Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has moved to play down Chelsea as clear favourites for the Premier League title.
The Blues are flying high at present on the back of nine straight wins in the Premier League, and now sit pretty on top of the table with a three point advantage over the Gunners in second.
Arsenal boss Wenger has moved to play down the thought that Chelsea are the team to beat, claiming they are just one of a number of sides in the title hunt.
“What I believe is they [Chelsea] will be one of the candidates,” Wenger said ahead of his side’s trip to Everton on Tuesday.
“They are of course one of the teams doing extremely well, but there is no super favourite in there at the moment.
“They will have to maintain that like everybody else at the top. When you look at the league it is down to consistency.
“It is very open, very interesting. Every time a team is the favourites to win, they struggle.
“When you look at the teams around us, you can see the margin of difference between the teams has shrunk a lot.
“The way you respond in every game is absolutely vital. It’s a very important period where everybody has to be absolutely focused on our results and the way we want to play.”
The table certainly does take a number of twists and turns but I can’t help but disagree with the statement made by Arsene. Chelsea have been running over sides in recent months, including Everton, Manchester United and Leicester, as well as comfortably beating Manchester City and Tottenham who are all supposed to be vying for top spot also.
Their new system, in my opinion, definitely has propelled them to being the team to beat, and the clear favourites for the title, and I believe Arsene also believes this.
Is Wenger trying to pile more pressure on the league leaders? Or could he actually believe that the Blues are set to struggle with their new tag as favourites?
Pat J
*OT*
Glad Villareal are not in the CL. They just gave Atletico a serious lesson in football….
Good time to try for Griezmann.
Wenger is right, the top 4 are all contestants for now but the moment the gap go beyond 8 points between the top two we can brand then leaders favourites
got to agree with the author here. Chelsea comfortably look like title favorites and have gone from a team that was trying to figure out a system and a formation to putting teams to the sword in recent months.
Everton 5 – 0
City – 3 – 1
Spurs 2 – 1
United 4 – 0
Leicester 3 – 0
Southampton 2 – 0
That’s a scary string of wins by any means. By comparison bar Chelsea who hadn’t switched formation yet we’ve not beat a single top team this season. We lost to liverpool in the early stages mind you but drew with Spurs, Leicester and United while we haven’t played City. Now the good thing is that Chelsea have to play United, Spurs and Liverpool away. Problem is we have to play Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea away.
Many twists and turns await but at the moment Chelsea are objectively the favourites.
Too early to focus on the log table but rather team cohesion, consistency and performance and come May we see who tops the log.
it is impossible to predict the next champion,at the start of the season everybody thought man shitty would run away with the title,chelsea had no chance,after that spuds were going unbeaten no longer ,after that liverpool were the favourites now it’s chelsea,we have to wait and see after christmas to have “some kind” of an idea!!