Are Man City now slight favourites in the title race?

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·10 February 2026

Are Man City now slight favourites in the title race?

Like many Gooners, I had this past weekend pencilled in for being a decisive couple of days in the title race.

If we could beat Sunderland, we knew we would send Man City to Anfield 24 hours later, nine points behind us.

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Pep Guardiola has had better versions who have struggled to win at Liverpool, let alone with the pressure of even a draw not being good enough. Out of Bernardo Silva’s own mouth, one of their leaders was saying that usually 1-1 on the red half of Merseyside is a decent result, but on Sunday, the visitors felt their fight for the Championship would be over without a win.

City shows character

Any kind of victory would have been a statement, but if their manager could have written the perfect route to victory, it would have been this. With 10 minutes to go, 1-0 down, the Spaniard was slumped in his chair. A lot of teams in that situation go through the motions. It took character to do what City did. Coached by a winner, Pep will know there is so much about the closing stages he can use to make his men believe they can now put together a winning sequence.

The 55-year-old knows the key advantage he has over Mikel Arteta is a dressing room that knows how to get over the line in April / May.

Some of my peers have tried to downplay this as having any impact on Arsenal, yet I sense they protest too much.

Uneasy feeling

It’s rare to feel dread and an uneasy feeling in your stomach when your team is not even playing. It did feel like it was the Gunners who had conceded in stoppage time.

Now, if City win on Wednesday, we go to Brentford on Thursday with the gap at three points. That’s how quickly momentum can change in top-level sport.

It would take us to then blink before our rivals for Mr Guardiola to point out that with the leaders still to visit the Etihad (where Arteta has never won), it really wouldn’t take a lot for the Premiership to go back to Manchester.

Dan Smith

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