Manchester City's outstanding form leaves Arsene Wenger wondering how Arsenal can stop the unstoppable

The Arsenal manager watched on as City crushed Napoli in the Champions League this week and concluded the only way to stop Pep Guardiola's side was to meet fire with fire

Not a single manager has been able to work out how to stop City - so far (Getty)

How do you stop the unstoppable? 15 managers have tried to come up with answers this season – Tony Pulis has had two goes already - and only two have had any success.

Ronald Koeman’s Everton managed to hold Manchester City to a 1-1 draw, although they did play against 10 men for more than half the game. Nuno Espirito Santo’s Wolverhampton Wanderers took a heavily-rotated City side all the way to penalties last week, but even then they still lost.

The best team City have faced this season, by a distance, is Maurizio Sarri’s Napoli, the current leaders of Serie A, with their own brand of ferocious high-pressing positional play.

On Wednesday night City went to the Stadio San Paolo to face them. City were put under more pressure than at any point this season: Napoli forced them further back in the first 30 minutes than they would ever normally play. With runners flying from deep, and Dries Mertens directing the front line, it was the harshest examination, and no surprise when Lorenzo Insigne slotted Napoli 1-0 up.

And yet City, playing a more reactive style than normal, still won 4-2. Two goals on the break, two from set pieces, and then when David Silva came on they slowed the game to their own speed.

It was all very ominous for the other managers who have to find a way to stop them. That is Arsene Wenger’s job when he takes his Arsenal team to the Etihad Stadium on Sunday. He watched the Napoli game and noted that Sarri’s team had a good idea – but did not have the legs to deliver it.

“Napoli in the first half they gave City many problems but in the second half they dropped a bit physically,” Wenger said late on Thursday night. “Because I think they had played Sunday night and Manchester City played Saturday afternoon. You could see their game did not have the same intensity. The physical aspect becomes important.”

Clearly Wenger knows that Arsenal must be at their steely sharpest on Sunday. The fact that they played a second string against Red Star Belgrade, while City had to go almost full-strength in Naples, could play into Arsenal’s hands.

“That is the target,” said Wenger, who knows that his decisions can only be vindicated by success on Sunday. “The rotation policy is destined towards that. To get it right you need the right result, so it will be right if we have the right result tonight and the right result on Sunday.”

But how do Arsenal go about disrupting Manchester City? Wenger talked a good game about not being afraid to “accept the risk” of fighting fire with fire.

“Sometimes the best way to defend is to attack”, he said, “you have to accept the gamble and the risk as part of the game.” The reality is that Arsenal cannot hope to do what Napoli did: they are nowhere near as good as them physically or positionally.

Wenger insists he will meet fire with fire (Arsenal FC)

So Wenger will have to find another way, some compromise between the Sarri press and the parked bus. And he can take some encouragement from the fact that he was, in fact, the last manager to beat City. Arsenal won the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley on 23 April, nicking an open, scrappy and surprisingly low-quality game in extra time. That was a very different City team: they had Claudio Bravo, Gael Clichy and Jesus Navas. And yet as an example to work from it is as good as it going to get for Arsenal.

“We tried to defend well, and not hide every time we had the ball because we went forward,” Wenger said.

“We had a balanced team as well, a team that could defend and one which was quick going forward every time we had the ball. We took over as well in the second half and it was decided after extra time. We had a good focus.”

Alexis was desperate to leave for City last summer (Getty)

Energy, attacking threat and focus, then, are the three items on the Wenger checklist. And while Alexis Sanchez will provide buckets of the first two, can he be trusted to deliver the third?

Sanchez, as is well known, was desperate to move to Manchester City at the end of the summer transfer window. Arsenal had said all summer they would not sell him to City on principle, only for them to open to the door to doing so, before having to close it again when they failed to land Thomas Lemar. That day left Sanchez in limbo and now he is playing out the final months of his contract before his inevitable departure.

City could well come back in for Sanchez in January, knowing he would cost far less than £60million when he is just months away from being a free agent. But whatever happens down the line, Wenger’s faith in Sanchez’s self-motivation and drive has never diminished. As long as he is on a football pitch, he wants to win, no matter who he is playing for or against.

“I expect him to be motivated but that is always the case,” Wenger said. “One thing you cannot fault in Alexis Sanchez is his motivation. This guy, when he plays for Chile he plays with passion that is in South America. Same for Barcelona and Arsenal. He is happy when he is on the pitch and that is all he wants.”

Wenger no longer pretends that he thinks Sanchez will sign a new deal although he did deny Sanchez will be sold in the winter window. Arsenal still need him, in Wenger’s mind, more than City do.

But this Sunday Sanchez will be tasked with putting all that to one side and trying to deliver a result no one else thinks is possible.