Two straight victories for Arsenal and the Premier League title race is back to what it has been for most of the season: the chaser versus the chased.
Mikel Arteta’s men top the table and have points on the board — 76 of them — while Manchester City, six points adrift, have two games in hand. But which position is the best to be in? To be Arsenal, the long-time front-runners regaining momentum after wins over Newcastle United and Fulham? Or a seen-it-done-it-all-before City, who have their rivals in their sights?
Speaking on Sky Sports after City beat Burnley 1-0 at the end of last month, Micah Richards said the last six games of the season in a title race are “different psychologically”.
“I couldn’t sleep at night,” said the former City defender, who also spoke about the importance of having experience of winning in such high-pressure situations — a vital aspect of this title race.
Pep Guardiola has rebuilt large parts of his squad in the past 12 months. Six of the 11 who started in the 2-1 win over Arsenal last month have yet to win the Premier League under him, but the manager himself has been an English champion six times. Arsenal, meanwhile, have signed players who have won trophies but, as a group, are waiting for that tangible moment that rubber-stamps their status.
Richards’ City won the FA Cup the season before they won the Premier League for the first time in 2011-12. In 2005, Chelsea won the League Cup two months before being crowned champions.
“Jumping the last hurdle is actually the hardest part,” former Chelsea and Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech tells The Athletic. “You’re almost there, but you need to get there. People think winning is easy, but it’s not. You need to experience that. You need to know how to handle winning and difficult periods.”
That Chelsea side lost just once in the league all season but suffered back-to-back defeats by Newcastle United (FA Cup) and Barcelona (Champions League) the week before their League Cup triumph. The trophy helped shift the mood at a difficult time, Cech says.
“As a team, sometimes you need the first trophy to actually get it. That’s why it’s so important for Arsenal to jump over the last hurdle because for future seasons, there will be a huge boost for everyone to say, ‘We’ve done it, now let’s carry on’.”
Manchester City celebrate winning a first top-flight title in 44 years (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
For the last three seasons, Arsenal have finished second in the league. Aside from three days — following City’s win at Burnley — they have topped the table since October. When they spurned a chance to go 12 points clear by losing 2-1 at home against Bournemouth last month, they opened the door and City capitalised, cutting the gap to six points later that weekend, with Guardiola’s team further reducing the deficit to zero thanks to wins over Arsenal and Burnley.
“The mental play here is that when you’re doing the chasing, perhaps there’s fewer expectations on you to win,” sports psychologist Dan Abrahams tells The Athletic. “If you’re in the lead for some time, then there’s something to lose and that is wrapped up in evolutionary psychology if you go back 200,000 years with cavemen.
“When they’re defending their home, there’s something to lose if you’ve got a wife and children in that cave. So you’re going to be more careful and cautious, which plays out on the pitch with hesitation and inhibition. In many circumstances, you’re slightly less cautious and hesitant (as a chaser) because you’re chasing your expectations.”
After years of trying, Rory McIlroy won his maiden Masters last year (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Comparisons had been made between Arsenal falling short in their bid for a league title and Rory McIlroy’s long wait for a Masters win. While there are clear differences between individual and team sports, Abrahams — who has worked with elite footballers and is also a former golf pro — believes there are some similarities.
“McIlroy has said historically when he’s tried to win the Grand Slam and the Masters, he hasn’t necessarily known where to pitch his effort levels,” he says. “Does he really try hard and put it on a pedestal or does he do the absolute opposite? It’s complex, but it’s no coincidence that he won it again.
“He came back this year, had a mixed bag for four days, but was able to push on through and the winning of last year definitely made a difference.”
The pressure of expectation is felt at all levels of football. In the 2022-23 season, Wrexham were expected to win the National League after being taken over by Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac in 2021. Though they won the league by four points, Notts County were season-long chasers and the title was not won easily.
“We were expecting Notts County to drop off around Christmas and they never did,” Ollie Palmer, Wrexham’s then-record signing, tells The Athletic. “We realised then that it was going to be a serious two-horse race that would go all the way.
“You’re living in a hurricane, so the pressure and expectation become normal. From the outside, it looks crazy. But when it never slows down, you live in it and embrace it.
“The levels are different between the Premier League and the National League, but the common denominator for success is having characters. You have to be able to look at the man next to you and believe he’s going to do his job, show his personality on the pitch and not shy away from responsibility. It was never one man responsible for our success, it was always the whole squad.”
Wrexham’s Ollie Palmer and Elliot Lee celebrate after gaining promotion to League Two (Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
Should City beat Everton and Brentford, they will be back level on points with Arsenal before Mikel Arteta’s men make the short trip to West Ham United on May 10. City’s game in hand at home against Crystal Palace falls three days later, which could prove vital.
Just like City and Arsenal last month, Palmer’s Wrexham had a similar end-of-season showdown with Notts County. Level on 100 points when they met in the April of that season, Wrexham came back from going a goal down to win 3-2 with the help of a late penalty save from Ben Foster. Days later, they won their game in hand over Yeovil Town 3-0 to press home their advantage.
“Not at all,” Palmer says when asked whether the dressing room felt that the league was done. “There were still three games to go and football can change overnight. We drew again, which brought them within touching distance. They could have jumped us if we lost.
“In the end, it was about the belief and consistency in the way we played. Also, the characters in the dressing room were so cohesive. Every one of us had different personalities, but they gelled so well. People would assume you need to be shouting and screaming before a game, but no one tried to rev the lads up. There could be silence, but there was so much confidence in that silence.”
Did he and his team-mates still check Notts County’s results despite that confidence? “Across any level, if someone tells you they’re not looking at the league table and other team’s results, they’re lying,“ the striker, now of Swindon Town, says.
One of the Premier League’s tightest title races came in 2009-10 between Chelsea and Manchester United. That March, Chelsea were knocked out of the Champions League by former manager Jose Mourinho’s Inter, and then drew with Blackburn Rovers, leaving them four points off the top, albeit with a game in hand.
Last month, on The Dressing Room Podcast, Joe Cole recalled an “ultra crisis meeting” that took place in the aftermath of those two results.
“Roman Abramovich came into the training ground on a helicopter,” he said. “We went into the press conference room so everybody could get in, squad and staff. Roman could speak English, but his interpreter expressed how unhappy he was with us. He said ‘Are you big players, or just players with big salaries?’
“It angered us, but you can’t portray your anger to Roman. But it lit a fire.”
Chelsea went on to win all but one of their remaining league fixtures, the decisive result being the 2-1 win against United at Old Trafford which saw the Londoners move two points above Sir Alex Ferguson’s side. While there were twists and turns in the race, Chelsea had momentum in the final five matches of that season and went on to win the league by one point on the final day.
In the aftermath of Arsenal’s defeat by City, Arteta framed the final five weeks of this campaign as the start of a new league. It was a way to reset. But when goal difference, as well as points, need to be factored in, more needs to be taken into consideration: when to start contemplating the margin of victory and not just the three points? How bold must a team be in pursuit of goals?
Arsenal players celebrate in the dressing room after beating Liverpool on the final day of the 1988-89 season (Allsport/Getty Images)
In 1988-89, Liverpool went on an 18-game unbeaten run in the second half of the season. They took 48 points from 54 and improved their goal difference by 32 to arrive at the final game of the season three points and four goals ahead of Arsenal, who happened to be their opponents after the fixture was rescheduled following the Hillsborough disaster.
Arsenal needed a two-goal victory to take them level on points and goal difference, and win the league on goals scored. Famously, they did exactly that. Alan Smith scored the first in the 52nd minute and, in arguably the greatest denouement to any season in English football, Michael Thomas found the winner in the 92nd minute. George Graham resisted the temptation to go gung-ho and instructed his team to play on the counter-attack. He wanted a platform to win first.
The only Premier League-era title to be decided on goal difference was in 2011-12, when Roberto Mancini’s City team pipped Manchester United on the final day to win City’s first top-flight title in 44 years.
Goal difference was decisive last year in the Championship, as both Leeds United and Burnley ended the season on 100 points. Leeds’ +65 goal difference was far superior to Burnley’s +53, helped by 6-0 and 4-0 wins over Stoke City and Bristol City during the run-in. Like Arsenal in 1989, Leeds’ winner against Plymouth Argyle came in stoppage time on the final day of the season.
“Nobody had a phone, but we could understand that the crowd were reacting to the result in Burnley,” then-Leeds midfielder Josuha Guilavogui tells The Athletic, recalling the final day of the season, when both teams kicked off at the same time.
“It was one of the best feelings ever,” he says of Manor Salomon’s winner. “I don’t know how many players or athletes can have this kind of emotion. It felt like winning a 100 metre Olympic sprint by only 0.001 seconds difference.”
Leeds United were level on 100 points with Burnley in the Championship last season (Harry Trump/Getty Images)
But Arteta knows what it is like to play under pressure, knows what it’s like to score a 90th-minute penalty to ensure Rangers won the Scottish title on goal difference over Celtic in the 2002-03 season.
In late April, heading into the final Old Firm derby of the season, Alex McLeish’s side were eight points clear with five games remaining. Celtic had a game in hand, but to win the title, they still required Rangers to slip up twice. Losing the derby and drawing against Dundee the following week, cranked up the pressure on Rangers.
The two teams would run parallel to the finish line, scoring as many as they could. Celtic beat Motherwell 4-0, Hearts 1-0 and Dundee 6-2. Rangers beat Kilmarnock 4-0 and Hearts 2-0. They arrived on the final day level on 94 points and a +68 goal difference.
On a see-saw afternoon, Celtic went 4-0 up and Rangers 5-1 up. They remained tied on points and goal difference. Celtic required a two-goal swing and had missed a penalty through Alan Thompson but the tension remained at Ibrox, even when they were presented with a penalty in the 93rd minute.
“He pulled rank on everybody,” McLeish tells The Athletic of a 21-year-old Arteta that day.
He had Lorenzo Amoruso, Arthur Numan, Barry Ferguson, Shota Arveladze, Ronald de Boer and Scottish internationals Neil McCann and Steven Thompson as more senior team-mates. “He just took the ball,” said De Boer. “That says something about his personality.”
As 50,000 home fans stood in silence, Arteta stepped up and sent the goalkeeper the wrong way to make it 6-1, putting it beyond doubt that the trophy went to Ibrox.
“It was one of the best feelings I ever had in my career,” said Arteta last month. “You have to put everything into it, it’s all in when you play these five games. Everything you have, you have to put on the table. You have to make it happen.”
Both City and Arsenal won their first games of this mini-league by a goal. Arsenal have since beaten Fulham and now face West Ham, Burnley and Crystal Palace in their remaining fixtures. On paper, that is a kinder run than City’s, who have Everton, Brentford, Bournemouth, Palace and Aston Villa.
This is a new experience for Arsenal, but one their manager has lived before. He will hope to inspire a similar, if less nerve-jangling, triumph.
Jordan Campbell, Nnamdi Onyeagwara and Beren Cross contributed to reporting
