Is Pep Guardiola Under More Pressure Than Arsene Wenger?

Rarely has a narrative been so well-defined so long before kickoff. We’ve known for a fortnight what this weekend will bring. Whether it transpires or not, this is going to be labelled as “Arsene Wenger’s Last Chance.”

Victory against Manchester City on Sunday will buy the Arsenal manager much-needed time. Defeat, however — well, defeat would surely be the breaking point. If Arsenal lose, it would be their fifth league defeat in six games. Arsenal once went from May 2003 to August 2006 without incurring more league defeats than that. It’s all very gloomy, but is it distracting us from what could also be a very gloomy day for Pep Guardiola?

The red part of North London is hardly a happy hunting ground for City. They’ve won only one of their last 19 league visits; in fact, if you take their 2012-13 victory out of the equation, a game in which the Gunners were reduced to 19 men after nine minutes, you have to go all the way back to 1975 to find a City victory here.

Guardiola’s side (Champions League humiliation notwithstanding) have solidified a little and are unbeaten in the league since January, but for all of Arsenal’s problems, it’s not exactly beyond the realms of possibility that City might lose this game. And with a horrible-looking trip to Chelsea in midweek, this week could come to define their season as much it could Arsenal’s.

There are innumerable reasons this should not be the case, chiefly that all managers — even Guardiola — should be entitled to a transitional season and certainly not judged by the most challenging slivers of a campaign. But the grim realities of modern football neutralises those justifications. Like it or not, if City come through three consecutive fixtures against Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea with fewer than five points (they have one from Liverpool already), Guardiola will face questions.

This is to be expected. Even without City’s vast resources, the arrival of the all-conquering former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss lifted expectations so high that only a Premier League title or the Champions League at the first time of asking would be considered a fair return. The best City can expect now is an FA Cup and second place. But if things go awry this weekend, there’s a chance they could finish empty-handed and as low as seventh.

English football has proved frustrating for Guardiola thus far. Journalists with the temerity to tempt him into describing it as the best league in the world have been met with his derision, but while the Premier League might not offer the highest quality, it’s certainly proved his toughest challenge. Guardiola has always been a innovative manager, defying convention in an eternal hunt for perfection, but on this side of the Channel, some of his boldest and bravest calls have failed horribly.

His recruitment of 33-year-old goalkeeper Claudio Bravo (£15.4 million, four-year contract) and expulsion of Joe Hart have been the pick of the blunders. The apparently less-than-corporeal Chilean hasn’t started a league game since Jan. 21, usurped by functional backup shot-stopper Willy Caballero.

Guardiola’s frequent flitting between back fours and back threes came to an end in December when his rearguard trio were torn apart by Chelsea. And we know him as a man who locks himself away with videos and plots against every opponent for hours at a time, but that reputation took a battering when he inexplicably chose to play an outrageously high line against a Leicester side that always struggles against deep-lying defences.

But City have improved since that miserable winter. They’ve conceded just two goals in their past six league games, responding well since settling into a more consistent shape. That move seems like a tacit admission from Guardiola that he can only do so much with these players, and if he is guilty of overestimating the tools at his disposal last summer, the same should be said for all of us. In the preseason predictions, very few people chose City to finish outside the top four.

As it turns out, City’s squad was in as much need of transition as Guardiola. Their four recognised full-backs (Aleksandar Kolarov, Gael Clichy, Bacary Sagna and Pablo Zabaleta) have an average age of 32, and it has showed. Their nine-digit spending on centre-backs has delivered an error-prone John Stones, an inconsistent Nicolas Otamendi and the exiled Eliaquim Mangala. With Vincent Kompany held together by duct tape, the redeployed Kolarov has frequently been City’s best centre-back and, as Yaya Toure slows down, almost every player in City’s own half has been in question.

There have been successes too. After some particularly vindictive media coverage, Raheem Sterling has blossomed under Guardiola’s aegis. Kevin de Bruyne has been repeatedly brilliant while Gabriel Jesus looked to have landed on his feet before he broke one of them and was ruled out for the season. And then, of course, there is the timeless magnificence of David Silva. There have been moments (albeit largely isolated) when City have finally looked close to achieving their owners’ aims of not simply being a successful team but being a great one.

None of which will matter a jot to the tone of the mainstream reporting if City lose at Arsenal; it certainly won’t if they lose to Chelsea four days later because that is how football works now. Social media will be merciless, and all the lights will blink on the switchboard of brutal radio phone-ins. But whatever happens on Sunday, no matter how worrying it seems in the short term, City must stay on Guardiola’s path.

Man City need several new players at the back, and it’s no surprise to see them linked with Leonardo Bonucci once again. They need to build a metaphorical bridge to match the real, concrete one that links their development squad to their first team before talents like Tosin Adarabioyo and Jadon Sancho are lured away with the promise of game time. But there is a philosophy in place now, an agreeable identity that wasn’t there under Manuel Pellegrini or Roberto Mancini. They’re on the right track. If only the same could be said for poor Arsenal.