{"id":538940,"date":"2026-04-19T06:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/538940\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T06:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:09:08","slug":"arsenal-how-does-mikel-arteta-set-up-against-man-city-for-title-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/538940\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal: How does Mikel Arteta set up against Man City for title charge?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bournemouth<\/a> looked to apply pressure more aggressively. Instead of lining up with a flat front four, their left-sided midfielder James Tavernier moved inside to support his central midfielders\u00a0– particularly when Kai Havertz dropped deep looking to form a midfield three with Martin Zubimendi and Declan Rice.<\/p>\n

This decision left Ben White free at right-back, but striker Evanilson constantly looked to curve his runs to block off passes to the right, making accessing the full-back harder. <\/p>\n

City and Bournemouth<\/a>‘s press differed slightly but there were principles both used that were effective – one being how both sides looked to funnel Arsenal<\/a>‘s play down the left. Gabriel was challenged to dictate the game from deep areas, something his counterpart William Saliba is better at.<\/p>\n

When play was forced down that side, Andoni Iraola’s team were able to lock on in a man-to-man fashion. When this happened, Arsenal<\/a>‘s players and coach alike often gestured to Gabriel to look long for striker Viktor Gyokeres.<\/p>\n

Since the turn of year, Arsenal<\/a> have leaned into attacking the spaces that open up when opponents press man-to-man with the likes of Noni Madueke, Gyokeres, Gabriel Martinelli and Havertz, in theory, having the underlying skillset to punish teams in transition. <\/p>\n

The issue against Bournemouth<\/a> was that Sweden forward Gyokeres, contrary to his physical frame, has struggled to win his individual duels against Premier League defenders, leading to Arsenal<\/a> failing to dominate possession and get up the pitch. His strengths instead lie in getting his team forward by running the channels, where he showcases strong ball-carrying ability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bournemouth looked to apply pressure more aggressively. Instead of lining up with a flat front four, their left-sided…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-538940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}