Kevin De Bruyne cancelled out Vinicius Junior strike as Real Madrid and Manchester City drew 1-1 in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final on Tuesday evening.

After the champions’ 2-1 victory at Fulham on Sunday, Manchester City took Arteta’s team’s place atop the table.

After winning eight straight league games in pursuit of their fifth league championship in six years, City now leads the Gunners by a point with a game remaining.

Arsenal, in contrast, has struggled lately, winning just three of their last four games.

After six seasons away from the premier club competition in Europe, they are at least guaranteed a return to Champions League play, but Arteta insisted the Gunners’ squad was not content with that accomplishment alone.

Arteta now wants Arsenal, who were defeated 4-1 by City the previous week, to mount a comeback against London rivals Chelsea on Tuesday at the Emirates.

“We have to see if we can attack (better), Alaba and Rudiger were so close on Erling,” Guardiola told reporters.

“It was not easy to find the spaces. We’ll try to adjust something in the second leg to be more fluid and play with a bit more rhythm.”

Despite having nearly 70% of the first half’s possession, the visitors were down at the break.

De Bruyne, Rodri, and Haaland fired a barrage of shots at Thibaut Courtois early on as City dominated and Madrid sat back, absorbing the pressure.

Ten minutes before halftime, the hosts scored on a vicious counterattack as Eduardo Camavinga sprinted past Bernardo Silva, found space, and fed Vinicius.

In spite of Ederson’s helpless dive, the Brazilian arrowed a shot into the top left corner from almost 25 yards away. Madrid only attempted one shot in the opening period, but it was the most successful one.

“It’s normal that City have the ball, we don’t have to go mad about that,” Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said.

“After the goal we played very well, controlling the space, creating things, we played very well, I hope we can repeat it in the second leg.”