Rodri was sporting his newly-awarded Premier League champion’s medal when he was requested, minutes after pipping Arsenal to the title for the second season operating, a reasonably open-ended query about how Pep Guardiola motivates his Manchester Metropolis gamers to maintain on profitable.
This was the fourth consecutive yr he’d ended with a type of medals round his neck. The midfielder may have gone in any route together with his reply, given any variety of platitudes.
As an alternative, he selected to rub salt within the wounds of Mikel Arteta’s workforce, by claiming Metropolis sensed a psychological inferiority of their rivals when Arsenal had fortunately left the Etihad Stadium with some extent from a goalless draw between the 2 title contenders a few months earlier.
“To be trustworthy, it’s in right here,” Rodri mentioned to broadcaster Optus Sport, pointing to his head.
“It’s the mentality. Arsenal did an unbelievable season, however I believe the distinction was in right here,” as soon as once more tapping away at his temple. “After they got here right here, they confronted us on the Etihad, I noticed them… I mentioned, ‘These guys, they don’t wish to beat us, they simply desire a draw’.
“And that mentality, we wouldn’t do it the identical means. On the finish, should you give us one level, we’ll win the final seven, eight video games, regardless that how robust it’s. So I believe it’s when it comes to mentality.”
“These guys don’t wish to beat us, they simply wish to draw…”
After @ManCity gained the title by two factors final season, Rodri referenced the 0-0 residence draw to Arsenal that gave him confidence.
The 2 sides meet once more at Etihad Stadium this Sunday…
🎥 @OptusSport pic.twitter.com/Tn63IUiyYZ
— Premier League (@premierleague) September 20, 2024
It was a stinging assertion for a rival to make so publicly, simply as Arteta was concurrently rousing the Emirates Stadium crowd after Arsenal’s final-day win in opposition to Everton, stating “we wish extra… and we’re gonna get it”.
Arsenal, high of the desk and some extent forward of Metropolis with 10 video games every to go at kick-off, had camped deep in their very own half for a lot of that match on the finish of March, largely searching for counter-attacking alternatives to pinch the sport. It very almost labored, too — had Leandro Trossard squared the ball to Gabriel Martinelli in a single passage of play, Arsenal may have stolen it.
They solely had 27 per cent of possession although and, within the second half, confirmed little attacking intent. Metropolis had 12 photographs within the match to their six, two huge probabilities to zero, 40 touches within the opposition field to fifteen and made seven clearances to Arsenal’s 24.
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Arsenal went into that fixture having scored 33 targets in eight successive league wins, but it felt very very similar to mission achieved after they headed again to London with some extent — turning into the primary Premier League aspect to cease Metropolis scoring in 58 residence video games — a plan completely executed. It might have been had Arsenal been excellent, like Metropolis had been, in profitable the remaining 9 matches, however the draw gave them no margin for error and so they slipped up two weeks later, dropping 2-0 at residence in opposition to Aston Villa.
By not standing toe-to-toe, particularly on a day when Metropolis had been lacking goalkeeper Ederson and defender Kyle Walker via harm, Rodri interpreted Arsenal’s set-up as an act of submission, a surrendering of the excessive floor.
Regardless of the Spaniard’s refined goading, it feels inevitable that Arsenal will arrange similarly on their return to the Etihad as we speak (Sunday) to how they did in March. As they confirmed within the 1-0 away win in opposition to arch-rivals Tottenham final weekend, they’ve the defensive resilience to absorb stress for lengthy spells with out wilting.
(David Worth/Arsenal FC by way of Getty Photos)
It may ship them one other level, which might broadly be seen as a very good outcome. That might lengthen their unbeaten run in opposition to Metropolis to 4 video games, a sequence which began with the Neighborhood Protect penalty shoot-out victory final yr. It might not, nevertheless, erase the truth that Arsenal’s most up-to-date win at Metropolis was in January 2015, struggling eight defeats in a row by a mixed rating of 22-4 earlier than that time final season.
There may be the hazard that, till they exit and hunt Metropolis on their very own patch, Rodri will proceed to consider they’re going through challengers who really feel inferior, that Arsenal are hoping to attend them out reasonably than take the throne they’ve held since 2021 by pressure. There’s a psychological significance to straight inflicting a blow in your nearest, or maybe solely, contender.
Counsel that Arsenal ought to be bolder and the 4-1 Etihad defeat which all however ended their 2022-23 title hopes within the April of that season is normally returned as a conversation-ender. Arsenal performed an expansive type that day and had been duly ripped aside, however that they had Rob Holding deputising for an injured William Saliba in central defence and had been of their first title problem as a squad.
Eighteen months is a very long time in soccer and Arsenal have added David Raya, Jurrien Timber, Riccardo Calafiori, Declan Rice and Kai Havertz to their ranks since. They’re a a lot stronger workforce, capable of match Metropolis bodily, and having firmly established themselves as one of many two greatest sides within the league, doing so whereas enjoying imaginative soccer.
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Arsenal confirmed they’re able to imposing their pure sport on Metropolis on the Emirates within the October of final season, after they gained 1-0. It was a extra entertaining match because the momentum frequently shifted, even when there have been, once more, few probabilities.
With this season thought-about prone to change into a 3rd consecutive two-horse title race between these two sides, the master-and-apprentice relationship of the managers, the three ex-Metropolis gamers trying to topple an empire they helped construct (Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko), one of the best assault versus one of the best defence, this fixture ought to be rising as a Premier League basic.
(Alessio Morgese/NurPhoto by way of Getty Photos)
Thus far, nevertheless, the overlap between Guardiola and Arteta appears to have stymied the leisure when their groups meet. The cumulative xG for Metropolis and Arsenal throughout their final 4 encounters is simply 5.13, averaging effectively below a purpose a sport every.
They seem like two groups whose data of one another is so incestuous that they usually cancel one another out, decreasing the area for drama and spontaneity. A chess sport could be intriguing but it surely has not but been the blockbuster many have hoped for.
Types make fights, and maybe that’s the reason Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool workforce made such excellent sparring companions for Metropolis. They’d much less of the possession when these groups met too, however there was a conflict of identities and types that produced a distinct form of rigidity. Proper now, it’s two magnets repelling one another reasonably than the crunch of tectonic plates colliding.
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How does Rodri rating so many targets for a holding midfielder?
If the soccer is just not magical in these huge video games then there’s normally a component of dangerous blood to fall again on. However Rodri’s feedback in Might had been the primary little bit of needle there has actually been.
Aside from a fast shoving match between Kevin De Bruyne and Arteta, and phrases between Gabriel and Erling Haaland at full-time in March, it has been fairly cosy.
In yesteryear, Rodri’s quotes could be pinned up on the dressing-room wall as a technique to provoke the Arsenal gamers, firing them up by taking it as Metropolis questioning their mindset and ambition. Somebody would definitely have let him know they had been there with a strong problem within the early levels of the match.
Do the personalities exist to offer this fixture that form of edge? Take the Arsenal and Manchester United rivalry from 1998 till 2004. The soccer was usually not for purists however Arsene Wenger vs Sir Alex Ferguson on the touchline and Patrick Vieira vs Roy Keane on the pitch had been gripping particular person battles, and Martin Keown celebrating in Ruud van Nistelrooy’s face after the latter missed a penalty was one of many many incidents that confirmed how profound the hatred was between them.
When Chelsea’s new cash arrived round then, it spawned one other nice rivalry with Manchester United. They had been normally tight affairs too — a mean of 30 fouls per sport between 2004 and 2011 — however they had been unmissable as a result of Chelsea supervisor Jose Mourinho alone was field workplace and the contests had been usually vicious and bitter.
You sense there’s the potential for the Metropolis-Arsenal rivalry to lastly ignite this afternoon. It wants it.
If Arsenal do step as much as the position of aggressors as we speak and are capable of finish a near-decade of damage on the Etihad, they may have landed a extreme blow to Rodri and Metropolis’s sense of superiority.
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(Prime pictures: Getty Photos)
