Rayan Cherki plays with freedom and flamboyance – exactly the qualities Arsenal are lacking

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In showing such flamboyant, freehand skill, Cherki encapsulated the fundamental difference between the title contenders. He breathes life into their attacks in a way no Arsenal player seems liberated enough to. He does things that go against his manager’s wishes. A rabona when he has two equally strong feet. Keepy-uppies when only a couple of goals ahead. Wears Hugo Etikite’s shirt while the game still had 20 minutes to go. Cherki acts before he thinks. Reacts to the picture he sees and not the one given to him. It is the maverick gene. An instinctive feel for what the moment demands. It is why he delayed playing the pass for the opening goal in the 3-0 win over Chelsea. Rather than force a hopeful cross, he chopped back and forth, again and again. Kept working the angle. He looked bored at one point. Then: bang. A clipped cross that perfectly judged the trajectory of Nico O’Reilly’s late dash into the penalty area for him to head home. Who in the Arsenal team carries the ball as playfully? No one gets close. There can be cases made for Martin Odegaard and Eberechi Eze, but one is a small-space, system player and the other affects games in moments. Cherki, still only 22, can produce magic in any size of role, gracing each game with at least a handful of unique displays of personality. It can frustrate his manager at times. Observing Guardiola on the touchline at Stamford Bridge, it often feels like he is battling with his players to do what he wants. He points to the left, they play right. Asks them to play through pressure, they go long to Erling Haaland. But that is healthy, if not necessary, creative tension. Individuality resisting the system, throwing up new scenarios. Not patterns, not repeats, not controlled. A rough outline in which the players feel emboldened to apply their own twist. “Rayan has something special. I said choose the pass right, and he passed to Marc Guehi that I could not even see from outside,” said Guardiola of the second goal. Watch Arsenal and they never go off script. Possession as diktat. The margin for error squeezed at the expense of imagination and ingenuity. They may well scrape over the line but they passed up umpteen opportunities earlier in the season to kill any race, which would have removed this suffocating late-season pressure. The reason that so many doubt whether Arsenal can find the magic needed to win these final six games is because of the stark contrast in the attacking casts. Omar Marmoush, Savinho and Phil Foden are benchwarmers at City right now. Meanwhile, Leandro Trossard, Gabriel Martinelli and Noni Madueke are sharing starting responsibilities for Arsenal. The Arteta project has been extremely successful in building the scaffolding of a team but, in searching for the finishing touches, they have ended up becoming predictable and, too often, dull. City have renewed. Cherki was signed as the heir to Kevin De Bruyne in the summer and has grown into the role, despite legitimate questions over his compatibility with Guardiola’s approach. Could he be integrated into a system? Would he have the creativity sucked out of him? Did he hog the centre stage too much to fit into an elite team? City are showing that it is a much healthier problem to have too many ‘main-character attackers’ than too few. In what was earmarked as an adaptation year, he has become the first player to register 10 or more assists in their debut Premier League season since Dimitri Payet for West Ham in 2015-16. “He is little bit of a free soul,” said Guardiola on Friday in a pre-match press conference. “I am a manager who likes control; we know this. So sometimes, on the touchline, it is so, so tough to watch. My heart… pff. He gets the ball, he starts the tricks, and my instinct is to shout: ‘Rayan, please, play simple!’ But if I tell him against Chelsea: ‘Stop this,’ I destroy the player.” In the absence of a dominant team, neutrals have been waiting on the juggernaut version of City to appear all season. It has not arrived, and is unlikely to, even down the home straight. They are a flawed team, but they are capable of that ruthlessness in short spells. It is proving to be enough. They were below par against Liverpool and Chelsea in both first halves and still ended up scoring a combined seven goals without conceding. The travelling support were belting out Milky’s ‘Just The Way You Are’ in tribute to Cherki’s creativity for the majority of the second half before moving on to a more ominous message. Are you watching, Arsenal?  If they were, they are probably wishing they had Cherki among their ranks. Instead, they face the prospect of Guardiola’s free soul mischievously, brilliantly poking holes in their plans next Sunday. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Jordan Campbell is a football writer for The Athletic, who regularly covers Manchester City. In 2024, he was named in the 30 to Watch journalism awards. He previously covered Glasgow Rangers and was twice nominated for Young Journalist of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards. Follow Jordan on Twitter @JordanC1107