{"id":896660,"date":"2026-04-15T22:46:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T22:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/896660\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T22:46:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T22:46:18","slug":"arsenals-clash-with-manchester-city-will-be-decided-by-moments-and-mistakes-says-joe-cole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/896660\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal\u2019s clash with Manchester City will be decided by \u2018moments\u2019 and \u2018mistakes\u2019 says Joe Cole"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Former Chelsea midfielder Joe Cole<\/a> claimed that this weekend\u2019s Premier League<\/a> match between Arsenal<\/a> and Manchester City<\/a> will be decided by \u201cmistakes\u201d and \u201cmoments\u201d, with Pep Guardiola\u2019s side \u201cabsolutely the favourites\u201d to win. <\/p>\n

Arsenal currently have a six-point lead at the top of the Premier League though City have a game in hand, and they could cut the lead to just three points with a win at the Etihad this weekend. <\/p>\n

While City have found form in recent weeks,<\/a> with big wins over Liverpool <\/a>and Chelsea, Arsenal have stumbled domestically, exiting the FA Cup at the hands of Southampton and losing in the league last weekend to Bournemouth. <\/p>\n

And though the Gunners fought to a 0-0 draw to Sporting on Wednesday night<\/a> to secure a place in the Champions League semi-finals, Cole was quick to \u201cencourage perspective\u201d, explaining that Mikel Arteta\u2019s side \u201care not playing well\u201d at the moment. <\/p>\n

Cole explained that \u201cthere wasn\u2019t much between the teams\u201d during City\u2019s 2-0 win in the Carabao Cup final<\/a>, adding that he expected it to be the same this weekend. <\/p>\n

\u201cI still think in this one-off it\u2019ll be moments within the game, it\u2019ll be mistakes [that decide the game]. It\u2019ll be edgy, blocked off,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely City are favourites. I don\u2019t think it bothers them. He\u2019s [Pep Guardiola] playing mind games with everyone else,\u201d explained Cole, though he insisted that \u201cif Arsenal can avoid defeat, I think they win the league\u201d. <\/p>\n

Former Arsenal defender Martin Keown said that his old side just need to \u201cfind form\u201d in the run-in, though he did concede that \u201cCity have found their mojo again\u201d in recent weeks. <\/p>\n

\"ArsenalArsenal will face Atletico Madrid in the Champions league semi-finals as they continue their quest for a double (Getty)<\/p>\n

While City\u2019s last loss in the league came as far back as January, they have recently drawn to both West Ham and Nottingham Forest, while they were soundly beaten by Real Madrid in the round of 16 in Europe. <\/p>\n

However, Arsenal have had their own struggles in recent weeks too, notably in that League Cup final loss in late March, though they will head to the Etihad knowing that even a draw could be enough to secure the title down the line.<\/p>\n

The Gunners have just six games left in the league as they look to land a first Premier League title since 2004, while City have seven matches to go, with the date for their game in hand against Crystal Palace not yet set. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8813],"tags":[252846,252849,252853,748,251751,47671,88025,393,252848,25014,4884,44888,48279,2465,47681,56206,2249,252850,252851,10031,93,112700,252847,30364,3188,252852,8467,16,252300,15,165],"class_list":["post-896660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manchester","tag-admiration","tag-arsenal-f-c","tag-arsenal-stadium-highbury","tag-britain","tag-club-soccer","tag-color-image","tag-cristhian-mosquera","tag-england","tag-fan-enthusiast","tag-gabriel-martinelli","tag-great-britain","tag-horizontal","tag-london-england","tag-manchester","tag-match-sport","tag-max-dowman","tag-photography","tag-quarterfinal-round","tag-second-leg","tag-soccer","tag-sport","tag-sporting-clube-de-portugal","tag-sports-team","tag-stadium","tag-success","tag-the-emirates-stadium","tag-uefa-champions-league","tag-uk","tag-union-of-european-football-associations","tag-united-kingdom","tag-viktor-gyokeres"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}