke of winning the “psychological war”, with the latter word coming up a lot in that time. Gabriel used that description, and Guardiola willingly accepted the terms. That made Arsenal’s fixture against Leicester City a crucial battle to be won after City dropped points at Newcastle United.