Man City head to Arsenal ‘in high spirits’ after finding form

Manchester City head to fellow title contenders Arsenal with “high hopes” having followed their derby triumph by beating Napoli.

Having gone into the international break reeling from Premier League defeats to Tottenham and Brighton, Pep Guardiola’s men lifted the mood with a pair of Etihad Stadium victories.

City backed up Sunday’s 3-0 defeat of lacklustre rivals Manchester United by beating 10-man Napoli 2-0 in Thursday’s Champions League opener, putting a pep in their step before Sunday’s match at Arsenal.

And young left-back Nico O’Reilly said: “We’ve got winning momentum. Obviously, the last two games have been tough.

“We’ve got another tough game in the weekend, but we’re going into it with high spirits, high hopes.

“Obviously, the last two games we also got two clean sheets, which is good, very important, so, yeah, we’re looking for the weekend.”

Arsenal also head into Sunday’s match on the back of two post-break wins as they bounced back from their narrow loss at leaders Liverpool.

Saturday’s 3-0 defeat of Nottingham Forest was followed by a 2-0 triumph at Athletic Bilbao in Tuesday’s Champions League opener, meaning Mikel Arteta’s men have two more days of preparation than City.

“As long as we recover right we should go into the game fresh,” O’Reilly said. “We don’t need to make no excuses. We’ll go into it 100 per cent.”

O’Reilly downplayed the impact of that extra rest and preferred to highlight the positives at City.

Phil Foden followed his goal in the Manchester derby with a sparkling display against Napoli, including providing a fine assist for Erling Haaland to score his 50th Champions League goal in record-breaking fashion.

“He’s just a machine in front of goal,” O’Reilly said after the Norway striker reached his half century in just 49 games.

“He’s so vital in our team. We’re happy to have him. We just keep giving the ball there and he’ll do the rest.

“He’s so professional around the training ground, just his lifestyle, the stuff he does, like training and then he puts it into the games.

“He runs like a machine, pressing, and then he does his job, scores the goals.”

As for Foden, who looks like he is getting back to his best after a difficult 2024-25 season, O’Reilly added: “He was brilliant.

“Obviously we know how much of a good player he is every single day, and nights like this where he shows it, he’s so sharp, he helps out a lot. We need him and let’s hope he can keep this up.”