Mikel Arteta insists schedule pressure isn’t affecting his Arsenal players, but the numbers tell a different story. For the fourth time since the turn of the year, the Gunners dropped points in a Premier League game played immediately after Manchester City—this time held to a 1-1 draw by a relentless Brentford side at the Gtech Community Stadium.
The result trims Arsenal’s lead at the top to just four points with 12 games remaining, handing Pep Guardiola’s City a clear psychological edge in a title race that looked all but over five days ago.
“We lacked certain things against them,” Arteta said post-match. “You have to defend those situations, even better prevent them. You want to give them no chance or just hope that something bad happens and we didn’t manage that well enough.”
What Arteta didn’t say is that the pattern is becoming impossible to ignore. Arsenal lost to Manchester United the day after City beat Wolves. They failed to extend their lead at Nottingham Forest hours after City lost the Manchester derby. Against Liverpool, after City dropped points at Brighton, Arsenal stumbled again.
Saturday’s display at Brentford followed the same script. City swept Fulham aside 24 hours earlier; Arsenal looked nervous, disjointed, and uncharacteristically error-prone.
David Raya, usually ice-cool, gifted possession with a horror throw-out that nearly led to Igor Thiago’s opener. Gabriel collected clumsy fouls and risked a second yellow card inside 30 minutes. Gabriel Martinelli, so clinical against City earlier in the season, missed another big chance—repeating his miss against Nottingham Forest in another ‘after City’ fixture.
Even Arteta’s defence of his players hinted at underlying tension. “I don’t think so, I think we played as well after them a few times this season,” he said, citing wins over Brighton and Everton in December.
But this is 2026. The margin for error has evaporated.
Arsenal now face a tricky run where City play first in the next two gameweeks. Trips to Tottenham—likely boosted by a Thomas Frank ‘new-manager bounce’—and a Chelsea side that exposed Emirates nerves loom large.
“Title races do funny things to players,” the report noted. And with City smelling blood, Arsenal’s recurring issue of playing after Guardiola’s side is no longer a quirk. It’s a crisis of composure.
The Gunners host Wolves on Wednesday in a game City cannot respond to. It’s a chance to halt the slide. But with the schedule flipping again immediately after, Arsenal must exorcise their ‘City curse’—and fast.
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