The North London derby that could define the Premier League title race
Mikel Arteta and Ange Postecoglou might be able to settle in and discuss a few shared ideas. Both have worked in the City Football Group structure, which reflects how much the Abu Dhabi-owned champions shape the wider game. You can even look at how a former Manchester City player is joint top scorer with a current Manchester City player.
There probably hasn’t been this extent of pure football influence since Barcelona fostered an entire generation of coaches from the early 2000s on. That is no coincidence since the City project directly sought to appropriate the entire Camp Nou ideology. This was one of the points of pursuing Pep Guardiola for so long.
A core of that philosophy, which seems so standard now but was once revolutionary, is persisting with the system regardless of what happens around you — or to you. You keep the faith. You trust the process. Arteta and Postecoglou have exemplified this, if from alternative interpretations of the tactics.
In his difficult first two years, the Arsenal manager insisted on playing through a possession game, even amid so many frustrating spells. Meanwhile, Postecoglou’s commitment to attack has been one of the themes of the season. “It’s just who we are, mate” has almost become a meme.
You keep going through the process until you reach a point of end product. You don’t actively think about it but internalise it. The idea is that it becomes second nature, and teams can play on instinct. A problem for both teams in this north London derby, however, is they can’t but think
