Arsenal's 'dark arts' are reaching pathetic new lows – Mikel Arteta is panicking about Man City

Arsenal's dark arts have degenerated to such a point that it's clear they're terrified of Premier League rivals Manchester City

You've got to feel for Mikel Arteta, haven't you? If you don't, you're an unfeeling monster of Roy Keaneian proportions.

With Arsenal on the cusp of their first Premier League title in over two decades, they've been plunged into an injury crisis so grotesquely unlucky it makes Paula Radcliffe being remembered for a mid-race toilet break rather than as a world champion marathon runner feel like a fair shake.

In the space of just a few days, 12 of their senior players have withdrawn from international duty due to injury. Twelve. What an unfortunate sequence of entirely coincidental and definitely-not-convenient events.

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Now, in case it wasn't clear enough, I'm being as sarcastic as Robert Sanchez is error-prone.

This obviously isn't an injury crisis; it's a pathetic, fabricated outbreak of 'Arteta-itis' - a rare medical phenomenon where a player is physically incapable of boarding a plane for his country, yet miraculously recovers the second the Emirates Stadium floodlights flick on.

It's the latest sorry chapter in a season-long manual of 'dark arts' s***housery. Arsenal have mutated into an ugly, cynical blob of a football team, Boris Johnsoning their way to success through manufactured chaos and a total disregard for basic integrity.

Whether it's their borderline pathological set piece fetish, their mid-match wrestling, the incessant time-wasting or the way they Tom Daley themselves to the turf at the slightest breeze, the act is wearing thin.

But this latest stunt - pretending that the bulk of their starting XI has simultaneously morphed into the walking wounded, just as the title race heats up - is a new low, a frantic, desperate scramble for yet another unfair advantage.

Despite having a squad worth £1.2billion, Arsenal's sudden reliance on soap-opera theatrics paints a stark picture: panic is starting to set in.

The Gunners have been wobbling for months and Arteta is now peering over his shoulder with the same twitchy paranoia of a Chelsea manager after back-to-back defeats, frantically checking to see if his key card still works on the training ground doors.

They know that Manchester City are the ultimate apex predators. They saw what happened in the League Cup final - a performance so timid, so reminiscent of a pampered house cat spending 90 minutes looking for a radiator to hide under, that the trauma has clearly become terminal.

They know that while they've been grinding out joyless 1-0 wins and faking cramps to kill the clock, City have the mettle, the experience and the cold-blooded know-how to reel them in.

Arteta is panicking because he knows his side have stopped outplaying people. Instead, they've retreated into a shell of risk-averse, soul-crushing pragmatism - a tactic that might get a few points on the board but that's also crushing their confidence.

When you're truly the best in the land, you don't need to cynically bubble wrap your players. You don't need to turn every corner into a 20-man pile-up and every throw-in into a stoppage long enough for the fans to nip out for a p*ss. You play. You dominate. You succeed.

By ordering a squad-wide withdrawal from international duty, Arteta is showing a chronic lack of faith in his players. He's so spooked by the sight of City in the rear-view mirror that he's effectively put his team on 'airplane mode' until he feels safe again. It's the ultimate admission of weakness.

It's a stomach-churning watch - a giant middle finger to the fans who pay hard-earned money for international tickets and, frankly, it's cheapening the Premier League crown. The champions of England should never hide in the shadows or resort to such basement-level tactics.

If Arsenal do manage to crawl over the line this season, it won't be remembered as a triumph of football. It will be remembered as the year the "dark arts" won - a hollow victory built on a foundation of tactical cowardice.

If they don't win it - after deploying the sort of sneaky, underhanded tactics that would make late-night texts from John Terry to your missus look above board - then it will have to go down as the mother of all Premier League bottlejobs.

Arteta clearly doesn't believe he can win a fair fight against Man City anymore. He might as well peel the bandages off those injured stars of his and fashion a giant white flag out of them.