Featuring the only two sides to finish in the top four in each of the last four seasons, Manchester City v Arsenal has recently become one of the Premier League’s most important fixtures.

Not only that, but the statistics show the encounters in Manchester routinely prove entertaining, open affairs: the fixture has averaged more than three goals a game since City returned to the big time in 2002/2003. Furthermore, only twice in the 17 Premier League meetings at either Maine Road or the Etihad has the match ended level.

Last season’s topsy-turvy nine-goal thriller was the highest scoring yet, while there have been several other memorable games in recent times, meaning this weekend's Super Sunday fixture, live on Sky Sports 1 from 3.30pm, has a lot to live up too...

Manchester City 6-3 Arsenal – December 2013

Last year’s corresponding fixture saw eventual 2013/14 champions Manchester City deliver a harsh reality check to Arsenal’s then-bourgeoning title challenge. After 15 games, Arsene Wenger's side led the league from Liverpool by five points, with City a further point adrift in fourth, but the pre-Christmas fixture underlined that there was a world of difference between contenders and the real deal.

Having already put six past Tottenham at the Etihad, City’s array of attacking talent repeatedly purged another shaky north London defence – although the fact the Gunners registered three in reply at least gave the scoreline a little more respectability. The nine-goal thriller began when an unmarked Sergio Aguero struck on the volley at the far post following a flick-on at a City corner. Arsenal levelled through Theo Walcott after Yaya Toure had been caught in possession on the halfway line, but Alvaro Negredo restored City’s lead from close range before half-time. Fernandinho then curled in a third soon after the break, the Brazilian's first goal for City.

Walcott got Arsenal back in it with a fine curler of his own, but the visitors' defensive line was breached again by David Silva just three minutes later, before Fernandinho doubled his tally. A sensational game was rounded off deep into injury time by goals apiece for Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker and, from the penalty spot, Toure. "We have a lot more points to fight for; we have to keep improving," stressed new City boss Manuel Pellegrini afterwards. "It is very important to be an entertaining team, but, for me, it will be more entertaining if we score six and concede none.”

Manchester City 4-2 Arsenal – September 2009

While not particularly one of English football’s marque fixtures traditionally, the contest has recently been given added spice by Man City’s rise to the status of Premier League superpower and, undoubtedly, the steady defection of players from the Emirates to the Etihad. That increased tension was first properly in evidence in the early stages of 2009/10, just weeks after then-City manager Mark Hughes had splashed out a combined £37m to bring Arsenal’s African pair Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor to the club.

Inevitably, and rather controversially, Adebayor would score on his first meeting with his old side but the match witnessed several twists and turns before then. City initially went ahead on 20 minutes via a deflected Micah Richards header before Robin van Persie equalised with a powerful low shot from outside the box midway through the second half. With the match in the balance, Craig Bellamy curled home Richards' cutback with 15 minutes on the clock before Adebayor, who had already appeared to stamp on former team-mate Van Persie in an earlier clash, was involved in the match’s most infamous moment.

After heading powerfully home past Manuel Almunia to make it 3-1 to City, the Togolese striker ran the length of the pitch and slid on his knees in front of Arsenal’s travelling fans, causing no end of chaos. The resultant fallout from Adebayor’s celebrations was only just starting, meaning Shaun Wright-Phillips’ fourth goal for City and substitute Tomas Rosicky’s late consolation for Arsenal were thoroughly overshadowed.

Manchester City 1-3 Arsenal – May 2006

While they may have already booked their place in their first Champions League final later that month, Arsenal’s chances of returning to Europe’s premier competition for the following season hung in the balance entering the final week of the 2005/06 Premier League campaign. The Gunners’ visit to the Etihad represented their game-in-hand over local rivals turned fourth-place contenders Tottenham, and while victory would close the gap on Spurs to one point ahead of the final day, defeat to Stuart Pearce’s men would consign them to fifth place at best. City, meanwhile, had little to play for after a mediocre season.

Arsenal’s nerves were settled on the half-hour mark when captain Thierry Henry, having meandered towards the City penalty area after collecting the ball up on the halfway line, picked out the oncoming Freddie Ljungberg with a clever reverse pass, the Swede rifling low past David James for what represented his first league goal in over a year. However, City drew back level nine minutes later when defender David Sommeil scrambled the ball in from a corner.

So often during this period it was Henry who came to Arsenal’s rescue but on this occasion it was another Gunner who had been desperately short on goals, Jose Antonio Reyes, who stepped forward after coming off the bench with 20 minutes to go. The Spaniard had been on the pitch for just seven minutes when he converted Emmanuel Eboue’s cutback to make it 2-1, before a fine curling effort six minutes later settled the match. Three days later and fourth place was Arsenal’s as the Gunners beat Wigan at Highbury while Spurs tumbled at West Ham amid ‘Lasagne gate'.

Manchester City 1-5 Arsenal – February 2003

There’s an argument to be had that it was actually the season before the fabled Arsenal ‘Invincibles’ when Arsene Wenger’s side were at their most flamboyant. This particular performance was one on which such theories have been built. Gunners fans were used to fast starts from their team in the Vieira-Bergkamp-Henry era but even this 19-minute destruction of Kevin Keegan’s Man City took the breath away.

Just four minutes were on the clock when Bergkamp, hardly renowned as a penalty box poacher, ghosted in to get on to the end of a slide-rule pass from Lauren to tuck the ball under the advancing Carlo Nash, the ball having curiously evaded City right-back Richard Dunne on its way. Arsenal’s early onslaught proved to be particularly hard on Dunne, with the marauding Henry proving the Irishman’s chief tormentor. Soon dragged to the outer confines of the left wing, Dunne was skinned by the Frenchman at the byline, who then cut the ball back to countryman Robert Pires to sweep home first time. Three minutes later and Henry was leading him a merry dance again, this time latching onto a long, pinpoint crossfield pass from Martin Keown on the edge of the box, instantly controlling the ball with his right foot and then immediately lashing past the stranded Nash with his left.

Another Henry assist for a bullet Sol Campbell header came from a corner on 18 minutes and the game was already well and truly won. The struggling Dunne was substituted at half-time and Arsenal only scored one more goal thereafter, Patrick Vieira put clear after a neat one-two with Bergkamp. Former Gunner Nicolas Anelka grabbed a late close-range consolation but the gloss couldn’t be taken off Arsenal's win, with Keegan saying of the then-defending Premier League champions and league leaders: “Arsenal, in my opinion, will win the Champions League. They're on a different planet.” However, despite opening up a five-point lead over City’s rivals Manchester United with the impressive win, Arsenal’s title defence unexpectedly fell apart over the final 10 games of the domestic campaign while they wouldn’t even get beyond the last 16 in Europe.

Manchester City 0-4 Arsenal – April 2001

During the first decade or so of the Premier League this was a fixture that routinely delivered three away points for Arsenal. The Gunners were in the middle of what turned out to be seven wins in a row on Manchester City soil when the two sides met approaching the closing weeks of 2000/01. Arsenal were making a triumphant return to the city having beaten Tottenham at Old Trafford to reach the FA Cup final just three days before, but with the rearranged game against City taking place between a tight Champions League quarter-final tie against Valencia, Arsene Wenger chose to ring the changes at Maine Road.

Tony Adams, Lee Dixon and Robert Pires were all rested completely, while Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry were only named on the bench. However an XI which contained the attacking talents of Freddie Ljungberg, Sylvain Wiltord and Kanu still comfortably put relegation-threatened City to the sword. Indeed, all three men got on the scoresheet as Arsenal, not for the first time, blew their opponents away in the opening half of the game.

Two goals on eight minutes, the first from Ljungberg and the second after a sweeping move off the restart by Wiltord, set the tone for the evening and were capped another eight minutes later with a second for the flying Swede after a beautiful chipped pass from Kanu. The Nigerian himself added a fourth nine minutes before half-time thanks to the combination of some sharp Arsenal build-up play and more slapstick City defending. Having returned to the Premier League for the first time in four years at the start of the season, City were relegated in May while Arsenal secured runner-up position to the other Manchester side.

Don't miss the latest edition of Manchester City v Arsenal as part of this weekend's Super Sunday double header. The match begins at 4pm on Sky Sports 1.

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