Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has dismissed Manchester City’s slump in form as a “bump” and insisted they remain serious Premier League title contenders this season.
City boss Pep Guardiola is enduring the worst run of his glittering managerial career after his team blew a three-goal lead to draw 3-3 with Feyenoord on Tuesday to extend their winless run to six matches.
The defending champions could fall 11 points behind leaders Liverpool if they lose at Anfield on Sunday and Guardiola’s dishevelled look after the Feyenoord game — in which he exhibited cuts and marks having repeatedly scratched his face during the game — has added to suggestions City’s dominance of English football could be coming to an end.
But Arteta said: “What I have made of it is what they have done for nine years. I think that is what people have to talk about, how difficult it is what they have done for nine years consistently.
“And yeah, a bump, everybody has a bump. For them, it is very strange because in nine years they never had it. But that tells you as well the level and the environment that we are in, that everything has to go almost perfect.
“Performance has to be perfect, availability of your squad has to be perfect, things have to go your way and the opposition, the level is different, and it’s so hard to win.”
Asked about whether he had any concern for Guardiola — with whom he spent three years under as a coach at City prior to taking over at Arsenal in December 2019 — Arteta replied: “That is something very personal, but I feel a lot of sympathy for all my colleagues because I know the job, I know how ruthless this industry is.
“I know how we get judged just by one thing, which is results, regardless that you have done exactly the same thing and the outcome becomes different. We have to deal with that, I know how difficult it is because personally I have been through that a lot and every defeat is obviously super painful.
“And that’s it. Then just put some perspective into it like we always do and move on, because there is always another game.”
Arteta was coy on the fitness of centre-back Gabriel Magalhães, who limped off before the end of Arsenal’s Champions League midweek thrashing of Sporting Lisbon in Portugal with an apparent muscular problem.