Pep Guardiola has revealed he helped save Mikel Arteta’s job because he knew he’d make Arsenal a force again.

With supporters demanding his ouster following a difficult start to the season two years ago, the Manchester City manager gave his former mentor Arteta a massive outpouring of support. Arteta was under pressure after Arsenal’s first three League games were lost, including a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of City at the Etihad. Arteta’s future was immediately in doubt.

But Guardiola sprang to his fellow countryman’s defence – and two years on the City boss heads to the Emirates on Sunday convinced Arsenal are the main challengers to his hopes of retaining the Premier League. “In that game, we started off quite equal, and then after we scored two goals they had Xhaka sent off. It wasn’t easy for Mikel.

“After what happened in the first 20 minutes he understood it perfectly, the reasons why and adapted individually and collectively. I am not usually here to defend colleagues because everyone can defend themselves, we all respect each other but we are not friends.

“But Mikel is an exception, he is completely different. We worked together for two or three years with a lot of success. I said many times I learned a lot. And I was pretty convinced that he would be good for Arsenal because I knew him here, how he communicated with the players, his ideas. I was convinced.

“He’s proof that when a club believes in something, when the board and sporting director decide the way they want to play and keep the manager to play that way, and sign the right players, it works. Sometimes you see it immediately and sometimes you need time.

“It happens when the people above you really believe in you and have patience and look at the training sessions and how things are building rather than just rely on results.

“If clubs only look at the result, that is the first step to being down. You have to rely on what the manager is doing rather than the results. Results will always be a consequence.

“Arsenal trusted him and the results are here. At the end, they have a manager for many years. He knows the club. He loves the club. Better than that is impossible.”

Guardiola and Arteta are animated on the touchline and have fallen foul of officials for their antics. But the City boss refutes the suggestion the Arsenal boss is a ‘mini-me’.

The Spaniard added: “No, not at all. I dress better. I am more elegant. My wife gives me the perfect outfit all the time! I see zero characteristics in him from me. His father and mother are different! All the success he has belongs to Mikel and his people at Arsenal – it’s down to them, not me, definitely.

“People say ‘ah yes, he was with Pep and learnt a lot.’ But I learnt a lot from him as well. People think it is always that way, how much I taught him. But he teaches me too and I learnt well.

.

With Rodri serving the last match of a three-game ban, Guardiola must find the solution to a midfield conundrum. And that’s certain to include fit again Bernardo Silva who starred in the 3-1 away Euro win at Red Bull Leipzig.

“Last season he played as a left back against Saka at the Emirates, he can play so many positions and he’s so intelligent too. He’s a huge competitor. He loves to win and gets incredibly angry and upset when we lose, although it doesn’t look like that from the outside. It would have been a big, big loss for us if he’d left last summer after Gundo and Riyhad going too. But we can have him one more year.”