PEP TALK IS WORK OF ART
Guardiola defence of Gunners boss won’t save him after humiliation at the Etihad
PEP GUARDIOLA’S fullthroated support for Mikel Arteta may have come too late to save his ex-No.2.
After pushing his friend closer to the sack by dismantling his team, Guardiola claimed Arteta is still the right man to lead Arsenal out of their current crisis.
Quite how that view stacks up against such an abject display, only Guardiola knows, but the Arsenal board are unlikely to be swayed by Guardiola’s glowing endorsement.
Arteta may be missing several players through injury, but the way his side rolled over so obligingly at the Etihad Stadium, without any kind of fight, suggested he has already lost the dressing-room.
Manchester City scored five
DAVID McDONNELL AT THE ETIHAD STADIUM goals, but the worry for Arsenal is that it could have easily been double figures, with Guardiola’s side easing off once they had notched a fifth within the hour.
Granit Xhaka’s stupidity in earning a red card for a 35th-minute, two-footed lunge on Joao Cancelo underlined the lack of discipline and leadership at Arsenal.
And while Guardiola hailed the role Arteta played in establishing City as the country’s dominant football force in his three years in Manchester, it felt like too little, too late, given his current plight.
Guardiola said: “We know our jobs and especially in the big clubs like us or these ones when you don’t win, there are always rumours.
“I’m not talking about him as a friend, I’m talking about him as a professional and, when I was working alongside him, I learned.
“He helped us and he helped me a lot to achieve what we achieved together. I learned a lot and he taught me many things which we can use now.
“What we are now as a team is thanks to him and for the job he has done here. But we cannot forget he’s playing with five or six players out injured.”
For City, there are no such concerns, after a second successive 5-0 suggested their opening weekend 1-0 defeat at Tottenham was little more than an early season blip.
Two goals from Ferran Torres, with Ilkay Gundogan, Gabriel Jesus and Rodri also getting on the scoresheet, made it a comfortable afternoon for the reigning champions.
“I would have preferred to have nine points,” said Guardiola.
“We have six points from three fixtures but we have the feeling that these two-and-ahalf weeks have helped us a lot to work again with our basics.
“You see the schedule for September and we have to be ready, because coming up is a tough period for us.”
Not as tough a period for Arsenal, whose hierarchy must now decide whether to back or sack Arteta after their worst start to a season for 67 years.
Pointless, goalless and bottom of the Premier League going into the international break, the situation could not be more bleak for Arsenal.