Good afternoon, hope you are having a happy and restful Easter Sunday and thank you for joining us for this big match in the Premier League, where Arsenal (top of the table this morning) travel to Manchester City (third in the table this morning). I mention “this morning” because the other contender in the battle is Liverpool, and they are currently in action at home to Brighton, so the game’s afoot at the top of the table. Liverpool went 0-1 early on, good news for both City and Arsenal fans you’d fancy. You can follow that blog live with m’colleague Dan Zeqiri here. Kick off from Manchester City will be at 4.30pm.
It is a fascinating encounter and there are some very good previews about it from HMDT’s football experts. Sam Wallace has an in-depth look at how City learned from Arsenal in terms of recruitment, and then applied their far superior financial resources to surge ahead. “City hunted Arsenal down as the weakest of the Premier League’s big four at the end of the 2000s and did so effectively. They signed some of their best players,” writes Sam. Well worth a read How Manchester City hunted Arsenal off the pitch in bid for world domination.
The splendid Declan Rice spent some time recently talking to our Arsenal correspondent Sam Dean, in this here piece Declan Rice interview: This is a new Arsenal – we are ready to change what people say. The Basmati Busquets says that the days of Arsenal being mentally flaky in these big matches are long gone. Rice: “I think we are ready to change that barrier about what people say about Arsenal. But it’s down to us. We are the ones who have to go on the pitch and do it.” No time like the present, is there?
Pep’s having a few pops at his former protege: “But after more than 20 years Arsenal haven’t won the Premier League, so they will have something to prove and that’s normal.” Read more of that here as Pep Guardiola ramps up mind games ahead of Arsenal showdown: They have had it easy in title race.