Just like last year, we're heading to Manchester City for a pivotal clash in the Premier League title race, but Mikel Arteta feels that this time around we are in a much better place to claim a huge win.
In April 2023 we travelled to the Etihad Stadium also top of the league, but at a very different ebb. We had lost to City twice in the preceding months, and were still reeling from three successive draws against Liverpool, West Ham United and Southampton to allow our rivals back into contention. That night, City seized the opportunity to claim a 4-1 victory that set them on their way to the championship.
This time around, it’s a different story. Victories over Pep Guardiola’s team in the Community Shield and the reverse fixture at Emirates Stadium mean we’re the team looking to complete a hat-trick of wins in a single season, and our momentum is vastly different as we head to the north-west on the back of nine straight league victories and securing a spot in the Champions League quarter-finals.
Mikel feels the tough lessons dished out to us in the final few weeks of last season have been taken on board, and a more steely and confident side will take to the field in the blue half of Manchester knowing exactly the level of performance they’ll need to put in to get a big result at the expense of the reigning champions.
Evaluating last season’s corresponding game to this one, Mikel said: “It is different. Momentum is different, we had certain results and some big injuries in that moment but those experiences are there to learn from. Sometimes we have to clap the opponent when they are better than you and that was the case on the day, learn from it and challenge yourself to be better.
“[Last season] there were many factors that didn’t help us. We got the injuries in the Sporting game, and there was a lot happening and that momentum shifted to a more negative momentum. We were struggling to keep up [with City] because they kept winning, they won 14 or 15 games in a row and they managed to do it.
“[It showed] the level that we are facing and where we want to be. Certainly, that's where we want to be and you have to make strong steps to get there. I think we have made some big ones in the last two or three years and we're getting much closer and now it is about how you close that gap and actually try to be better than them.”
Like most teams over the past decade, we have a poor record at the Etihad Stadium. We are winless there since 2015, while City have strung together a 38-game unbeaten run in all competitions since Brentford last won there in November 2022.
But having ended other lengthy waits for a win at Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Everton in recent seasons, Mikel feels that his players are confident taking on any opponent, anywhere and the weight of history doesn't faze them.
“That belief comes by starting to win at grounds you haven’t won at for many years,” he added. “You do it somewhere else and that belief takes momentum. Now they approach away games very similarly to home games. You cannot replicate it, but at least mentally. The purpose they play with is very similar.
“We try to play the same way away that we do at home and have that belief and aggression in our play. You have to play every team twice and we know the fixtures that we have, but I’m looking forward to it.”
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