Pep Guardiola posts shocking career-worst statistic in Man City's draw with Arsenal as tactical shift backfires

City were just minutes away from claiming a morale-boosting victory at Arsenal, only for Martinelli to burst their bubble. Gunners midfielder Declan Rice said this was the most dominant his team has been against Guardiola's side, and the statistics backed that up.

According to OptaJoe, City had 32.8 per cent possession against Arsenal - the lowest possession average by a Guardiola team in a top-flight league match (601 in total) in his career. The former Barca and Bayern Munich boss has been a manager for nearly 20 years, and is famed for his tiki-taka style of play based on ball domination, so this is quite the stat.

Before the game, City had played rivals Manchester United and Napoli in the space of a week. That, according to Guardiola, explained City's more defensive-minded and less high-pressing approach against Arsenal.

"We cannot make analysis without talking about what happened this week. We played tough games against United and Napoli. Hats off to the team and the resilience. When you are not effective in the pressing, always it is difficult. I think the result is fair," he said. "We made some transitions but I think Arsenal was better. It’s a better result than last season and better against United last week, so we will take that. They were better and we were tired. We played an emotional game against Napoli and then we had four or five hours to arrive to London. It was so tough but we were there. We had to be so strong in terms of mentality and we have done it. We have a lot of fatigue, how many injuries with John [Stones], [Rayan] Cherki, [Rayan] Ait-Nouri, Nathan [Ake] was out, and then [Abdukodir] Khusanov got injured."

City, who are ninth in the Premier League after five games, next take on Huddersfield Town in the Carabao Cup third round on Wednesday before hosting Burnley in the Premier League on Saturday.