Arsenal and Man City on ‘collision course’ amid Gary Neville conspiracy nonsense | OneFootball

‘How bizarre fixture quirk could see Arsenal and Man City face each other FIVE TIMES in one month’ as Gary Neville exposes a conspiracy.

It’s mostly absolute nonsense but that’s the football media in 2026.

How bizarre

Contrary to the impression created by our grumpiness, Mediawatch does get some curious pleasure from the gymnastics required to create certain headlines. Here’s one from The Sun:

And what is this ‘bizarre fixture quirk’ exactly? Is it that they are the two best team teams in England and are both still in multiple competitions and could potentially face each other in those competitions? Nailed it.

They are already slated to play twice (once in Premier League, once in Carabao Cup final) but that could so very easily become FIVE if…

a) Arsenal beat Wigan in the FA Cup.

b) Manchester City beat Salford in the FA Cup.

c) The two are drawn together in the FA Cup last 16 or both win their last-16 ties and are drawn together in the quarter-finals.

d) Arsenal win their last-16 Champions League match.

e) Manchester City win their last-16 Champions League match, which could be against Real Madrid.

f) The Champions League quarter-final draw pitches them together.

It’s tricky to calculate exact odds for this particular set of circumstances but we stopped doing the maths at 100/1.

This apparently counts as a ‘collision course’.

The Sun then admit that ‘there’s every chance they could be kept apart until the finals of both the FA Cup and Champions League, should both teams continue their cup runs’.

And we would add that there’s every chance they could be kept apart in both competitions. Indeed, a far greater chance than any other possibility.

Arsenal and Manchester City could meet each other anywhere between two and FIVE times in a month but probably just two.

Bizarre.

Mind the gap

It might actually be their first appearance on this page but this is a Mediawatch bugbear, as seen on the Premier League website:

Nope. A bizarre fixture quirk simply saw them play a day later. The gap very much remains at six points.

Hunting high and low…

What gap? According to The Sun, ‘Pep Guardiola vows to hunt Arsenal down in Premier League title chase as Haaland winner ends 89-year hoodoo’.

He really f***ing doesn’t. Because that would be mental.

What he did say was that “all we can now do is breathe down the neck of Arsenal and be there. If they sleep, if they make a mistake, then we have to use it”.

He also said that “I have a feeling that improving a little bit will not be enough to compete against Arsenal,” but oddly enough, those quotes are missing from that Sun story.

So it’s less ‘hunting down’ and more ‘if they fall down and it’s right outside our house…’

TribalFootball go even further and claim that Guardiola is ‘adamant Man City can haul in Arsenal’, which is frankly nothing short of a right load of sweaty bollocks, while the Mirror claim an ‘ominous title warning’. Again, it’s nonsense.

The man was asked whether Manchester City were still in the title race and he basically said ‘it’s going to be tricky but we’ll try’ several times over.

That’s some ominous hunting down talk, right there.

Don’t you worry ’bout a thing

But we all have to pretend this is a proper title race – even though Manchester City are no closer to Arsenal than they were before this weekend’s fixtures and Opta still give them a 90% chance of winning the title…

And why exactly should Arsenal worry that Haaland and Guardiola have now both won at Anfield? It only earned them the usual three points.

‘Their squad lacks title winners, they’ve look a tad nervy at times already this season and we’re still a long way from the finish line,’ say the Manchester Evening News.

Slight fly in that ointment: Arsenal merrily beat Sunderland 3-0 on Saturday. And remain six points ahead of City.

Stop press: Some people are loons

There was some serious lunacy on social media on Sunday when Gary Neville said on Sky Sports during commentary from Liverpool:

Now this would come as no surprise to any normal, right-thinking folk because we know that the TV producers have access to the conversations between the officials, but not everybody has their own access to rational thought.

Where there is social media, you can always find somebody with a ludicrous conspiracy theory. And it’s not always an Arsenal fan.

But what we can’t forgive is the Daily Mail deciding that this is THE story of Monday morning.

Arsenal fans? Or a couple of absolutely deluded ones?

The Mail very obviously know what they are doing with this nonsense and we live in a post-truth world, but it makes Mediawatch more than a little uncomfortable that this nonsense leads the media narrative in places that really should know better.