Arsenal's tactics have stopped working and the goals have dried up for toothless attack - but still Mikel Arteta sticks with them. Here are four ways he can shake things up to outsmart Pep Guardiola and Manchester City in title decider

Mikel Arteta has not been for turning, no matter how Arsenal bums continue to squeak.

For weeks now, the Gunners have looked cagey, nervy and full of fear as the Quadruple became the Treble and now just the Champions League and Premier League remain. Yet still Arteta sticks to his stubborn guns. If set-pieces and trying to play through the middle no matter what the opposition do have got us this far, they can take us all the way.

We will find that out for certain this weekend when Arsenal take on Manchester City in a gargantuan title decider. The defeat in the Carabao Cup final is still fresh in the mind, and so is the way City suffocated Arsenal in the second half, blocking off their passing channels to the point that Kepa Arrizabalaga was left standing on the ball at one stage for what seemed like an age.

Then, at home to Bournemouth last weekend, they found themselves time and again unable to play through their opponents, resulting in their players - in particular Martin Zubimendi - being caught on the ball and exposing them to the Cherries' rapid transitions, which they used to brilliant effect in a 2-1 win for Andoni Iraola's side.

In truth it's a problem the Gunners have been unable to solve since the turn of the year, with the goals drying up and attacking fluidity a distant memory.

So what lessons has Arteta learned ahead of what could be the biggest game of his Arsenal tenure? And what could he change to catch Pep Guardiola off guard? Here is how he can get the better of City when it matters and get that Premier League title all-but wrapped up.

1. Beat the press

First of all, they must find a way to beat the new Manchester City press. Or, to be more precise, their lack of one. Guardiola bamboozled the Gunners in the Carabao Cup final by pushing his attackers up in a front four but then standing off Arsenal’s defenders and allowing as much as time as they wanted on the ball.

Arsenal didn’t know what to do with it. They couldn’t draw players out to make space to pass around them because City’s front four of Rayan Cherki, Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku and Antoine Semenyo refused to jump on to them.

City did it against Arsenal and they did it against Liverpool and Chelsea too. You can bet, then, that they will use it again on Sunday, until Arteta works out a way around it.

What Arsenal failed to do – and will need to if they are going to get a result at the Etihad – is find a way to play through that front City line instead of humping it hopefully over the top to no one as they did in the Carabao Cup final and watch the ball come straight back.

Arsenal struggled to play out against Bournemouth too. For as phenomenal as a defender as Gabriel is, he’s not Franz Beckenbauer with the ball at his feet. It was his lazy long ball that deflected off the man closing him down and led to Alex Scott's winner.

2. Drop Zubimendi

For Arsenal to play through the press and progress the ball through the lines they need more from Zubimendi.

The Spaniard hit the ground running after joining last summer but has been struggling in recent months. When you have played nearly 80 per cent of your team’s minutes in all competitions for a side that’s battled across four competitions, time does perhaps catch up with you.

His back-up, Christian Norgaard, is clearly not trusted by Arteta - the former Brentford captain has played just 61 minutes in the Premier League. So Zubimendi plays. And plays. And plays.

But he needs to be much, much braver. In the Carabao Cup final against City, he too often hid behind Haaland instead of showing for the ball. Without that option, it’s too easy for his defenders to lump it.

Against Bournemouth, whenever he did receive the ball in deep areas, those positions where Arteta needs him to turn and play the ball forward, he just went sideways and backwards.

As his pass map from that game shows, whenever he did try to play forward, he often misplaced his passes (grey arrows). Despite frequently going backwards, he still recorded his second-lowest pass accuracy (76 per cent) in a league game this season.

Martin Zubimendi's pass map v Bournemouth (Arsenal attacking left to right)

So what does Arteta do? Declan Rice could be given more of a deep-lying brief akin to the one he had when he first arrived in 2023. Drop Rice even deeper into the back line, in front of the City press, and make him the one to progress the ball.

Arteta is paying the price for not rotating his key men earlier in the season when he had the chance because now, with City, he needs his best players playing at their best. The problem is, they aren’t.

3. Unleash Rice

If Arteta drops Rice even deeper, though, you lose the driving force behind some of the best football of his Arsenal reign. So how about going back to that shape and allowing Rice to be more influential higher up the pitch?

Since Zubimendi's arrival last summer, Arteta has preferred a 4-2-3-1 shape to his long trusted 4-3-3 but it’s leaving Arsenal struggling to create in central areas, a problem that has become more pronounced in the second half of the season when opponents can use what they learned from their first meeting against Arsenal.

If you compare where Arsenal’s players have provided assists before and after New Year’s Day, you can see a wasteland appear around the 'D' at the edge of the 18-yard box. Instead, Arsenal's creativity has been pushed wide.

Arsenal's Premier League assists this season up until New Year's Day (graphic: Opta)

...and how that's changed since New Year's Day (graphic: Opta)

When they were at their creative and dominant best under Arteta in the back end of 2023-24, Rice was on the left side of the midfield trio, allowing him to push high in both defensive presses and in attack, linking up with the left winger.

Now, with Rice stuck alongside Zubimendi, there’s too much of a disconnect between Arsenal’s midfield and attack.

When Arsenal thumped City 5-1 at the Emirates Stadium last season, it was Rice who set up two of the goals and created four chances from open play, the second-most he’s managed in a league game since joining Arsenal.

You can see from his pass map that day, compared to the Bournemouth defeat, how much further forward he was able to roam. He, like Zubimendi, has played more than 70 per cent of Arsenal's minutes this season. No wonder Arteta said after the Champions League quarter-final against Sporting Lisbon this week that the England man looked ‘shattered’.

Declan Rice's passes against Manchester City last season, as Arsenal cruised to a 5-1 win (kicking left to right - graphic: WhoScored)

And how he was pressed deeper into his own half against Bournemouth last week (Arsenal kicking left to right, graphic: WhoScored)

4. Start Havertz

Arsenal’s most recent front three of Gabriel Martinelli, Viktor Gyokeres and Noni Madueke is not working.

They have won two of the last six games they have started together and both of those needed goals from Kai Havertz off the bench.

CBS Sports showed data before the second leg against Sporting that when Martinelli, Gyokeres and Madueke are on the pitch together, Arsenal's open play xG per 90 minutes drops from 1.04 to 0.14.

That trio struggles to hold on to the ball, especially Gyokeres, with Sky Sports analysis showing that only Sunderland’s Eliezer Mayenda loses the ball with a greater percentage of his touches, compared to the Arsenal striker’s 43 per cent.

Arsenal cannot afford to be so profligate with possession against City. They’ll kill you.

These are all forwards, too, who love to stretch defences but when there is frequently such a gap between midfield and attack, Arteta needs a player who can control tempo high up the pitch.

Few do that as well as Havertz, who played brilliantly in that 5-1 win last season, as well as 1-0 win for Arsenal against City the season before.

In a game Arsenal cannot afford to lose but don’t necessarily need to win, Havertz could give them the control they desperately need.