'Panic on the streets of London!': The five biggest reasons for the Arsenal collapse that threatens to ruin another Premier League title tilt

The fallout from Sunday's top-of-the-table clash at the Etihad has focused on Arsenal - and that's understandable. The narrative surrounding the Gunners is utterly compelling. We really could be looking at one of the biggest bottle jobs in football history. However, City are responsible for the vast majority of the pressure that Arsenal are now buckling under - and that needs to be recognised.

This is not a vintage Guardiola team. We know that from the way in which they were dumped out of the Champions League by a mediocre Real Madrid side coached by Alvaro Arbeloa. City have also lost five league games this season - an unthinkable tally back when they were competing for titles with Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool.

However, City haven't suffered a domestic defeat since being beaten with alarming ease by local rivals Manchester United all the way back in January. Consequently, they're now closing in on a domestic treble - which is just further testament to Guardiola's greatness.

The Catalan has been given a massive helping hand by the club's owners, who made two season-changing acquisitions in Marc Guehi and Antoine Semenyo, but Guardiola also deserves immense credit for improving Abdukodir Khusanov, putting his faith in Nico O'Reilly, belatedly embracing the maverick genius of Rayan Cherki and, perhaps most importantly of all for a coach accused of overthinking things, figuring out his strongest starting line-up - and sticking with it.

As a result, a pretty settled City side that could have easily folded after back-to-back draws with Nottingham Forest and West Ham in March is now playing its best football of the season, as underlined by four consecutive statement wins in all competitions: two over Arsenal, and one apiece over Liverpool and Chelsea.

Basically, while City are rising to the challenge, Arsenal appear to be overwhelmed by it.

Arsenal's anxiety is understandable. The club hasn't won the title since 2004 - but this was meant to be their season.

While Liverpool were the defending champions and generated the most headlines during the summer transfer window with their £450 million outlay, Arsenal actually ended up with the higher net spend, and the common consensus was that Arteta was in possession of the deepest pool of talent in England.

Theo Walcott even went so far as to question whether the Manchester United team that won the league and Champions League in 2008 could "compete" with Arteta's side, while Piers Morgan claimed Arsenal could win the quadruple because they had "the best squad in the history of world club football".

Such talk may have been ridiculous, but it was indicative of the unhelpful levels of hype surrounding the Gunners, who weren't just expected to end a title drought, but to also make history in the process. However, the more than £1 billion spent on players since Arteta's appointment undeniably made the winning of at least one major honour absolutely imperative.

As legendary full-back Nigel Winterburn told GOAL in November, "I don’t think there have been any excuses from Arteta and the club. If you want to look at it ruthlessly over the last three seasons, we just haven’t been quite good enough.

"But I believe this is the strongest squad that Arsenal have ever had at the Emirates - in terms of its depth. The players that we have added to the squad this season gives me huge belief that we will be very, very difficult to beat."

And they were, at least up until a month ago. Before March 22, Arsenal had lost just three of 49 games in all competitions. They've since lost four of the past six - and it's not actually that surprising that it was a 2-0 defeat by City at Wembley that sent them spiralling.

The Carabao Cup final represented a chance for Arteta's Arsenal to win their first trophy since the 2019 FA Cup and, more importantly, send a message to a team that had twice overhauled them in the home stretch of title races. Instead, they were played off the pitch, which only raised further questions over the quality of their coach and the character of their players.

Arsenal have unquestionably been affected by injuries at a most inopportune time, with Bukayo Saka, Jurrien Timber and Mikel Merino all presently out of action. Saka's third absence of the season is obviously a big blow, given the right winger is the Gunners 'starboy', so often their most incisive attacker.

Timber, however, has become a hugely influential figure from full-back this season, while Merino's unavailability reduced Arteta's options in midfield - and that's become increasingly consequential, with Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi looking exhausted of late. Indeed, there is a feeling among the fans that fatigue is the biggest factor in Arsenal's late-season wobble, with the engine room no longer operating at full throttle.

Arteta has argued that Arsenal are the only English side left in the Champions League because the Premier League "and this schedule takes the hell out of you". However, the manager has also faced allegations of failing to adequately rotate his players, so as to negate the risk of tiredness - and also injuries, in the cases of Timber and Saka - at the business end of the season.

The good thing is that Arsenal have never really been short on options in attack, but Arteta clearly doesn't feel that former Brentford captain Christian Norgaard is good enough to start on a more regular basis, and he now risks paying a very heavy price for running Rice and Zubimendi into the ground.

At the Etihad, Zubimendi exhibited a little more energy than he has done of late, but he was still unable to exert any real control over the game - in stark contrast to his performances in the first half of the season, when Arteta described him as Arsenal's "best player". 

Of course, the Spaniard wasn't helped by his midfield partner going missing. Rice may very well be running on empty, but the cold hard truth is that the bookmakers' favourite for Player of the Season failed to turn up for the biggest game of the season. The England international lost more than half of his duels, won just one tackle all afternoon, and lost possession 13 times - more than any of his team-mates, bar Martin Odegaard (16).

In fairness to the latter, the Arsenal skipper was the visitors' most creative player on the day - and by some distance - but, unlike the 31-year-old Bernardo Silva, he once again failed to leave his mark on a match of the utmost importance, meaning the questioning of his captaincy credentials isn't going to go away until he actually manages to inspire his team a trophy.

Plenty of supporters feel that Gabriel Magalhaes would be more suited to the role, but the Gunners' self-styled hard man showed his true colours at the Etihad. After being bullied all afternoon by match-winner Erling Haaland, the Brazilian was only spared a fully deserved red card by City's No.9, who admirably declined the opportunity to make a meal of a pathetic and petulant headbutt from Gabriel. 

With supposed leaders like these, it's little wonder that Arsenal continually come up short when it matters most.

Of course, when it comes to setting an example, the manager sets the tone and, unfortunately for Arsenal, Arteta is hardly exuding confidence at the moment. The former midfielder is renowned for his touchline histrionics, but there is a nervous energy about him at the moment that rather reflects - and is arguably even partly responsible for - the tension in the stands at the Emirates.

Unlike his mentor-turned-adversary Guardiola, Arteta is not a serial winner. He only knows what it takes to get over the line in a title race because he worked under the Catalan; he's yet to prove that he actually do it himself.

And make no mistake about it, three consecutive runners-up finishes will be weighing heavily on Arteta's mind right now - which perhaps explains why he's resorting to ever more bizarre gimmicks to help his players finally get their hands on the Premier League trophy.

The 44-year-old has undoubtedly done a good job turning Arsenal into one of the strongest sides in Europe - consecutive Champions League semi-finals is proof of that fact - but he's been backed like few other managers in football history and still has just one FA Cup to show for his efforts.

Viktor Gyokeres, remember, was meant to be the missing link up front, Arsenal's answer to Haaland, and yet Arteta didn't have sufficient faith to the Swede to start him against City. There's already talk that the club intends to splash even more cash strengthening the Spaniard's attack this summer - which would just be remarkable if a sixth successive season ends without significant silverware.

In such a scenario, surely even the most ardent Arteta supporter would stop trusting in the process, and start questioning it instead?

Amid all of the inevitable negativity, though, it is important to stress that all is not lost for Arteta or Arsenal. Far from it, in fact. Despite the collapse of their quadruple challenge, the Gunners are still in a position to win the two most important trophies available to them.

Even if City win their game in hand, Arsenal definitely have the easier run-in, with their five remaining matches all against teams in the bottom half of the table. It should also help that the notoriously conservative Arteta now has no option but to take the handbrake off, meaning the Gunners could significantly boost their goal difference in the coming weeks.

What's more, they've already hammered their Champions League semi-final opponents, Atletico Madrid, this season and should be confident of setting up a mouth-watering meeting with either Bayern Munich or Paris Saint-Germain in Budapest on May 30.

The key word there, though, is 'should', because at this stage it's very difficult from the outside to tell how Arteta and his players are feeling internally. The prospect of two mentally and physically draining encounters with Diego Simeone's Atletico is hardly the ideal tonic for weary bodies and minds. Arteta says that the "fire" is still burningly brightly inside him, but both he and his players appear to be feeling the heat.

Rice was right when he very deliberately told his team-mates at the Etihad on Sunday "it's not done" - but it could be soon if Arsenal don't arrest this slump on Saturday at home to Newcastle. Fail to win that game, too, and there really will be panic on the streets of north London.