Arsenal approach is giving Pep Guardiola fresh energy for Man City title battle

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is trying to beat Arsenal to the Premier League without focusing on set-pieces

Pep Guardiola has new energy this season from the challenge of trying to win the Premier League title with Manchester City, despite the growing dominance of set-pieces. City's manager said that he is paying more attention than ever to the 'dangerous' situations his team face, but made it clear the Blues have other priorities on the training pitch.

As they battle for the league title, City and Arsenal are at opposite ends of the set-piece table. Only Wolves have scored fewer than the six goals from dead-ball situations that Guardiola's side have managed, while Arsenal on Sunday scored their 15th and 16th from corners alone - equalling a Premier League record with nine games to spare.

The manner of the goals in Arsenal's 2-1 win over Chelsea, and the officiating of players grappling with each other in the boxes, has fuelled the debate about how much set-pieces should be relied upon by the top teams and whether they are skewed unfairly in the favour of attacking teams.

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While going out of his way to offer no criticism of anything Arsenal have 'dictated' this season with their set-play strength - unlike fellow Premier League managers Arne Slot, Liam Rosenior, Michael Carrick, and Fabian Hurzeler - Guardiola said that his team did not use long throws (despite seeing what Antoine Semenyo could do at Bournemouth) and had other priorities when it came to training.

"I don't have much time. I need to rest," he quipped. "Of course you have to pay attention, otherwise even Liverpool scored a lot of goals in set-pieces. They are so really, really good. Of course you have to be concerned and prepared, but at the same time, as I said many times, a lot of things, you prepare the games or be focused with that, and you as a manager have to decide what you like to work with. And there are things I prefer to work and be focused.

"We are moving in that direction. I pay more attention in set-pieces than when I started my career in Barcelona, for sure. Much more. But football is about when the opponents create problems for you, you have to find a solution. We want to play in that way and when we started to make Kevin De Bruyne moments in the channels between central defenders and full-backs to the byline, people started playing five at the back. But we killed them there with David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne so they said 'we need another defender, five at the back'.

"It's all evolution and what you do opponents make a counter-movement. Set pieces are the same. Of course you have to do set-pieces. If it was not a dangerous situation I would not pay attention but now every corner they put the chaos in the near post and far post and the second balls and this kind of stuff so of course you have to pay attention.

"I’m not the same manager as when I arrived, not the same manager as when we won and not the same when we lose. Learning is constant. I am learning a lot this season, I am seeing completely different how we’re playing to how we were at the start of the season. It’s not good or bad. It’s what suits the players we have at our disposal.

"It’s not always the same, which would be so boring. Ten years the same system, the same players. I would not work. If I knew what the opponents were going to do then I would not work. I’d be at home watching series or reading books. It’s not the case because every game is different."

Many would have expected to have gone home to read a book long before his tenth season in charge of City, yet the man himself has enjoyed countering expectations. Even now, with the game seemingly moving away from the possession-based football that has been his doctrine as a coach, Guardiola is enjoying the challenge of adapting while staying true to his principles.

Rather than looking at what corners have become and wanting to go home, City's coach appears to be up for the challenge of beating that in his own way. Given his team are still in with a chance of a quadruple as they take on Nottingham Forest on Wednesday in the first of six games across four competitions this month, his players are also up for the fight.

"Does every change the opponent makes to you, or you to them, make me feel alive? Yeah. Yeah absolutely," he said. "It’s like managing new players who come - always I cannot disappoint them, they don’t know us, they don’t know me, what we have to do, of course.

"Of course it’s a challenge, of course it is. And being there again, one more season again we are there competing, we are closer to qualifying for the Champions League, the gap to sixth is quite important right now, so if we continue to do that we will be in next season’s Champions League again. The only team in England in the last 10, 11, 12 years (to do that), I said many times, qualifying for the Champions League today, in modern football, is the most important title, more than Premier Leagues, more than many, many, many things. For stability, for many, many reasons.

"Last season there was a lot of pressure on my shoulders, I felt the pressure higher than ever not qualifying in the Champions League, the Fulham game, the last one, oh God, it was mentally the most difficult one. These kinds of things are a challenge for me and being there now, in the Premier League still being there and in all competitions it’s really, really good."

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