Manchester City have negotiated a testing week with distinction so far, but their tricky spell comes to a head on Sunday, September 21, 2025, with a tough trip to Premier League title rivals Arsenal.

Pep Guardiola’s side travel to the Emirates having beaten Manchester United last weekend before beginning their Champions League campaign with a victory over 10-man Napoli.

But City will be kicking off against Mikel Arteta’s side barely 66 hours after the referee blew for full-time in their European contest, giving them only two full days to recover and work tactically on the game.

“We are going to [go] hiking in the mountains,” joked Guardiola. “We are going to do that for these two days.”

He added: “I don’t know, Friday recovery. The players have a lot of injuries but rest, rest, rest and [recover] the energy for Sunday.”

In January 2025, Guardiola said English teams are at a disadvantage in Europe because of Premier League scheduling, as they always put “the toughest schedules for the European teams in the important stages”.

But on this occasion, the Spaniard refused to be drawn into a discussion about whether City had spoken to the Premier League or UEFA about the scheduling, saying: “Don’t go for that side, it is not necessary.”

Does less recovery time bring down quality?

Though Guardiola didn’t say it publicly, he would have a case for grumbling about the scheduling for their next game.

Arsenal began their Champions League campaign with a victory at Athletic Club, a match that kicked off at 9:45 pm, while City’s match against Antonio Conte’s Napoli kicked off at 20:00 on Thursday, September 18, 2025.

This gives the Gunners two extra full days of rest and preparation for a vital game.

However, the data for a short turnaround makes for surprising reading.

Looking at the past five seasons, both City and Arsenal actually perform better two days after playing in Europe, compared to four days after.

For City in particular, the lack of recovery time and preparation between a Champions League game and a Premier League one appears to work in their favour.

With only two days’ rest, their past 15 league results stretching back to October 2020 show – remarkably – they have not lost a single game, winning 11 and drawing the other four.

Physiotherapist Ben Warburton, brother of Wales rugby union legend Sam, says players who have more metres to cover, such as central midfielders, tend to sustain calf injuries, while pacy full-backs and wingers, who are doing more sprints, will suffer hamstring problems.

“It is shown in studies that you need 48 – if not 72 hours – to recover from high intensity exercise,” Warburton told BBC Sport. “So when you play, say on Tuesday and then Saturday, you just don’t have time to get quality gym work in.

“It’s so important, especially in football, with the amount of sprint metres they do and the amount of volume they cover, that players have strong and durable muscles. But of course, you can’t really work in the gym if you’re playing twice a week.

“When you’re playing with less preparation time, you don’t get the quality work you need to get in the gym needed to make muscles conditioned enough for all the high-intensity work, and hence you get soft tissue injuries.

“If you’re playing that much football in a week and you’re going to train maybe once or twice as well, then unless you’re really well conditioned, you’re not going to be able to repetitively run at those volumes of speeds because the body is just not able to tolerate it.”