Arsenal must take full advantage of Manchester City’s makeshift defence to keep their faint Premier League title hopes alive.
That’s the view of Gunners icon Martin Keown ahead of Sunday’s clash between the two teams at the Emirates.
Mikel Arteta‘s men sit six points behind leaders Liverpool, who also boast a game in hand over them.
And the north Londoners know they cannot afford to drop any more points if they wish to remain in touching distance of the Reds having drawn twice in January.
For City, they appear to have recovered from their horror blip that saw them lose six out of eight league games from November to December.
Pep Guardiola‘s side have won four from their last five top-flight fixtures to move up into fourth spot following Saturday’s 3-1 win over Chelsea.
But the match against the Blues once again highlighted their defensive frailties with the club now conceding eight goals in all competitions so far this year.
With Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake both out with injuries – and John Stones only just returning to the squad due to his own knock – new signing Abdukodir Khusanov was forced to partner Manuel Akanji at centre-back.
And unfortunately for the 20-year-old, he made a huge error just two minutes into his debut to gift Noni Madueke an early opener.
While Stones replaced him shortly into the second half, the youngster could be chosen to start against Arsenal in Guardiola’s bid to get him to adapt to English football quickly.
Kyle Walker‘s loan exit has also provided problems for City at right-back, with central midfielder Matheus Nunes starting in the position against Chelsea – ahead of academy graduate Rico Lewis.
Keown believes City’s defence is an area that Arsenal should be looking to exploit, though he stressed that his former employers must be wary of their opponents’ midfield and attack.
Speaking to talkSPORT.com, Keown said: “Well their defence has been leaking goals.
“There’s no Dias this time around, Stones has only come back from injury, their new signing makes a mistake early on.
“There is an issue there, but I think what was encouraging for them was they got back to playing their football again.
“They got as many footballers out there as they possibly can – [Kevin] De Bruyne coming off the bench – [Ilkay] Gundogan is somebody I really like.
“He’s someone that has got to be stopped and they are progressive.
“When you go tight on them, they find [Erling] Haaland now, he looks like he’s coming back through the gears, getting his confidence back.
“Our two central defenders are going to have to be really strong against him.”
Arsenal go into this weekend’s clash without a defeat against a ‘Big Six’ side in the Premier League since losing to City in April 2023.
Their last meeting in September proved to a barnstormer – a 2-2 draw which saw Stones score an injury-time equaliser after Leandro Trossard‘s first-half red card.
Tempers boiled over following the full-time whistle which saw Haaland tell Arteta to ‘be humble’, before branding Gabriel Jesus as a ‘f****** clown’.
Bernardo Silva meanwhile taunted the Gunners over their back-to-back second-placed finishes, which saw Piers Morgan label the playmaker as ‘rattled’.
Following the four-goal thriller at the Etihad, Keown has claimed that City’s stars have been forced to eat humble pie of their own having slipped down the table.
He remarked: “I think if you look at what’s happened this year, Bernardo Silva is a great player, but I don’t know if they were the greatest of comments.
“It’s been a wake-up call for them, they realised you can be brilliant one minute, and very ordinary the next.
“The way that City have kind of lost that X factor this season has been really shocking to see.
“Look, they’ve had one defeat now in eight, they’re on their way back, but they still have their shocks, that PSG game [in Champions League], no-one expected them to be 2-0 up and lose 4-2.
“So it’s not quite the infallible City of old, this is an Arsenal team that’s emerging when Man City have won four years on the trot.
“They are a team of winners and we all feel that they will slot back into that, but it won’t be easy against Arsenal at the Emirates.
“They’ll find any kind of weakness, I don’t think City are as strong now.
“I think particularly with Walker not being there, he was always someone that used to tie us up a little bit.
“So it’ll be interesting to see how they’re going to make their new signings work.”
With Liverpool playing on Saturday, Arsenal could trail Liverpool by nine points going into their match with City.
Though with the Reds to face high-flying Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium, the Gunners could be given a chance to close the gap should the Merseyside outfit slip up.