Sorry Erling Haaland, Arsenal don't need to 'stay humble' - Gunners have shown they are better than Man City ahead of ultimate revenge mission that can reignite Premier League title chase

From May 2016 to October 2023, Arsenal went a staggering 15 Premier League games without a win against City, losing 13 of those fixtures. Guardiola had the Gunners' number, and one way or another knew how to get the better of them.

Arteta gave up being Guardiola's assistant to take the top job at the Emirates Stadium in December 2019, and though league success against his mentor eluded him, he did strike a hammer blow in his first season, knocking his former side out of the FA Cup at the semi-final stage. Victory in the final against Chelsea ensured Arteta had enough credit in the bank to survive a rocky 2020-21 campaign and beginning to the following 2021-22 season, which included a 5-0 drubbing at the Etihad.

That defeat was the turning point in Arteta's reign. From there, he began weeding out the old guard and building around his young core of players, empowering the likes of Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli. When City made the trip down to the Emirates a few months later, Arsenal swarmed and overwhelmed the champions with youth and endeavour. Alas, that still wasn't enough, as the visitors secured a late 2-1 victory following a string of questionable refereeing decisions.

Arsenal missed out on a Champions League spot by two points that season, but the following term they were equals with City, leading the standings for a record 250 days before collapsing down the stretch. Crucially, they lost twice to Guardiola's side and finished five points adrift of them.

The nail in the coffin came in the final week of April 2023, a 4-1 dismantling letting the world know who the best team in England truly were. This was another flashpoint in Arteta's timeline, completely changing his approach to future meetings with City. No longer would Arsenal try and out-football them, rather tighten the game up and narrow all margins.

This has largely worked. The Gunners prevailed 1-0 at the Emirates in October 2023 to end their barren streak against City, before holding them to a 0-0 draw later in the season. Yet once more, this wasn't enough to take home the title, even if this time the race went to the wire and was only decided by a single point.

The message from the outside world was clear when Arsenal made the journey north to Manchester towards the start of 2024-25 - if you want to pip City to top spot, you'll have to beat them in their back yard. Whereas the stalemate in March 2024 was incredibly dull and without event, the Gunners showed far more ambition this time around. Haaland's opener was quickly cancelled out by a worldie from Riccardo Calafiori, and a header from set-piece extraordinaire Gabriel Magalhaes saw them lead at the Etihad for the first time in nearly a decade.

Trossard's dismissal shortly before half-time changed the game entirely, and so Arsenal resorted to the shut-up-shop approach. It was a John Stones strike away from working, too. The devastation in the travelling camp branched between melancholy and fury, with Haaland's 'humble' line only serving to boil frustration. It may yet turn out to be one more bookmark in Arteta's tale.

You can construe that both Arsenal and City have had unsuccessful campaigns to this point considering neither are top of the table, Liverpool instead leading the way with a six-point cushion plus a game in hand to boot. You would definitely most rather be in the Gunners' shoes than the Cityzens, mind.

Arsenal have taken 36 points in the 18 Premier League games since, compared to City's comparatively measly tally of 28. Along the way, Guardiola's charges embarked on a run of one win in nine matches from the start of November to the end of December, effectively killing their hope of securing a record fifth-successive title.

City go into matchday 24 level on points with surprise package Nottingham Forest, but with games against Newcastle, Liverpool, Tottenham and Nuno Espirito Santo's side to come after this weekend's outing in N5, they will be nervously looking over their shoulders rather than upward at their previous peers. After all, Arsenal have enough wriggle room to lose this game and still be confident of finishing ahead of their foes from the Etihad.

Haaland seemingly inflicted a curse upon himself since taunting Arteta, as the football gods have not taken kindly to his victory lap in September. After breaking the deadlock that day, he went on to score only three times in his next 13 Premier League fixtures. Though his form has picked up since and he is second behind only Mohamed Salah in the Golden Boot race, the expectation is he will be leapfrogged again by an Alexander Isak or even a Chris Wood.

But like his manager, Haaland has committed his future to City regardless. Pretty much all of his future, in fact, inking a record 10-year contract which will take him well into his thirties. Goodness knows if the planet will even be hospitable at that point, but he'll still be rolled out in a sky-blue shirt anyway.

Nevertheless, it is Haaland, rather than Arteta, who has been humbled. His heel turn hasn't quite gone according to plan and he can expect a hostile reception on Sunday. If Arsenal win, you wouldn't put it past the PA blaring Kendrick Lamar's 'Humble' at full-time.

A quiet summer window, in which only former captain Ilkay Gundogan and Savinho from sister club Troyes were added to the ranks, undoubtedly played a part in City's woeful first half of the season. Rodri was holding back the tide of regression, and his ACL injury allowed the floodgates to open. It was open season on Guardiola's men, who were too easy to play through even before the Ballon d'Or winner went down.

That was the kick up the backside the recruitment team required to bring fresh life to a stale squad. The cash has been splashed this month, with forward Omar Marmoush plus defenders Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis arriving through the Etihad doors, while they may still land full-back Andrea Cambiaso before the deadline. These are hardly household names, but they're of the age profile and requisite dynamism to help begin a new era.

Guardiola hasn't been afforded time to waste to integrate the newbies. Both Khusanov and Marmoush started last week's 3-1 win at home to Chelsea, and their inexperience, particularly of the former who gifted the Blues the opening goal, came to the fore. How this new cohort will fare under the Emirates cosh could also prove disastrous.

Like City, Arsenal had to withstand an autumnal wobble, which they are still paying the price for in their attempts to chase down Arne Slot's Reds. A four-game streak which returned two points against Bournemouth, Liverpool, Newcastle and Chelsea prior to the November international break will be pointed to as the cause of failure if they do not end the season top of the league.

In spite of lengthy injuries first to Odegaard and now to Saka, Arsenal have maintained their competitive edge, leaning further into a style predicated on grinding out results. Even if they wanted to, they probably wouldn't be able to play with the same full-throttle breathlessness from a couple of years ago with such a rotating cast of next-man-up candidates.

Out of the FA Cup and with progression to the final of the Carabao Cup extremely unlikely, the Gunners are now able to focus on going all the way in the Premier League and Champions League, with another mid-season excursion to Dubai lined up as well.

This game has come at the most opportune of times for Arsenal and the complete inverse for City. It was around this point of last season that the Gunners clicked into gear and got their act together, piecing together a number of high-stakes wins to put themselves back in a position to challenge.

Three more points to hunt down Liverpool would be sweet enough, but the added bonus of tailspinning City again is the added cherry of motivation on top, even if Arteta and Co will publicly downplay such thinking. City, at this point of a rivalry which now boasts a Wikipedia page, are the pretenders of the two, and every player in the Arsenal dressing room scarred by previous burns will want to inflict further damage.

For Haaland, the stakes are equally as high, even if they are differing and were only raised to this level by his own idiocy and ego. The pressure is on him to keep scoring the goals to recover City's season, to block out the Emirates noise, to prove himself a capable leader of a new generation for the next 10 years of his lengthy contract. Sunday could turn metaphorically bloody if he doesn't live up to his own hype.