Enough with the lip service, Pep — Arsenal are no longer 'the best team in England'

Arsenal may be on the verge of slipping out of the top spot in the Premier League, with Manchester City primed to take over the coveted position as the season comes to a close.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

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The Gunners put themselves in extreme peril of being overtaken by the Sky Blues — again — after dropping a 2-1 decision at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday. The result means Man City are just three points back of Mikel Arteta's men with a game in hand, and they could leapfrog Arsenal by Wednesday night.

If it happens, it would be the first time since October that the North Londoners are not at the top of the Premier League mountain.

Arsenal fans have been through this before. The club finished second in the league title race in each of the last three seasons, and they spent a substantial amount of time in first place in two of those campaigns only to be passed by Man City in the final weeks. Only last season, when Arsenal were runners-up to Liverpool, did they not hold the lead in the standings at any point in the campaign, but the end result was still the same.

This year was supposed to be different.

The Gunners instituted a more pragmatic style of play, eschewing the free-flowing style synonymous with the club for so many years for a more practical approach. With a world-class defensive set-up already in place, Arsenal leaned heavily on set-pieces to create goals and win games — and it worked.

For months on end, Arsenal were a brick wall at the back and utilitarian in the attack, drawing criticism and victories in equal measure. It didn't matter that they were playing ugly because they were winning, and on evey front.

Whispers of a potential quadruple grew louder as the season wore on and Arsenal kept winning. They breezed through the league phase of the Champions League without dropping a single point and advanced in the FA Cup and Carabao Cup without losing their grip on the top of the Premier League. 

All was good in the Gunners' world and pundits were already conceding the Premier League title to Arsenal by mid March as their lead swelled to as many as 12 points over Man City, the only team capable of seriously challenging their supremacy this season. With the Sky Blues showing inconsistency however, the league seemed all but wrapped for Arsenal for the first time in 22 years.

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The opportunity for a first trophy of the season came on the final day before the March international break, with Gunners fans eager to see their players off to international duty with silverware in hand. The Carabao Cup final was setting up to be an early coronation for one of the most dominant English sides in recent memory, and against their title challengers as well.

Instead, what the world saw was the beginning of a stunning unravelling for Arteta's outfit. An ill-advised decision to start Kepa Arrizabalaga backfired on the manager as the back-up goalkeeper commited a grevious error at the hour mark that allowed Man City to take the lead in what was a hotly contested match up to that point. The little-used goalie would again pick the ball out of his net just four minutes after the opening strike, with both goals coming from Man City full-back Nico O'Reilly, sinking Arsenal's hopes and giving the Sky Blues bragging rights.

To make matters worse, they returned from the international break by being eliminated from the FA Cup in the fifth round by EFL Championship side Southampton, before returning to Premier League play with back-to-back losses to Bournemouth and Man City. Altogether, the Gunners have not won a match in over a month now — other than a lone 1-0 Champions League victory at Sporting Lisbon.

In the immediate aftermath of the Carabao Cup defeat, Man City manager Pep Guardiola was quick to point out Arsenal's credentials when questions were asked about their mettle ahead of the run-in. Guardiola pointed to the Gunners' glittering Premier League and Champions League records, dismissing his own team's chances of erasing what was then still a seemingly insurmountable advantage in the league title race. Arsenal were simply too good and were the best team in England, Pep said.

And Guardiola was right: Arsenal still held a nine-point cushion in the Premier League and had suffered just a single loss in 15 league matches on the day of the Carabao Cup final. Even with Man City starting to do the usual late-season thing where they become unstoppable, it was still outside the realm of belief that Arsenal could stumble enough to allow Guardiola's side back into the title conversation. 

However, their subsequent failure against a second-tier side in the FA Cup and inability to win in consecutive league matches has Arsenal hanging by a thread. 

Despite this, Guardiola continues to sing the same tune, insisting that momentum has not swung away from the Gunners after a nightmarish few weeks that suggest the exact opposite.

"I don't know, I didn't think Arsenal were in bad momentum," he told the BBC after Sunday's match. "In the Carabao Cup we were better. Today we were really good.

"They came here after the [Carabao Cup] defeat with hunger and we won. They are are so competitive, we know that. But at the same time, we are too.

"The table speaks for itself. They have been the best."

The Man City manager doubled down on his assessment in a separate post-match interview with Sky Sports, stating: "If I say the momentum has changed, I would say the momentum for Arsenal is bad when I've seen today them playing like this, how is this bad momentum?

"They're in the semi-finals of the Champions League, didn't lose one game. Momentum shifts in one instance. They know it."

Much of what Guardiola is doing is the football manager equivalent of Napoleon's famous quote, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." Arsenal are stumbling from match to match making several mistakes right now, and while they played much better in Sunday's loss than they have in weeks, the result was still another soul-crushing defeat for an increasingly fragile side.

Guardiola is smart not to upset that, instead heaping praise on the Gunners. Why give them any motivation to claw their way out of this funk when Man City's job is not done yet?

"The truth is that we had a horrible calendar and we are not top of the league," Guardiola opined. "So far they are the best team in England but we extend the chance to fight until the end."

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With all due respect to Southampton, who are on an incredible run in the Championship and have not lost a match of any kind since Jan. 17 (19 matches), they are a second-tier side who should have had no business knocking off the so-called "best team in England." Same goes for Bournemouth, who are fighting to get into the UEFA Conference League from their current position near the Premier League's midtable zone.

That's not to mention a Man City side who have shown many flaws this season but are still rounding into form as expected. Three months ago, the Gunners handle that side with ease.

The harsh reality is that Arsenal are no longer the best team in England, and haven't been so for quite some time. That mantle once again belongs to Manchester City.

But you won't hear Guardiola admit that. Not yet, anyways. 

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