I like to think that I am both a professional at what I do and a sports fan still not too jaded to have lost my irrational passions. I'm lucky enough to work at Defector, where I am free to exercise both of those two sides of myself, which is why I can openly throw my bias in everyone's face by saying this, even if I can't believe it as I type it: I am absolutely rooting for Manchester City to come from behind and steal the Premier League title from Arsenal.
Trust me, as a renowned and beloved Liverpool fan, this hurts me more to write than it does you to read. My Pool Boys battled with City for years on either side of the COVID pandemic, and came second in all but one year of direct confrontation (the awkwardly interrupted 2019-20 season). Twice Liverpool finished an agonizing single point behind City in a title race, and that's a fate I never thought I'd wish on another club. Until now, that is. Thanks to the events of this past weekend, not only am I rooting for Pep Guardiola and his band of state-bought mercenaries, but I am doing so with few reservations, thanks both to the return of the best kind of Pepball and to the continued existence of Mikel Arteta's torturous brand of soccer.
Let's start with Arsenal, because I feel pretty confident in saying that Saturday's 2-1 home defeat to Bournemouth was the worst Gunners performance of the season.
It's not just that Bournemouth is the lowest team in the table that Arsenal has lost to in the league this season, or that the Cherries were able to grab the upset on pure merit. It's the fact that Arsenal looked scared and tense throughout that should worry Gooners most. I have not enjoyed Arsenal's style of play this season, but I have had begrudging respect for how ruthlessly Arteta has set up his side in search of three points each time out, no matter the aesthetic price the team pays. Arsenal would not be the least entertaining side to ever win the Premier League, but it still never feels like enough has been made of the discrepancy between Arsenal's talent and Arsenal's end product.
On Saturday, that was taken to its nadir. Arsenal failed to create chances from open play for 90 minutes, while Bournemouth became one of only four sides to crack Arteta's defense enough to actually win a Premier League match. Eli Junior Kroupi's opener might have felt a bit lucky, but I really appreciated Alex Scott's winner, which came from a nifty little move down the right side of the attacking third, a move that left Scott open through on goal for a cool finish:
On the other side, Arsenal managed only Viktor Gyokeres's 35th minute penalty, as 10 corners yielded no goals and the only other real chances ended up being an offside goal from the Swedish striker and a well struck Declan Rice shot that required a neat save from Djordje Petrovic. It was a slog to watch Arsenal try to break down a Cherries defense that has allowed the fifth-most goals in the league this season. It has been a slog to watch Arsenal try to do that for most of the year, only really interrupted by the seemingly random bursts of goalscoring acumen displayed in wins like the 4-1 against Tottenham in February, or the 4-0 over Leeds in January.
In my Champions League quarterfinal primer, I said that Arsenal can't be trusted, and it sure looks like that feeling was correct. The Gunners have now lost three of four across all competitions, with only a nervy 1-0 win over Sporting Lisbon in Portugal standing as a positive over the last month or so. Luckily for Arsenal, nothing besides the dream of a quadruple is fully lost yet, as the club still has a six-point lead—with one more match played—in the Premier League, and the club controls its own destiny from here on out ...
... but so does Manchester City. It's a delight of scheduling coincidence that City and Arsenal face each other this upcoming Sunday, at the exact moment when City is flying highest and Arsenal is staring down the prospect of yet another bottle job. If Arsenal wins or even draws this weekend, that should be enough to seal the title, barring a truly historic collapse. However, thanks to both Arsenal's capitulation at home on Saturday and City's 3-0 demolition of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge the following day, it would only take a normal collapse for Arsenal to blow this. I honestly might even say that City should be considered favorites now.
Before getting into all that, I have to get into just how good City looked against Chelsea on Sunday. The biggest knock against City this season has been its inconsistency, particularly prior to the new year; their four losses before Jan. 1 are as many Ls as Arsenal taken all season. (Three draws on the other side of the new year didn't help, either.) However, City hasn't lost in the Premier League since Jan. 17, and though it has dropped six total points via draws since then, City has done just enough to give itself chances to claw back into the title race. Sunday's Chelsea match was another golden opportunity, perhaps the best City has gotten all season, and after so many previous flubs to make this a real title race, City finally pounced on the chance. It took some time, but as soon as Nico O'Reilly's point-blank header went in at the 51-minute mark, it was as if the floodgates not just of Sunday's match but really of City's season, so up-and-down to this point, finally opened.
Three goals in 17 minutes, and suddenly Manchester City went from a thorn in Arsenal's side to an object looming in the rearview. Chelsea simply had no answer for City's attacking firepower. Indeed, Champions League flop notwithstanding, City's attack seems to be finally hitting its stride. Putting aside the beating City took against Real Madrid, the Sky Blues have scored 15 goals in six matches since the start of March across all competitions. Along the way, they have knocked Liverpool out of the FA Cup, beaten this very same Arsenal for the League Cup trophy, and have now taken the top spot on the goalscoring charts in the Premier League (63-62 over Arsenal).
So when O'Reilly scored, or when Marc Guéhi scored after a fittingly masterful Rayan Cherki move and assist, or even Jérémy Doku's exclamation point-comma-dynamite-stick-on-the-title-race in the 68th, it felt like the throwing of a gauntlet. While Arsenal can keep control of the league if they manage at least a draw on Sunday at City's ground, City can wrest that control away with a win. That would put City just three points behind Arsenal with a game in hand; win that extra game as well, and suddenly there's a deadlock at the top. As of right now, the tiebreaker would go to Arsenal, due to its superior plus-38 goal difference (City is plus-35), but anything more than a 1-0 win for City shifts that back in its favor. There's a universe where the goal difference tiebreaker bounces back and forth between the two teams from now until the end of the season, which would be perversely riveting, though for the sake of everyone's sanity, I hope that's not the ultimate decider; I'm evil enough to hope that Arsenal loses a close title race, but not evil enough to hope that the loss comes down to a tiebreaker.
Regardless, this past weekend breathed some much-needed life into the Premier League title race. I do still think this is Arsenal's to lose; I assume Arteta will cook up a truly disgusting and effective defensive gameplan to grind out a 0-0 draw this weekend, and Arsenal should be heavily favored in all of its remaining matches after that. Then again ... Arsenal was heavily favored to beat Bournemouth at home, and instead walked off the pitch to a chorus of boos. The Gooners are restless after what was been a truly horrid month, and while I don't know how much I believe in armchair psychoanalyzing a soccer team from afar, it does seem like you're starting to see in their play the weight of the pressure they're under to hopefully win the club's first league title since the Invincibles of 2004. Their attacking stodginess may be nothing new, but Arsenal's previously impregnable defense has looked mighty vulnerable of late. Without that bedrock defensive solidity, the entire foundation of Arteta's unlovable but heretofore effective style of play crumbles.
Just a month ago, I wouldn't have given City much of a chance to pull off the comeback, but Guardiola is nothing if not ruthless in pursuit of silverware, and City certainly has the talent and tactics to pull this off. It feels gross to root for that outcome, given City's gleeful disregard for any and all financial rules—we're all still waiting for whatever slap on the wrist the club will get from its 115 charges—and the sportswashing enterprise that first propelled City into the top of the Premier League 14 years ago. It's not great that I have been pushed to this simply by how much I hate watching the Arsenal of 2025-26 play soccer, but I have to be honest with myself here. And so, while I have no idea which way this will actually go, I do feel confident that this Sunday's match, already the most anticipated late fixture of the season, will either mark the moment Arsenal became champions or the moment that, once again, Arsenal bottled the league away, and I know which outcome I want most.
