Former colleagues. Master and apprentice. Title rivals.

Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta’s relationship has cut across a range of strands over the years – and evolved along with their managerial styles.

The pair go head to head at Etihad Stadium on Sunday in a match many have billed as a Premier League title decider. A win for Guardiola and second-placed Manchester City would cut the lead of Arteta’s Arsenal side to just three points, with a game in hand.

The Spaniards’ relationship started in 1997 when Arteta joined Barcelona’s academy – meeting his idol, Barca skipper and fellow midfielder Guardiola. Their time as team-mates was brief, but a friendship was forged.

Communication between the two managers cooled significantly when Arteta gave up his role as Guardiola’s assistant in Manchester back in 2019 to take charge of Arsenal.

While the City boss’ other former assistants maintained closer contact, Arteta stepped away – and that distance created silence.

Guardiola appreciates those that give and take continuously, but if that is not clearly expressed, relationships can fracture even without a clear conflict. Arteta is someone who moves forward without being dependent on past professional bonds.

Contact was eventually re-established in the last year and tensions eased. Nobody wants to say who made the first call, but they speak again.

They are now competing for the same trophies but, at the same time, recognise the strength of the friendship, and both suffer in that solitary place that is managing a football team at the very top.

There was a time when Spanish football on Sunday evenings became a kind of ritual for coaches across Europe when the Guardiola-led Barcelona were in action. For 90 minutes everyone tried to understand what they were watching.

Liverpool-born Andy Mangan, opposition scout for Brazil this summer, remembers it as an education.

“At first I didn’t understand what he was doing,” said Mangan. “But every week he would identify a space to attack, and every Sunday you watched those players play with joy. We were kids but it was inadvertently a vital learning period of so many coaches’ lives.”

Guardiola built a successful team, but he also created a new way of winning.

Pep Segura, former director of football at Barcelona and ex-Liverpool academy head, added: “Of the four phases of the game – attack, defence, offensive transition, defensive transition – until Pep arrived, most teams structured themselves defensively and took whatever the game gave them. They were reactive. Guardiola arrived and said, ‘no, we will think about how we play from the way we attack’.”

Football reorganised around possession, positioning and numerical superiority with the ball as the centre of everything. This triggered a response and was where Arteta’s story began.

“Teams started asking themselves how to counter this… with pressing and, above all, quick transitions,” said Segura.

The game evolved in response to Guardiola’s approach; transitions became sharper, physical demands increased, players had to think about what they were doing or had to do.

Crucially, Arteta grew up as a coach in that world.

Those who worked closely within that period describe Arteta’s time alongside Guardiola at City not just as an apprenticeship. He was remembered as a “formidable dance partner”, immersed in the intensity of the manager’s methodology.

Guardiola valued his input highly as he helped raise standards in training, particularly in intensity, aggression and competitive detail.

Having played for both Everton and Arsenal, Arteta opened Guardiola’s eyes about the Premier League tempo, refereeing, emotional volatility of fans and physical demands.

But he was never a “fundamentalist” of Guardiola’s ideas. While aligned in principles when he was his assistant, he was already developing his own thinking. Guardiola innovated and Arteta imagined how the game would adapt.

Segura added: “Unlike Pep, who had to learn transitions which he started doing in Germany, Arteta was born and grew up with them. He played in England, he knows them.”

Guardiola’s teams, at their core, have always dominated two phases of the game; attacking organisation and defensive transition. They control matches through possession and react immediately when the ball is lost.

Arteta’s early Arsenal teams leaned heavily on control, but eventually moved on.

Former Celta Vigo assistant David Martinez explained: “I think he understood that to be competitive and aspire to win titles – offensively there are teams with more resources and talent than Arsenal. He understood he had to base his improvement on dominating everything.”

Robert Moreno, former Spain coach, argued Arteta developed his own voice into producing one of the most effective units in Europe.

Mangan also added: “What’s fascinating with Mikel is that he’s understood where the game is going very quickly – duels, set-pieces, long throws… all the things that now decide matches.”

But that process Arteta has worked on comes at a price.

The more a team relies on rehearsed mechanisms, the more it depends on precision. If execution drops, the system can struggle.

This is a key distinction from Guardiola.

Elite teams managed by him maintain an ideal combination of intelligence within structure, and he has players capable of improvising solutions when patterns break down.

At times, Arsenal are perceived as more rigid. There are moments where, instead of breaking structure to solve problems, players remain locked into roles.

While Arsenal learned to compete at the highest level, Guardiola continued to evolve.

That tension – between adapting and remaining faithful to an idea – defines the 55-year-old’s career.

“He starts incorporating new concepts,” said Segura. “Above all defensive transition, that’s where he evolves enormously.

“Arteta incorporated more physical profiles than Pep. Pep seeks more technical players… Arteta looks for strength, speed, power.”

But there are still plenty of points of convergence.

“Both have looked for pieces to improve the offensive transition,” added Segura. “City with [Erling] Haaland… Arteta with [Viktor] Gyokeres.”

There is an element where the comparison becomes most revealing. In elite football, what defines coaches is how they respond to difficulty.

Arteta is in that moment now. He has built a team capable of competing with the best. But the final step – winning consistently at the very top – is where he wants to get to.

When results do not follow, the temptation is always the same; change and react to external pressure. Arteta has not abandoned those ideas. He has doubled down. He has asked more of his players, pushed harder but within the same framework.

In elite sport, losing is considered part of the process. The next step is evolving and trying again with the same effort, or more.

Guardiola has lived that cycle repeatedly. After setbacks, after criticism, he has returned to his principles and expanded them.

Former Burnley, Everton and Nottingham Forest boss Sean Dyche has witnessed that resilience up close.

“In difficult times, Pep didn’t panic,” he said. “He adjusted, but he stayed true to what he believes.

“I think it’s brilliant management from Pep, and Arteta… they have tried to win a certain way, but they have also evolved to play in ways that we knew before.”

There is another layer to the challenge Arteta faces, one created, in part, by Guardiola himself.

“The biggest shift in football now is that winning isn’t enough anymore,” added Dyche. “People ask how you win.”

Guardiola changed expectations.

So now Arsenal, despite their development, are judged on results of course, but also on perception.