There will be no 11th outfielder in the Manchester City goal against Arsenal on Sunday. After eight years, Pep Guardiola replaced the silky Ederson with Gianluigi Donnarumma, whose footwork is more paso doble than quickstep.

It looks unlikely that there will be a right-back who can move into midfield and connect play. The no-nonsense flying machine of a centre-back, Abdukodir Khusanov, will be shuffled across instead. There will be no hint of a false nine either, only the truest number nine in the form of Erling Haaland.

It is a team with a very different aesthetic to Guardiola’s Barcelona vintage or even his first title-winning team in 2017-18 – David Silva, Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan, Fernandinho, Raheem Sterling, and Sergio Aguero et al – that earned 100 points.

Arsenal have added their own hulking presence in Viktor Gyokeres after years of drawing ire for persisting without one. Martin Zubimendi, as opposed to Declan Rice, will occupy the No 6 position, a pivot to the Spanish profile like his counterpart Rodri.

What does any of it tell us? Some will use it as further evidence that Mikel Arteta is the great imitator of Pep Guardiola. A coach with the awareness and competency to bring ideas together but lacking the genius to create original works of his own.

Zubimendi is the backup to Rodri in the Spanish national team, and Gyokeres is a colossal, flat-track bully just like Haaland. The same conclusions as Guardiola, just late to the party and the next-best versions. Add them to the copycat folder.

In reality, it is an oversimplification of how both teams have evolved in the past few years and the wider factors driving those stylistic changes.

The idea of Arteta seeking to emulate Guardiola really took off in the summer of 2022 when he signed Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus directly from City, who were quickly framed as cast-offs. Then came full-backs inverting. Four centre-backs across the defence. Signing David Raya to play out from the back. All supposedly owned concepts of Guardiola. Some now believe Arteta will reconfigure Eberechi Eze from a dribbler into a trusty ball-retainer like Jack Grealish – anything to make the Venn diagram a complete circle.

But is it not entirely natural for Arteta to be influenced by the methods of Guardiola, football’s tactical zeitgeist and the coach he assisted for over three years? It would be strange if somehow, having also been schooled in the Cruyff principles that underpin La Masia, he saw the game so differently that he was a proponent of precisely zero of the same beliefs.

Arsenal did indeed play a lot like City in 2022-23, the year that Arteta’s coaching finally found lift-off and they entered the elite. What about Arteta channelling prime Catenaccio to win an FA Cup in his first season while playing a back five? Or his reaction to that first failed title push in 2023, when he constricted his team and prioritised defensive solidity?

There are clear crossovers, but it is almost forgotten that Arteta grew up in San Sebastian, where the football is distinctly more physical than other parts of Spain – or that the largest span of his playing career came under David Moyes.

His influences are varied, and the closer Arsenal got to City, the more Arteta moved in a different direction. He has made Arsenal into the best out-of-possession team in Europe for more than two years and is occasionally lambasted for being too conservative in big games. The 1-0 defeat at Anfield is the latest example.

As the two teams prepare to meet at the Emirates, the conversation is not about how Arteta’s Arsenal have moved towards, or away, from Guardiola.

It is about how both managers’ ideas, if they were at one time broadly similar, have both moved away from their roots in a bid to keep up with the evolving challenge of the Premier League.

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Guardiola has never been afraid to reinvent. He has ideals, but he is not tied to them so rigidly that he refuses to react to the adaptations of others.

When Roberto De Zerbi brought his teasing build-up approach to the Premier League, he incorporated some of its hallmarks. The influence of Eddie Howe’s Newcastle United in terms of physicality and intensity has become a touchpoint for Arteta.

Andoni Iraola’s success at Bournemouth has helped drive a rise in man-to-man pressing and has fundamentally changed the nature of what City are up against domestically.

The hiring of Pep Lijnders, the former assistant of Liverpool nemesis Jurgen Klopp, was recognition of that. His focus is on quick transitions, which is why City were content to sit off Manchester United at times on Sunday and wait to counter-attack.

Could we see City cede possession to Arsenal again this weekend? It would be a testament to the strength of Arsenal, a team they have not beaten in their last five meetings, but it would also be a reflection of what Guardiola has perhaps learned from others, including Arteta.

For starters, Guardiola will have set-piece coach James French in his technical area to rival Arsenal’s Nicolas Jover. The specialist role was something Guardiola did not see the merit in dedicating time to until Arteta suggested the hiring of Jover at City. He is now on his third hire and a public advocate of its importance. If Guardiola starts employing long throws, as Arsenal have, it feels like his Anglicisation will be complete.

Arteta has gone on a journey when it comes to the profile of the striker he has preferred. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette to Gabriel Jesus to Kai Havertz and now to Gyokeres. Yes, there is an overlap with Haaland, but look around – the big man up top is a trend that has come back around.

Teams are realising the need to be able to play directly over the opposition press, which is becoming harder to penetrate, and have a focal point to retain possession. They are also finding that when they reach the final third, it is increasingly difficult to decipher a way through crowded penalty areas. Crossing, derided as a medieval act by many because of its top-line percentage failure, is also becoming fashionable again.

Players who excel in outplaying their direct opponent have also become fashionable again. Guardiola signed Rayan Ait-Nouri and Rayan Cherki, while Arteta added Noni Madueke and Eze. Directness is the new requirement.

Then there is the makeup of the squad. Arteta’s squad-building at Arsenal has, in part, been guided by his time at City, but it was a framework he helped promote. The analytics department researched the age and positional adaptability, which tend to establish periods of sustained dominance. Arteta’s recruitment of hybrid defenders Ben White, Jurrien Timber, Riccardo Calafiori, Cristhian Mosquera and Piero Hincapie is part of that thinking.

Guardiola has traditionally preferred a smaller core group of players he rotates more often, whereas Arteta has tended to stick with a set XI. Last season, Arteta was promoting thne idea of two squads to cope with the packed calendar, while Guardiola was an outlier, complaining about having a bloated squad. Arsenal have improved their depth drastically to reach a head count of 25, but it is Guardiola who has moved position by starting the season carrying 26 senior players for the first time.

This amalgamation of factors is why the size and athleticism of both teams have grown in the past few years. They will likely field two teams with a combined total of five players measuring below six feet, not exactly the original Barcelona doctrine of diminutive, technical passers.

In an era in which singular identities and philosophies are finally coming under scrutiny, these are two managers who are constantly adapting and tweaking at the micro and macro levels.

Guardiola has proven his genius more times than can be recited, but he has never had to build a team from the low level Arteta did when he took over in 2019. The path from being a non-Champions League team to regular Premier League contenders is not a path that is trodden overnight, nor is it one that will not have to change course along the way, even borrowing from the best.

“So all I can say is they have been wise,” said Guardiola when asked on Thursday night about Arsenal’s strengthening this summer. “They spent what they believe they can to compete against the best teams in the Premier League and Europe and they’ve reached that level. So he found a team in that way, and step by step, window by window, Arsenal is getting better.

“Last season in Europe, they made an incredible step forward and they are for me the most solid team. They don’t make mistakes in the back. They have pace in front, they have of course set-pieces with Nico Jover. So it’s in every department.

“Only I want to say to my friend Mikel Arteta, if he wins the title it will be just because he spent, not because he worked a lot or his players. It’s like Liverpool. If Arne (Slot) wins again, it will be because he spent a lot of money. Right? Because it’s not just (at) Manchester City where that happened, right? So for all of them.”

That last passage was delivered with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

The fact is it is the way of the world now to reject inspiration as a valid concept and label it as ‘fraud’ instead. That way, there is no need for an appreciation of the nuance or the long, winding road to build the strength of the squad Arteta now has.

Sunday’s match may provide an indication as to who has learned and adapted the best to the shifting paradigm that is the Premier League.

• A Tell Media report / Adapted from The Athletic