The Man City texts fuelling Arsenal’s title bid
Oleksandr Zinchenko’s brief exchange with Bernardo Silva last summer provides motivation for Arsenal in this Premier League title race
Oleksandr Zinchenko was on holiday in the south of France last summer when he noticed on Instagram that Bernardo Silva was holidaying in the same area.
The pair were trying to relax after a second successive season when Zinchenko’s Arsenal had pushed Silva’s Manchester City all the way in the Premier League title race.
Arsenal had finished with 89 points – one fewer than the club record haul of the famous Arsene Wenger Invincibles side of 2003-04, and enough to win the title the season before. In fact, it would’ve won 20 of the previous 31 titles, but it was not enough to beat City that season, who finished on 91.
And even though a rest was badly needed afterwards, there is, really, no time to relax for elite footballers in the modern-day game. Come back to pre-season even a fraction too out-of-shape and you are playing catch-up with more dedicated team-mates.
So Zinchenko reached out to his rival and old teammate to keep things ticking over.
Silva knew the area well from his time at Monaco and Zinchenko sent the Portuguese a text message asking if he could recommend a pitch to do some exercise.
The exchange, in the Ukrainian’s book Believe, proceeded:
Silva: “For what do you need a pitch?”
Zinchenko: “I need to run.”
Silva: “Run? For what? You’re going to try to win the Premier League again? Forget about it. Stay at home.”
It’s the sort of friendly banter that can get under the skin of rival footballers, that filters back to training grounds. They are extraordinarily competitive humans – jokes help fuel the fire.

Who knew six months later City would be enduring their worst season under Pep Guardiola, Nottingham Forest would be flying, Arsenal in second having struggled for title-winning consistency, and Liverpool, in the first post-Klopp season, would be storming ahead by January.
But what Arsenal have experienced in the past two seasons up against title monsters Manchester City has prepared and motivated them for a fight this season.
Inside Arsenal, it has been noticed how much opponents have changed when facing them, how defensive they now set up, since they became one of the country’s leading teams.
It’s one of the reasons why success at set pieces has become such an important weapon – why “set pieces win games” has been painted in giant letters on a wall in their training ground.
It will be an altogether different prospect when Arsenal host City at the Emirates on Sunday with so much hinging on the game.
Going into the weekend, Arsenal trail Liverpool by six points. Liverpool have a game in hand, but face a tricky game on Saturday away to in-form Bournemouth – another of this season’s pleasant surprises.
City, who seemed completely out of the title race in December, remain in touch.
At Arsenal, there’s a potentially telling symmetry emerging between this and last season. A mini-crisis at the turn of the year – last season two league defeats and an FA Cup exit to Liverpool, this time a draw and defeat, and an FA Cup exit to Manchester United.
Last season, Arsenal’s draw against City and a defeat to Aston Villa were the only points dropped in their final 18 league games last season – taking 49 from a possible 54. They are picking up form and pace again after the FA Cup exit.
The Premier League is on the cusp of an exciting final run-in. A similar run could see Arsenal finally get over the line in the Mikel Arteta era.