The Gunners have gone head-to-head with City over the past two years for the Premier League crown. But on each occasion they have been left frustrated.
It now appears that Arteta has taken on the mantra of ‘if you can’t beat them, sign them’. According to The Athletic, the North London side have moved for Man City’s elite development squad analyst Darren Rogerson.
He is set to complete a move to the Emirates Stadium this summer and will start working with Arteta’s first team in the first few months of the new campaign. Rogerson had previously spent time with Sheffield United, Rangers and Derby.
He was also with the Man City under-18s before moving up to the EDS. Rogerson is not the only Man City member of staff to swap the Etihad for the Emirates recently.
Ben Chadwick quit City to become Arsenal’s head of analysis having held the same role under Pep Guardiola. Set piece coach Nicolas Jover has also proven to be a big hit having followed Arteta to London from Man City.
“Many years ago,” Arteta explained when asked by TNT Sports when he realised how crucial set pieces were to a team’s success. “Especially when I was at City, and I believe that we needed somebody who specialised in that.
“And I gave my advice to go and recruit Nico. I met him, we started to discuss how we could apply set pieces to the open play, which is also connected, they're not two separate things, it's all connected in the game, and how we could maximize that."
He added: “I knew Nico from before, and I asked him to come and join our project, he did, and he's having a really strong impact on the team.”
Away from coaches, the Gunners have also raided Man City for a couple of players over the past few years. Brazilian striker Gabriel Jesus moved to Arsenal in a £45m move two years ago.
He has endured a tricky time of things since then with injuries limiting his contributions. He has scored just 19 goals in 69 appearances in all competitions. Jesus has since been linked with a move to Saudi side Al-Ahli.
Jesus was joined at the Emirates by ex-Man City teammate Oleksandr Zinchenko. He has also endured his own injury problems with Arsenal.
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