Saturday afternoon’s return of Manchester City’s Bacary Sagna to his old club Arsenal looks like the fixture of the weekend. Both teams have strengthened over the summer, but Man City look the more complete package, winning two games to Arsenal’s one. That said, this fixture resulted in a 1-1 draw near the end of last season and Arsenal comprehensively outplayed City in the Community Shield, so it’s by no means a huge hill to climb for the home side.
All eyes will be on both managers and on the lineups they send into battle on Saturday. To see how fans of both clubs may be thinking about this game, we looked at the Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football data from this fixture last season, to see what players were picked for the lineups last year.
Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football is a game which is similar to “Football Manager”, but applied to live football, where you manage your favourite Club and pick lineups, bench, formations and substitutions, all in real-time. When fans play the game, the Beat Your Manager team can measure the popularity of different players, by looking at how frequently they are selected for the starting lineup, substitutes bench or not selected at all.
Formation: Arsenal fans like the look of a 4-3-3, while City fans plumb for a 4-4-2
Perhaps unsurprisingly as they are at home, over a quarter of Arsenal’s fans opted for an aggressive 4-3-3 formation, while 40 per cent of City fans opted for the steady 4-4-2.
Goalkeepers: No surprises as Szczesny and Hart line up between the posts
Fans of both clubs did not go for any surprises in goal, with both team’s regular Number 1 selected for goalkeeping duty. Wojciech SzczÄ™sny was the goalkeeping choice of every Arsenal fan playing the game, while Joe Hart had an impressive 90 per cent rating with Blues fans. Both real-life Managers agreed with fans, going for the identical options between the posts.
Defenders: Fans and Managers on the same page
Per Mertesacker and Bacary Sagna were jointly the most popular defenders, with every Arsenal fan playing the Beat Your Manager game selecting them for their lineups. Thomas Vermaelen, now at Barcelona, came a close third on a 95 per cent rating, with Man City’s Vincent Kompany in fourth spot with 90 per cent approval. Arsenal’s fourth-choice defender Kieran Gibbs is just behind Kompany in the popularity stakes with 89 per cent, while the three players Man City fans chose to make up the rest of the defence (Zabaleta, Demichelis, Clichy) were all tied on an 80 per cent rating.
As the Arsenal defenders chosen had such high ratings relative to their Man City counterparts, it is apparent that Gunners fans felt that the choices in defence were obvious, while fans at the Etihad were still making up their mind on their strongest back four. As with the goalkeepers, Wenger and Pellegrini selected identical lineups in defence to the fans.
Midfielders: Wenger’s choice makes the difference?
Arsenal and Man City had to share top billing in the popularity stakes in midfield, with Mikel Arteta, Santi Cazorla, Yaya Touré and David Silva selected for the lineup by every Arsenal and City fans (respectively) playing the Beat Your Manager game. City’s Samir Nasri was next most popular, polling an 80 per cent approval for the lineup, with Arsenal’s Tomáš Rosický just behind on 79 per cent. Fernandinho was further behind with Blues fans on 70 per cent while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain just squeezed into the Arsenal fans lineup, on 53 per cent.
Pellegrini also agreed with fans on the inclusion of Silva and the Spainard rewarded both with the opening goal. Wenger made only one change from what the fans recommended, fielding Matthew Flamini, the Frenchman netting the equalising goal early in the second half.
Forwards: Arsenal Fans and Wenger both singing from same hymn sheet
Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud was the most popular forward, rating 95 per cent with the Londoners, while Stevan Jovetić (80 per cent) and Lukas Podolski (79 per cent) were pretty closely rated by their respective fans, Edin Dzeko taking up the second forward spot, with a 70 per cent rating.
Wenger agreed with the fans, fielding the same two forwards, while Pellegrini opted to draft in Jesús Navas as an extra midfielder, playing Dzeko in a lone striker role.
Fan-selected lineup for Arsenal vs. Man City 2013/4 EPL Season:
