MANCHESTER, England – The substitution of Trossard for Martinelli and the possible use of Takehiro Tomiyasu at right back in place of Ben White, who has struggled to match his excellent early-season form recently, would both make some sense. Arteta will take care not to give the players a chance to squander their advantage in stoppage time by attempting to win the game. Despite losing their previous 10 league games against City, those two performances show how well they have closed the gap on them. However, Arteta must decide whether to continue with the front-foot, attack-minded strategy that has worked them so well all season against a team that has mastered that tactic in domestic football over the past five years.

He has struggled with rotation this year, but it’s still dangerous to speculate on Guardiola’s starting lineups. That element of surprise in team selection—for instance, Tottenham’s abrupt decision to rest Kevin De Bruyne—is crucial to keeping a team’s desire to win the league for a third straight season alive. Both managers gave few hints while discussing team news on Tuesday, so it’s unclear whether the injury speculation surrounding Haaland is more obfuscation than actual worry.By being prepared to remove players who were thought to be of no longer use, Guardiola has also managed to keep his team’s attention. While Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko were moved from Arsenal to Chelsea last summer, Raheem Sterling remained at Arsenal. These two players made the Arsenal team infinitely better.

Guardiola and Joao Cancelo reportedly discussed the team’s lack of effort in training, which led to Cancelo’s abrupt departure for Bayern Munich last month. This reportedly caused Guardiola to caution his team about becoming complacent, but it also made the choice to let Zinchenko go that much more difficult. The ability of the Ukraine international to intelligently drift into midfield when Arsenal has possession — something Cancelo did frequently for City — has been a key tactic in Arsenal’s ability to control matches and is likely to be another intriguing element of what an interesting contest could be.

The outcome of the title will not be decided on Wednesday, but a victory for Arsenal would give Arteta and his team confidence that they may still have the team to rival City stride for stride in the coming months.