It’s hard to forget those rock-bottom years when Pep Guardiola would lavish Arsenal and Mikel Arteta with sickly sweet praise in the moments after his side has just swatted us aside, often by a four or five-goal margin.
It was like pat on the head from a patronising older brother after he’d just nicked all your sweets and thumped you 36-0 in back garden football.
It didn’t make the defeats any better. In fact, it often made them worse.
‘Nice try, little bro’.
Well, now the little bro has grown up, added 30kg of lean muscle and learnt how to play, with skills forged in the white heat of season-after-season of humiliating defeat.
Now, it’s our turn to pat Pep on the head. Now, it’s our turn to bully, harangue and harass and keep Manchester City at arm’s length while they windmill aimlessly into thin air between us.
We are a side on the up, heading towards the peak of our powers while Pep’s City are stuck in a rut. It’s not quite so bad for them as it was in our Mustafi years – not by a long shot – but they are half the side they were three or four seasons ago. Now is the time to take our revenge.
But it’s also time to put ourselves to the test. Can we dominate a quality opponent? Can we exert the sort of control that Pep and co used to exert over us? Can we make sides sit up and take notice? We’ve covered a huge amount of ground in these last few years and crossed entire galaxies in terms of our quality but we need to take that last step.
Blowing Pep and City aside today, as we did last season, would show that we’re ready. It would send a message.
In terms of selection, the manager has options. The side doesn’t exactly pick itself these days – and that’s no sleight on our quality. For example, does he reinstall Gabriel Martinelli to the starting line-up? Does he move Eberchi Eze to the 10 spot? Does he risk Ethan Nwaneri and Miles Lewis Skelly? What does he do in centre midfield?
For the first time in a long time, this feels like an Arsenal side that could do anything. It can line up in half a dozen different formations, sit deep, press high, play long or play short, field three teenagers or field none at all. And no matter what the manager decides, we can be confident the side he picks will be ready and able to do the job.
That’s why I feel uniquely confident about today. We have a whole bag of tools to use for this tie and I don’t think City have it in them to stop us – at least from a defensive perspective. Pep would never, ever choose to play deep so that means he’ll have to outscore us, at our home, with a side absolutely stacked with attacking quality. In the past, that simply wouldn’t have been a problem for them. It was often embarrassingly easy.
But not today. Today is going to be our day.
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