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The focus had been on Arsenal. They had not won in three Premier League games before this weekend and it was reasonable to ask how secure their position at the top of the table was. But the impact of their wobble was not that their lead was eaten into, but that they missed opportunities to extend it, because those in the chasing pack were also dropping points.
In their six league games since the New Year fixtures, Arsenal have dropped seven points. But City in the same period have dropped 11, as have Aston Villa and Liverpool. Fulham have dropped 10, Everton have dropped nine, Brentford and Newcastle have dropped eight, Chelsea seven and Manchester United six; hardly anyone in the top half of the table has closed the gap on Arsenal at all, which is why, after Saturday’s comfortable win at Leeds, their lead remains at six points.
It’s those squandered points for City that are the most striking. The fear for Arsenal as they have kept glancing back over their shoulders has been that City were about to go on a run, as they had before in previous title races. But it feels like the days when they were capable of suddenly wining 10 or 15 games in a row are over. In 2017-18 they won the title with 100 points, dropping only 14 points all season; this season, even if they won all remaining 14 games, they would only get to 89.
Arsenal must still play at Man City in April and, given their goal difference is only three superior to City’s, that effectively means they are still only one slip-up in another game from being caught. But that relies on the idea that something of the old relentless engine remains in City, and there is very little evidence of that. They led 1-0 at half-time against Chelsea but conceded an injury-time equaliser. They led 1-0 at half-time against Brighton but conceded an equaliser on the hour. They were drawing 0-0 at half-time against Manchester United but conceded twice in the second half. They were 2-0 up against Tottenham on Sunday, but conceded to Spurs’ Dominic Solanke in the 53rd and 70th minutes. That’s seven points lost in 2026 alone to second-half goals.
And it’s not that this trait has come from nowhere. At Newcastle in November, a 0-0 half-time scoreline became a 2-1 defeat. Since then, Fulham scored three against them in the second half and Leeds got two, although both still lost. Nottingham Forest and Wolves also put City under unexpected second-half pressure despite losing.
What lies behind these second-half drop-offs?
The obvious answer is fatigue. Tiredness stalks everybody in modern football. That may in part still be a result of the contortions of the calendar necessitated by the Covid lockdown and the Qatar World Cup, but it’s more to do with the expansion of tournaments: the Champions League, the World Cup, the Euros, the Africa Cup of Nations and the Copa América have all expanded in the past decade. Extra games now effectively serve as a handicapping system, with richer teams weighed down by having to play more football. More specifically for City, they played in Gianni Infantino’s bloated Club World Cup last summer, a disadvantage suffered by only Chelsea among other Premier League clubs.
But there is also a tactical issue. Although all Pep Guardiola teams have been capable of an intense press – it’s crucial to Total Football, which remains fundamental to his conception of the game – City had always been quick, if possession once lost was not quickly regained, to fall back into defensive shape. But last season, not particularly convincingly, they began pushing out to play an offside trap and then, in the summer, brought in the former Liverpool assistant coach Pep Lijnders. His football has always been based on an aggressive and high press and his influence is clear.
Quite apart from the challenges posed by implementing any new style, this one is a physically and mentally demanding way to play. The sense of control has gone. Whether that alone can account for City’s second half drop-offs is perhaps questionable, but it can’t be helping. If games ended at half-time this season, City would be leading the title race by 12 points, having lost just twice. If they started at half-time, City would be eighth, 13 points off the top. Their second halves are 19 points worse than their first.
If City had those seven points they have dropped this year from second-half concessions, they would be on top of the league. There would then be real pressure on Arsenal, particularly given the way City outlasted them in title races in 2022-23 and 2023-24. As it is, City feel at least as likely to slip up as Arsenal.
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This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email [email protected], and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.
