How Man City tactics have changed as Arsenal go direct

There’s something quite interesting going on with Manchester City.

This is a Premier League that is more direct, more man-to-man, more physical, more rough-and-tumble than it’s been since the 1990s.

At the same time, this is a Manchester City that is trying to find its identity again after a season where everything fell apart and went wrong in 2024/25. It’s perhaps easy to think that City remain the same City as before their crisis of confidence 12 months ago, but in this Brave New World of long throws and one-v-one duels all over the pitch, City are fighting with themselves to work out how it all looks.

For Pep Guardiola, the principles haven’t changed: “Still I believe, one good action [from] the keeper [to] the central…