The private Arsenal and Man City feuds that have fuelled an angry rivalry

Manchester City take on Arsenal in the Premier League this weekend and their rivalry is still driven by different views within the clubs

Manchester City's rivalry with Arsenal in recent years has been very public and not so pretty.

From Erling Haaland barking at Mikel Arteta in the centre-circle or bouncing the ball off Gabriel's head, to Myles Lewis-Skelly mocking the Norwegian in the reverse fixture, last season brought a continuation of a coming together between the two clubs that always contains plenty of fire.

Haaland's comments, some afters from Bernardo Silva as well as Kyle Walker having to be dragged away from Arsenal and former City set-piece coach Nicolas Jover in recent seasons have actually gone down well at the Emirates. For years on the pitch there was no rivalry because City just swept Arsenal aside - now at least the Gunners know they have got under the skin of the Blues.

Pep Guardiola's comments will doubtless be welcomed in a similar manner after the City boss joked that should Arsenal win silverware under Arteta it should be recognised as solely down to their heavy spending given that is how success is deemed at the Etihad.

"I want to say to my friend Mikel Arteta, if he wins the title, it will be just because he spent, not because he worked a lot or his players," he said.

Behind the scenes, spending has divided the two clubs for far longer than Guardiola's decade at the club. It was Arsene Wenger who coined the phrase 'financial doping' to slur City and Paris Saint-Germain with after seeing several of his star players make the move from North London to East Manchester; for all the anger of an Emmanuel Adebayor kneeslide, the boardroom loathing festered for much longer.

Arsenal resented City for their new money after Sheikh Mansour's takeover and City hated the hypocrisy of the 'Bank of England' club from that moment, and things have hardly improved since.

The Blues did not think much of the conduct of a club in 2019 who followed Mikel Arteta back to Manchester after City thumped Arsenal at the Emirates in order to tempt him away, while the Gunners were one of the clubs who wrote to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2020 to try and get City kicked out of the Champions League.

Tim Lewis became Arsenal vice-chairman that year and his leadership has seen Arsenal and City pitch themselves as even more at odds with each other. Coinciding with the teams becoming genuine title rivals, Lewis has been a fierce advocate for financial fair play in line with the thinking in American sports at a time when City have been charged with serious breaches of Premier League rules spanning more than a decade.

On the other hand, City proved at a tribunal that Associated Party Transaction rules rushed through by the Premier League and its members weren't fit for purpose - and in doing so opened the can of worms that shareholder loans were not fair market value. With Arsenal having more than £250m of money that way, it could have had tough repercussions for the Gunners.

A recent settlement with the Premier League defused that bomb, and the shock departure of Lewis announced this week may further reduce tensions in the same way that Jurgen Klopp leaving Liverpool did.

As long as there are two ownerships with fundamentally different views on what the Premier League should look like though, what goes on in the boardrooms will always be an intriguing backdrop to any fireworks on the pitch between City and Arsenal.

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