Why Man City will have Arsenal regret after Liverpool FC defeat

From the outside looking in, Manchester City would appear to have benefitted from fixture changes this week.

The Blues were due to play Arsenal on Thursday night at the Emirates in what would have been a tantalising match. Mikel Arteta's side are flying high four points clear at the top of the table with nine wins from their first ten games and would have been right up for it at a re-energised Emirates.

It arguably would have been the worst time for City to go there and get a result given both the form Arsenal are in and the fact that they have suffered their first defeat of the season. While they were already being talked about by some as certainties for the title before Liverpool, consecutive losses would have put a very different spin on things.

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The reason the fixture has been postponed dates back to the death of the Queen. Arsenal's Europa League game with PSV Eindhoven was one of the ties unable to be played and while the Premier League have months to reschedule games UEFA want to complete their group stages in timely fashion.

That has meant that Arsenal will play PSV on Thursday and the City game will likely not be played before February at the earliest, when Arteta's side will have had to have performed immensely to still be in as good a position. Circumstances appear to have helped City.

That is certainly not how Pep Guardiola and his players will be thinking about it though. They have won the silverware they have over the past five years because they have relished picking themselves up after defeats and reacting in the best possible way.

It is why City so rarely go more than one match without winning, because they step into