Mikel Arteta has been told to avoid ‘overthinking’ Pep Guardiola ’s moves in this weekend’s key showdown.
The Arsenal boss takes his side to the Etihad Stadium this weekend to face title rivals Manchester City. The game could go a long way in deciding the destination of the Premier League title, with one point currently separating the two sides. Arteta has already got a couple of victories against his former boss Guardiola this season.
Arsenal claimed the Community Shield at Wembley after a penalty shootout success. They then followed that up with a 1-0 win at the Emirates in October - with Gabriel Martinelli ’s late goal securing victory for the North London side.
Now, Arsenal icon Lee Dixon has told Arteta not to concern himself with what goes on in the opposing dugout - and instead just focus on his team. Speaking to BetVictor, he said: “It is a possibility that Arsenal will go to the Etihad and look to play on the break.
“Mikel Arteta will be scrutinising last year’s performance when they got beaten 4-1 and he’ll be rethinking his game plan. He may look at his team and think they’ve developed and are better than they were last year so they can afford to play on the front foot.
“There will be mind games going on between Arteta and Pep Guardiola. Sometimes Pep makes a change and everyone says that he’s overthinking and sometimes that is true, but the majority of the time he is so clever when it comes to just tweaking something that doesn’t seem that different and you can’t work it out.
“Arteta’s biggest headache will be just trying to stay in the moment with his team, rather than trying to overthink what Pep is doing. If you do that you’ll end up in trouble – he’ll see what is happening once the game starts. City will set up as if they’re just going to play their normal game and Arsenal have developed enough to adapt to any changes throughout the 90 minutes.”
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Arsenal go into the game on Sunday afternoon in terrific form. Arteta’s side have won eight Premier League games in a row - the latest of which saw them overcome Brentford 2-1 at the Emirates.
Should they beat City, then it would become the first time that Arsenal have won nine successive league games since the Invincibles season of 2003/04. Fellow title rivals Liverpool are also in action this Sunday as they take on Brighton at Anfield.
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