The Anatomy of a Power Shift: Arsenal's Sovereign Hegemony and Manchester City's Rebirth

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Pat, for where a season is going to go from their perspective, it's a handy toll. I mean, you've got to do something out of it. I don't think Manchester City turned up today, but are we drunk about? I think we turned up today trying to win this cup and they're the shield. They're a distance away from it. They were setting best, they held the ball nicely, but very, very limited danger. I think I asked no kid to my arms left for most, they're the same tough. With some ease, generally some ease, no. You've not got Harland at his best yet, and that makes a big difference. When he's at his best, it makes a difference. Doko and Samenio turned it on and bets now and again. Early Anderson, although trying hard, it's not fitted brilliantly and perfectly well yet, so look, there's a whole big job to be done, but I'm not saying fans are telling that. This is a transition time. They've done some of the transition, but there's more to come. I said, no, that's not a transition time. This is a team that's winning. And the question that a lot of Arsenal fans are wondering, you've got that at last. You've won. You've got to the Champions League final and nearly the past, an amazing PSGC, but you won the Premier League. Have you made it there? Got up the top and it's really hard to stay there, and you're just going to fall back down again. No chance. This is a team that won't expect to keep on going. What can we take away from it? I mean, pack something up well there. They just did not turn up, City. Yeah, I'm going to put it better really myself in terms of know where we expected City to be at. I think Arsenal, the players that they had at the World Cup and the players that Artette has had available to train with over the last four, five weeks. I expected Arsenal to be a bit fresher, and they definitely showed that in the first half. I think City matched them, and like we said at half time, Arsenal were the better team, but it could have been 2-2 at half time, albeit some brilliant saves from Raya. So I think in terms of assessment, I think, the way that Pat summed up, City looked like a team of individuals. I think the challenge for Maresco is, we know Manchester City are a team of 11, and that's the way they operate best from start to finishing the attack, and they need to find a way to weld it together. But I watched them, like I said, against Athletic Humidrid last weekend in the friendly, and they were much more welded together. So I think in this moment here you have to hand credit to Arsenal. I thought they were monsters again, all over the pitch, they're aggressive, Udegard run the show, like we saw during the World Cup for Norway. So I think from Arsenal's perspective, a genuine case of pick that where they left off, they have built the foundations, and that is why they look like a very welded team of 11th right now, and obviously the changes they brought on, and City, as we know, huge transition, but I think there's been a few bits today where I think Maresco go away and have to really dig deep and rise, progress, and find a new way for it, not necessarily a new way, but you'll know he's got a lot of work to do, and you've got to know that before the game keeps us today anyway. But I think after that game, I think the gap between Arsenal and City at the moment is getting bigger, and do I think City can close it? Absolutely, but they're going to have to have a big shift, and Maresco's going to have a big job, but an exciting one on the left. Pat, when you look at that second half, the word I'd use to describe Arsenal's broadest professional, yeah, and they knew that they were doing. They decided, okay, so goal that's it, we're fine, we're full, we're winning this. You need to break those down. You'll get last season in the league five defeats, I think it was in the league for Manchester, for Arsenal, last season, all by a single goal. They don't lose many goals. It's so, they have said, all right, we should all pull off a little bit here, and we'll play in the break, and look quite dangerous when we're playing in the break. There's a mid, you see, professional, I see mature, really mature performance for that entire group of players, and that's been rolled over a year after year after year, and if a youth player that comes in, such a source, you'll look as if you've been playing there for six years. He's really dead, because he knows exactly what's expected of him, did it well, and then at the top of that, he created a couple of goals, so, there wasn't a failure, maybe, I don't see where Bruno Gilmerich absolutely fits in and makes it better, but you never know, he'll be needed, and there's a lot of games this season, a lot of games in the year of this season. There are a lot of games this season, but when you're adding, you need to add quality, that's a chance. I can't, you got caught, but only enough, it's just, I don't know if it looks like the rest of the players, but maybe that's the point. Maybe he's saying, right, I've got all the ones in the end of that style, I'm going to add something different, I'm going to add the guys, the cheeses everywhere, and we'll score some goals, and he's got good goal scoring numbers as well. When you turn up your new team, you don't expect everybody to go, or I'll give you the ball all the time, we're going to give it to the man, the main man, and the main man is the other guy, all the main man, maybe Declan Raist, so there's a wee bit of integration to go in there, so certainly give him a few of the ones to find out where he really fits within this group, but I'll give him that, everything else looks tickety-to-boo. Can make go on to potentially lift the Premier League again, I would have brought them up, but there you can. I think more than that, you can see the other favourites, yes, you know Liverpool could combat and be very, very strong, Manchester City, I do not write them off at all, because I think just one game here, and you know, they were stronger last year, Arsenal, but I think there's more to be added, you don't know what's going to happen, Rugby wasn't playing today, but they may have a replacement for Rugby, they may want to bring in, if he doesn't stay, so you have to say that or I'm broke, I don't think Harlan, the best player, was fully 100% himself, so there's a lot to take on board that, but I'm looking at Arsenal, and this isn't 6 months and years worth of builds, this is 6 years worth of builds, and it's built and it's improved every year, and I think it's better known, than it was last year, so that by definition means yeah, it's a very good chance of winning, it always gets season, and don't write off the Champions League either, because the depth of scored they've got, you look around Europe, there's not that many, I've got that depth of score, what's scary is that they want more, don't they? But then once you have the face of it, you have more and more, and I've got, you know, Odegaard has said that already, and it's close much into you, and he's spot on, and you know, the hardest thing is winning and dislodging with the teams, but then even harder than that, it's sustaining it, and Arsenal and now the team, as we say a lot, with the target on their back, they're the team that are setting the level in the Premier League, they're the team that show incredible resilience and depth, because we've got to remember, before last season, they were trying so hard, this large Manchester City Liverpool, in terms of winning that Premier League title, and they finally done it, and it just looks like the evolution that Arteta is after is coming in the form of, I feel a little tweaks in terms of new signings, but also evolving from within as well, and I think that's what's really crucial, but, you know, the depth that Arteta's added to his team over the years, and the players that he's brought in, you know, making certain sort of signing, loan signing, permanent, and in Papier, which I thought was a really a bit of business, around that left-back area, which is an area where Arteta was played around with a lot in his last four or five seasons, and they've just created that resilience, in California getting on the score sheet today, early on. It just goes to show that they've got so much quality, and like we spoke about before the game, if they can unleash, you know, the sort of reigns a little bit, and find that new level. They've still got the capacity to revert back to type of last season, which has been watertight at the back, so they've got all the equipment to go on and do it again, but of course the challenges with the teams, and I also think Chelsea wants to watch as well next season for that Premier League title as well. Following on from that, Aaron, I think one of Arteta's great strengths this season is actually the difference in other teams, and the position they're in with their managers. Arsenal is part alluded to, his easy as alluded to. They've been building over the year, over the year, over the year, and look at their title rivals this year. Manchester City, new manager, Chelsea, new manager, Liverpool, new manager, where you put spurs in all of this new manager. There's so much change that it feels Arsenal have just gone from, being very convincing Premier League champions. In the end, I know Manchester City came back at them, but a seven point gap at the top of the table, reaching Champions League final, reaching the League Cup final. They've added to their team, they will probably add more to this team, and given how easily they've brushed aside Manchester City, it does feel that because teams have changed so much in terms of their rivals, that this Arsenal side will be even more dominant because other sides might take a bit of time to get up to speed as we've seen with Manchester City. I think it's perfect time for us to hear from the Arsenal manager. Here is Mick Lottetto with Chris Sykes. How difference do you feel this season? You're going into the season as Reading Champions, the team everyone kind of wants to shoot at them, so does it feel different this summer? I think we need to be even more aggressive than Blasje, and to show how much we want it, and how daily we're going to behave to sustain the standards even higher than Blasje. This one knows now how to do it, so we know what it takes, and we are very conscious of that, and we want much more. It's just five days now until the new season country, home, you speak, we look forward to that. Yes, very much. Now this season has kicked on, we have the first trophy, and now the Premier League has that, and we know how difficult it is. It's a testament to patience and longevity, because they've had tough times under Mick Lottetto back, and there were moments where supporters may have thought, is this going to work for us, but he was brought into to spearhead a project after the Union Marie era came to a close, and then you look how they've evolved, not just the players this time, but the markets they're buying in, the quality they're looking for. Bradley Barker, we talked about Venice, Eustunia once upon a time, and as recent as five, six, seven years ago, Arsenal workshopping in those markets. Yeah, correct, absolutely. Well, I'm jumping in those markets, and those players may not have considered Arsenal football club. It's a shame, because they have been a phenomenal club that varies teams in the past, and they'll underass them, they were amazing, for a various periods of time, but they are now considered a world, world, world class club, you know, and you just look at it now, and you think, what is it, you're leaning for now? With that sort of background, with that sort of backup, I can't know, it's charming, is it? It came so close that last time there, and they've got the capabilities of doing it again. Try to run the tour together, it's tough, you know, trying to win an league, and you couldn't, you could actually had that conversation a year ago, and people would laugh at you, and I can tell you that, because I did. Conversation thinking, don't write often for the, for the double, and remember, writing it again, are we, but I think for it, you say it now, and it's not, who won't laugh at you for dinner? People will say, yeah, that's fair enough, they're a capable group, and you do a look around the rest of Europe, and the rest of the, you know, the Premier League, as an amazing good point about the likes of Chelsea, no European football, what are the difference that makes? When you can put out your absolute strength, every single week in the Premier League, massive, massive difference that makes, should need for them as well, and they've got, they've got a big, big way to go, to reach the levels of theirself, nothing. Is he just on our snow, you know, the swagger, the confidence, the, the relentlessness, that the way they like to press, the way they attack City on the ball and gave them no space? It just feels psychologically, again, we mentioned, you know, the albatross off the net with the title, win, it feels like they're just following on with momentum, like the summits didn't exist, and it's that team again, going again, recharging, reenergised, but with that same drive and hunger. Yeah, you can feel it, walking the game, you know, until you guys in the stadium could feel the intensity that, particularly the first half, presented with Arsenal, hunted everything, they went on the front foot, they passed forward, so often in the first 20 minutes, I don't know what the stats are, but I'd have thought, this is a new look Arsenal, this is an Arsenal that's very concerned with going forward early, and putting the opponent on the back foot, and they did that. They put their authority all over my city in the first 20, 25, and the damage is arguably done, six of them in the second half, and I think the other thing that's so noticeable about this Arsenal team is that in the game, the game presents so many problems to you, you know, every second the game is changing around you when you're on that pitch. Players make over 3,000 decisions in their head per game, that they have to get right, and I look at those Arsenal players, and I look at the decisions they make on the pitch, and they have a solution for every single problem that every opponent presents to me, because they've got players out there who are so equipped, so well-cooked, and ultimately just students of the way that our TETA coaches them, and Mike Pat said, Chris said, it's taken them years, six, seven years to get up to this, they were eight, then fifth, then second, three times in the Premier League before they get first, and it is a message in resilience, it is a message in, you know, keep them going and keep them at it, and trust in the process, and I think that that I can only give huge credit, like I did last season, to Nikhil Arteta, a disciple of Pep Guardiola as is Maresca, and he's starting his own project now, but I think in terms of what Arteta has done to that team, he's absolutely transformed them, and the players out there have so much ownership on the pitch that often, Arteta can just sit back, watch, and give them that support from the sideline when needed. Influencers and content creators have been making headlines at the US Open, but how important are they to tennis? Find out by searching for more than a school, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. All the cricket you left. Lips on BBC sounds. Smash straight back down the ground, this girl. Here, ball by ball coverage of the biggest competitions on the domestic and international circuits. It's a ball cricket, and it's the huge one. Cricket on five-live sport. Listen on BBC sounds. In terms of city and in time, Maresca, again, we're not going to use this as a barometer foot for where there's season to go, but this world, what's a rebuild and building? This is Manchester City. This is a Manchester City who's spent a huge summer money in January to recruit a heavily, who have arguably the best forward in world football, who have an abundance of riches in their squad. Why are we focusing on that, and not on he should be able to get a tune out of this group, and a good tune. Hey, well get a tune out of this group. As you asked that question, I was substituting two names, and I was substituting Manchester City for Liverpool and I was substituting Pep Guardiola for European club. Seatings can change, things can change massively. Slot, go at you now, after the year, after that first season, because you just get to go in the win league, and then after that massive, massive difference. It's hard, it's really hard to keep it going. Teams get successful, but there's a multitude of reasons why they're successful. It's the players, yeah, it's the system, yeah, it's the management, yeah, it's all these things. It's recruiting at the right time. You have to keep all these things, like a phenomenal jug, up and down at the same time, and you drop one of them. You don't win leagues. You drop just one of them. You don't win a league, and that's maybe the thing that you do worry about, your Manchester City fans, yeah, but of course it's going to get a tune out of them. Of course it's going to be top two or three, and no doubt about that whatsoever. There are brilliant players playing in that team, but that's not a story anymore. The story's catching Arsenal, and that's a very, very different story, and that's going to be a hard one, because I'm looking at the team, and where's the last thing from this time of the year? Where's the last thing in the year? What's three now? I've got to go, because Enzo Moresca is with Chris Sykes. Enzo, what did you make of your team's performance this afternoon? I think the goal we considered after 25 seconds, 30 seconds, unfortunately, affect the game in that moment. I think after the goal, the reaction was quite good, before they scored the second one, we had three chances to score and to draw the game, and then unfortunately we considered the second one, and it became more complicated, everything. Just tell us about that, so this evening, 30 seconds as we were conceding that goal, I mean, you must have been so frustrated a lot. Absolutely, absolutely, disappointing with that, because in this kind of, you know, game the level is so similar that when you consider the goal then become difficult, but again, I think the reaction after the goal we considered was quite good, we created chances, and then again, with Tunnel, it was even more complicated. With the social nature of those goals, we've concerned sort of with the team's performance after that, so we're quite happy with how it responded to everything. After the goal we considered after the first one, I was quite happy, because we didn't consider nothing, we created three chances to draw the game, but unfortunately, then we conceded the second one, that there is a mistake there, but again, it's just the beginning, and now we need to, you know, from next game, next Sunday we start the Premier League, and the focus has to be about that. And just on that, you're one week to go, as you can say, until that first game, what more work needs to be done over the next seven days before that bomb came? But we have, we have many things to work, it's just, you know, the season just started, so there are many things that we need to work, we need to do better, but even when we're going to win games, there are things that we need to do better. And so thank you very much. He talks about wanting to improve, is he, Enzo Morescar, that's such a broad, broad statement, what's going to be interesting to analyse is the moves they make in the window with two weeks to go. Where do they go? Where do they try and strengthen? What happens with Rodgerie? There's so much to contemplate from Manchester City before, before we're out of this month. Yeah, I think that watching today, you don't want to be too emotional, too rash, I think listening to Enzo there, it seems very calm, collected, which is the manager, the managerial style that he portrays, that we've seen in Chelsea Leicester. And he knows what job he has, he knows he's in a transition year with Manchester City, but equally if they can slide a transition into still qualifying for Europe and being title contenders, huge success. And eyes on it today, the game, I'm going, okay, whatever's happening with Rodgerie, that midfield is probably the most interesting section of the team. It finished with Nico Gonzalez, Cherokee and Rico Lewis in the midfield. And to me that didn't look right, obviously Anderson probably protected in terms of minutes, Foden didn't see the game through, Convertich I thought was good, but I think it's easy for me to say they miss Rodgerie, but I'm going, how is Maresa going to evolve that? And I guess that is a question we can probably see evolve over the next few months within within the Premier League, who is his best midfield. And of course there'll be eyes on all activity over the next sort of, well until the transfer window shows in August, around what they do to if it is Rodgerie departing, departing what they do to replace that and who they've got coming in, which I think will be key. With regards to City, the future looking ahead to this season, is there biggest problem that they've had longevity, a decade of success of Pep Guardiola? And yes, they have that first season where things weren't amazing, but they knew what they had. With regards to Enzo Moresco, it's different. They need to be patient with him. The supporters? Yeah, they will have to be patient, because when it was Pep Guardiola, everybody knew that Pep Guardiola was all about what had done beforehand and what it was trying to build, and there was no way in the world that they were going to get frustrated with them. I mean, he got some stick, I remember at a time, from some pundits certainly not for me, because I knew it was trying to build and he built it brilliantly. Do people believe that Maresa is capable of building something similar? Oh, they hope. They don't know. They hope. Then you, the Pep Guardiola, could do that. So, yeah, there are some concerns there, but it's far, far too early panic. And once again, last time we were going to say today, and I promise not to say again, I agree completely with Izzy, right? Because she's nailed it. But delicately, she's the interesting midfield, well said, and Izzy, I'll say, we've got harsher. It didn't work right. It looked weaker than the midfield that we're playing against. Eli and Dustin Stowe-Harson got into it straight yet. And of course, he has. It's going to take a little while. But if you're going to add anything to it, it looks like it's that central midfield, particularly for Rodrigo's. I just wonder what Manchester City firstly need to do in this window. They need to make a decision on Rotary. That's the key thing, because they can either lose him on a free next summer or cash in now, and hope that someone doesn't add a man city tax onto a replacement. Well, quite, and you'd feel that the shrewd nature of Manchester City and the way they do their business, he'll almost certainly, you think, leave this summer rather than go for a free next summer. But they have the spine of the team to replace. No John Stones, no Bernardo Silver, no Rotary. They've lost experience with Manuel Akane, Jean-Nathen Akane as well. So there are lots of holes to plug for Enzo Moreska. Yes, he still has incredibly talented players in Harland and in Foden, but that there is work in the transfer window to do, and it feels like it sounds like he will be back, and we will be seeing players come in. That's it for this episode of The Football Daily. My thanks to Chris Pat, is he and to you for listening next up on The Feed Will Be The Monday Nightclub. This goes beyond what the KGB did back in the days. Conspiracy theories and the football world cup, is there ever one without the other? Well, I've been digging into one of the very best back in 1994. Yeah, from Iraq, it's a red card. For a, you know, a dubious tackle. I'm James Montague, and from BBC Five Live, this is Sport Strange's Crimes Presents Shadows on the Pitch. Listen on BBC Sounds. Influences and content creators have been making headlines at the US Open, but how important are they to tennis? Find out by searching for more than a score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.