With Chelsea five points ahead of them in the league, Manchester City went into Sunday's game against Arsenal desperate for a win to keep pace with the league leaders.
Unbeaten in their past 12 Premier League games, Manuel Pellegrini's side will have been confident of dispatching an Arsenal team that have historically struggled enormously when playing in the city of Manchester over the past five years.
While their recent form has been good - four wins in their past six league games, with only one defeat - Arsenal went into the game with a different end-of-season goal to that of their hosts.
Sitting in sixth place going into this game, Arsene Wenger's primary goal this season is surely to finish in the top four in order to retain a Champions League place. Barring a complete meltdown from those above them, the Premier League title is almost definitely out of their grasp this year.
A win here would put Arsenal into fifth, just one point behind Manchester United and three behind Southampton - although the London side have a significantly inferior goal difference to both.
Both sides went into the game with absentees and players returning from periods on the sidelines.
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Most importantly for Man City, the talismanic figures of Vincent Kompany and Sergio Aguero were included - the former having missed nine of the past 10 games, the latter recovering from six weeks on the sidelines.
Samir Nasri was ruled out due to injury, however, while Yaya Toure is away on African Cup of Nations duty for his native Ivory Coast.
Arsenal were buoyed by the return of Aaron Ramsey, but Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Debuchy continue to be injured - Francis Coquelin and Hector Bellerin replace them, respectively. Kieran Gibbs was fit enough to make the bench, but not in prime condition to slot into the first 11 at left-back ahead of Nacho Monreal.
The hot topic going into the game: Can Man City continue their form or can Arsenal overcome their Manchester demons?
Arsenal surprise everyone with defensive shape
The North London side have for a long time been the subject of ridicule in regards to their style of play. While Wenger's Arsenal teams have forever been associated for glorious-looking, free-flowing football, the general consensus is that they lack the pragmatism and adaptability required to consistently mount a title challenge. To the surprise of the vast majority of onlookers, Wenger completely subverted his usual tactical gameplan and deployed those very traits Arsenal are said to lack.
Following a scrappy opening five minutes in which both teams failed to enforce their will on the other - leading to a couple of half-chances resulting from sloppily placed passes and gifted interceptions - Arsenal took the game by the jugular by lining up in 4-1-4-1 formation when not in possession.
Arsenal played deep, restricting the space Man City's forward line had to operate within and, as a result, narrowing greatly the passing channels that Pellegrini's side would normally look to exploit.
With Coquelin playing a staunchly protective role in front of his back four, David Silva was afforded almost no space. It's eye opening to see just how inept Man City's offensive play can look when the Spaniard is removed from proceedings.
Further, both of Arsenal's full-backs stayed in line with their centre-backs for the entirety of the first half. This prevented James Milner and Jesus Navas being able to run at the comparatively slow pairing of Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny, neither one executing any attack of genuine note over the first 45 minutes.
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Arsenal came with a counter-attacking gameplan in mind and executed it brilliantly in the first half. Their supreme ability to prevent Man City space in the final third resulted in the hosts being unable to muster a single shot in over 30 minutes of play.
Only when Arsenal were in full counter-attacking mode did the team's full-backs think about joining the attack. Even then, Bellerin and Monreal would never attack at the same time - only one moving forward while the other stayed deep, with Coquelin dropping wide in order to cover the space vacated on the relevant flank.
This disciplined approach and skilled execution meant that Wenger's team were never without any less than four defenders protecting their goal, whether they were with or without the ball.
With Man City unable to tempt Arsenal into giving away space, the home team were restricted to playing numerous sideways passes and having Silva drop deeper and deeper to try to find space and enforce his will on the game.
No Toure, no penetration
In the absence of Yaya Toure, Pellegrini fielded Fernando and Fernandinho in central midfield with Silva positioned in advance of them. While both Brazilians are comfortable on the ball and not afraid to play forward passes, their ability in both of these areas is far inferior to that of Toure. Such inadequacies showed on Sunday.
Arsenal's formation allowed them to set up two clear and stable banks of four whenever either of Man City's central midfielders gained possession - with Coquelin positioned between those two banks to stifle the threat of Silva.
Knowing that Fernando and Fernandinho lack the attacking creatively and ability of Toure, Arsenal were more than comfortable to simply sit back and retain their shape whenever either one of them were on the ball. Quite clearly, they wanted to force the two into playing low-percentage forward passes of the kind they're not known for being able to produce.
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The lack of penetration meant Silva dropped ever deeper to acquire possession. This nullified his potential impact on the game, increasing the distance and number of Arsenal players between himself and the advanced trio of Aguero, Milner and Navas.
Had Toure been playing, it's unlikely that Arsenal would have been so prepared to back off in the manner that they did. They would have been forced to close the Ivorian down, creating a gap in their midfield and allowing more room for Silva to try to avoid the attentions of Coquelin.
It's surprising then that Pellegrini left it until so late into the second half to bring on Frank Lampard, the only experienced replacement Man City have in their ranks capable of accomplishing a Toure-esque role.
Pellegrini will surely be worried that when the individual talents of Toure and Silva are either unavailable or quashed his team looks so unable to cause the opposition problems. A reliance on individual talent over adaptive tactical outlooks has been the downfall of many a team before now.
With Fernando and Fernandinho's inability to launch threatening attacks through the middle, and Arsenal's deep-laying full-backs restricting space down the flanks, Man City frequently had no open avenues available to them - hence the lack of shots on goal.
It will be incredibly interesting to see whether teams visiting the Etihad Stadium from this point on attempt to adopt Arsenal's approach. Certainly, for huge swathes of the game Man City looked like a shadow of the team they have been over the past 10 games or more.
Pellegrini changes outlook in second half
Being a goal down thanks to the Santi Cazorla's first-half penalty and being almost completely inept at creating anything but the most tenuous of chances, it was clear that Pellegrini had to change something to win the game in the second half.
To the Chilean's credit, he found success by making dramatic changes to his forward line - although the impact of these changes were exacerbated by Arsenal's questionable approach at the start of the second half.
Given Milner's lack of involvement in the first half, it was unsurprising to see him replaced by Stevan Jovetic. The forward played centrally; sometimes alongside Aguero in an attempt to overload Arsenal's centre-backs, other times playing the support role slightly behind his Argentine teammate.
This provided Aguero more licence to drift wide into the right side channel, giving his midfielders more passing options and allowing himself and Navas to work more effectively against Monreal on Arsenal's left.
The goal here was to try to tempt Arsenal's defenders to either 1) shuffle across to cover the two attackers, creating more space on Man City's left, and/or 2) to pull Koscielny out with Aguero, opening a gap in Arsenal's central defence.
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In addition to this, Silva was deployed on Man City's left - filling the space vacated by the substituted Milner. The goal was clearly to provide Silva with more room to work and to cut him off from the attentions of Coquelin who now also had Jovetic to worry about.
Silva, however, didn't stick intently to the left-hand side. Instead, particularly when Man City had possession in the attacking third, he would come into the middle - supporting Jovetic, Aguero or both depending on their relative positions in the given situation.
The change in approach worked particularly well for the first 10 to 15 minutes of the second half, helped enormously by Arsenal abandoning the tactics that served them so well up to that point.
During this period Arsenal tried to match Man City at their own game, adopting the pass-heavy, fluid style that they're typically associated with. The effect was almost disastrous, with Man City gaining far more possession in dangerous positions and being challenged by far fewer Arsenal players in front of the 18-yard box.
It may well have been Wenger's intent to take advantage of the psychological upper hand his team had secured in the first half, particularly with an early second goal likely to be enough to deflate the hosts and doom them to defeat.
That goal didn't come, though, and Man City easily dominated Arsenal when the two teams were trading attacking blows.
By the time of Arsenal's second goal on 67 minutes, Wenger had reorganised his team back into the style of play that they adhered to in the first half. From that point forward they never looked like losing and had the luxury of making substitutions based on further strengthening their defensive solidarity.
Has the penny dropped for Wenger?
Unquestionably, the biggest talking point of the game is just how differently Arsenal played in comparison to their usual style. A team that has, since Wenger become manager in 1996, tried to win every game by four or five goals decided to prioritise defensive discipline and shape over flair and creating chances.
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It could well be that Wenger has finally decided that his team is not capable of beating the best away from home by opening up and committing large numbers of players forward. While his previous actions, comments and tactics suggest that he loathes the pragmatic approach, could it be that, at 65, he has finally accepted that an idealistic way of playing can only consistently work when you're up against inferior opponents?
Arsenal managed only nine shots in the entire game (compared to Man City's 12), a figure dwarfed by the 23 they managed less than two months ago in their 2-1 defeat against Manchester United. The style of play from that match in November to this one on Sunday couldn't have been more different. Perhaps it's the outcome of games like that one against Man United that has convinced Wenger to alter his approach against certain opposition.
Certainly, the two goals Arsenal scored on Sunday were not of the kind that they are known for. While a neat one-two led to their first-half penalty, the stats read two goals resulting from two set-pieces - a very 'un-Arsenal' means of victory.
By focusing on preventing the opposition playing their usual game, Wenger has demonstrated an ability to set his team up to prioritise disruption over style. That will have surely come as a surprise to Arsenal fans.
While the league title might already be out of their grasp this season, an approach such as this will surely serve the Gunners brilliantly in tougher matches to come this season - not least in fixtures away from home in the Champions League.
Compared to the 'normal' Arsenal, this was an ugly victory. It's that very ugliness, however, that should give Arsenal fans more reason than ever to be excited about the future.
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