Welcome back to The Athletic’s title-race tracker, where our data and tactics writers analyse the key trends behind the two-horse race for the Premier League crown.

There was a dramatic twist last weekend, as Arsenal fell to a 2-1 home defeat to Bournemouth, opening the door for Manchester City to close the gap. Pep Guardiola’s men took full advantage, meaning only six points now separate the two sides ahead of Sunday’s colossal meeting between them.

With the help of Opta’s supercomputer, The Athletic looks to answer the big question: who will make it over the line in first place?

What has changed since the last gameweek?

In short, the title is now (technically) back in both sides’ hands.

Arsenal’s loss to Bournemouth keeps them on 70 points with 32 games played, while City’s victory over Chelsea places them on 64 points with 31 games played. Should City beat Arsenal and win their game in hand against Crystal Palace (scheduled for May 22), then both teams are locked on the same points, with only goal difference separating them.

Of course, that assumes that the pair also win their other remaining games between now and the end of the season. With so many teams scrapping to achieve their own goals, a perfect finish is clearly not guaranteed for either side.

If you did want to flick back through recent history, then City can be more optimistic as spring turns to summer.

City have lost just one of their last 40 Premier League games in April and May, winning the last 19 in a row at home. The last team to take points from Guardiola’s side at the Etihad in April and May was a 2-2 draw with Liverpool in April 2022 — a result that was not enough to influence the title race as City won the league by a single point.

Arsenal have been less convincing in April and May across recent seasons, drawing seven and losing 11 of their last 39 games since 2021-22. History does not always predict the future, but the narratives that have been bubbling away are starting to come to the surface.

It cannot be overstated how crucial this weekend’s clash is in shifting the momentum of the title race.

Who is looking stronger?

City have beaten Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea since the March international break, scoring nine and conceding none. As mentioned above, the business end of the season is when they tend to click into their most ominous gear.

Their 3-0 win at Stamford Bridge last weekend was built on a ferocious start to the second half, as we can see from the xG step diagram below. Rayan Cherki provided two assists — a teasing cross to find Nico O’Reilly, and a clever outside-of-the-boot pass to slip the ball through to Marc Guehi — to break the deadlock and help City ease away.

Cherki’s inclusion in the starting XI is a hot topic for debate, particularly given Guardiola’s comments after their damaging 1-1 draw to West Ham. He said that City were “incredibly unbalanced” at the start of the season when the Frenchman played alongside Erling Haaland and Jeremy Doku, pointing to the speed of Antoine Semenyo and Nico O’Reilly out wide as players who give him stability in more end-to-end, transitional games.

Last weekend, Cherki started his third consecutive game alongside all four of those players, the manager seemingly satisfied with the blend of creativity and structural solidity the team now shows.

With all in the side, the front four is varied and difficult to track. From Doku’s incessant, jolting runs to the ease with which Semenyo glides through space with the ball, there is enough to contain out wide without even considering Cherki’s technical ability inside.

As we can see from the assist map below, incision comes from cutbacks, crosses, through-balls and fizzed passes through the lines. He arguably poses the greatest threat to Arsenal’s rock-solid back line.

While the swirling narrative might suggest otherwise, Arsenal still have reason to be optimistic this weekend. Disappointing recent defeats in the Carabao Cup, the FA Cup and Premier League mean confidence will be dented, but Arteta’s side remain top of the table with a Champions League semi-final to look forward to.

The theme of their season has been about reducing variance. They might not be the most free-flowing going forward, but getting the better of Arsenal defensively is one of the toughest tasks in football. No side has conceded fewer than their 0.72 goals per 90 minutes across Europe’s top five leagues this season, providing a granite foundation from which to build their attack.

A disappointing loss to Bournemouth was unwelcome, but looking at Arsenal’s form this season shows how remarkably consistent their results have been. Statistically speaking, they have not had a period of “poor form” across a wider set of games all season, so there should be no reason to think that they will start now at such a critical point of the year.

Who has the tougher upcoming schedule?

The title cards are still stacked in Arsenal’s favour. They retain a six-point lead and also hold a slight fixture-difficulty edge, based on the average Opta Power Rating of their remaining six opponents. For both sides, the toughest game left is obviously against each other, but once Sunday is out of the way, Arsenal have the kinder run-in, at least on paper.

Three of these final five matches are at home, where they face Newcastle, Fulham and Burnley. A possible banana skin comes in the form of their third-last game — a trip across London to face West Ham. The east London side have earned the fifth-most points in the league since the turn of the year, belying their 17th-place position, and will be fighting for their Premier League lives.

On the final day, Arsenal travel to Selhurst Park, which is never an easy place to go. But Crystal Palace may have one eye elsewhere. They are through to the Conference League semi-finals, and if they progress to the final, they will play it three days later.

For City, there are tricky away days to Bournemouth and Everton, both of whom are still in the mix for European qualification. Their other match on the road comes against a practically relegated Burnley side next Wednesday (a fixture brought forward from the FA Cup semi-final weekend).

Rounding out the season by hosting fourth-placed Aston Villa is hardly the easiest fixture, but there is a decent chance that Villa will have already achieved their objective of qualifying for the Champions League by then, leaving the game with little riding on it beyond pride for Unai Emery’s side.

What does the supercomputer say?

Last week, Opta’s supercomputer was all but engraving Arsenal’s name on the trophy, rating their title chances at 97.3 per cent. Then Andoni Iraola, Alex Scott and Bournemouth’s motley crew arrived in the capital and threw a spanner in the works.

As an unfeeling statistical simulation, the supercomputer’s reaction to the shock defeat was less extreme than the rest of ours, quietly downgrading Arsenal’s chances to 86.1 per cent while increasing City’s to 13.9 per cent. Arsenal do hold the upper hand with their six-point lead, and a draw on Sunday should be enough to stave off City’s mini-revival.

Still, City’s probability here does feel unduly low, particularly when factoring in unquantifiable elements such as momentum and psychological edge.