Former Chelsea defender Craig Burley has made a bold claim about the Premier League title race with Arsenal battling Liverpool and Manchester City for the coveted trophy.
The Reds sit atop the standings at the moment, having garnered two more points than the Gunners and one more than the Citizens, with 12 games left to be played.
Mikel Arteta’s side were the league leaders heading to Christmas but lost their spot after a poor run of form that saw them lose two consecutive games to Fulham and West Ham respectively.
They turned the corner towards the tail end of last month and are the most in-form team in the Premier League presently, winning their last six games, scoring 25 goals, and conceding just three.
Burley while speaking to ESPN FC opined that Arsenal pose more threat to Manchester City than Liverpool for the Premier League title.
“Since the beginning of the season, I have been adamant that I felt Arsenal are going to be the strongest challenger to Manchester City and they have this wobble you know during the turn of the year but they are back really strong, arguably playing the best of any team in the Premier League at the moment, and I have always felt it was kind of nipping talk that with them that Liverpool and City are the teams to beat but I felt Arsenal just have a smidge in front and the way they are playing is not going to change my mind.”
“And we have talked about it with Steve(Nicol) yesterday on the show that Liverpool have a bad injury list and sometimes injury lists are injury lists but it depends on who it is sometimes but it is not key players. These are key players, if they don’t get Salah, Szoboszlai, Núñez and these guys of this ilk back sharpish, they are not just going to hang with these two teams. I just can’t see it.”
It is hard to argue against Arsenal standing a better chance of winning the trophy than the Reds.
If you would recall, they came close to beating Manchester City to the title last season but fell short due to injuries and poor form of key players.
With Jurgen Klopp’s side battling with injuries, it is hard to see them continue to go neck-to-neck with the Gunners and Citizens.
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Liverpool seem to be doing extremely well without their injured players and will be even stronger when they come back (as of course we will when our injured players return) and I would never write them off.
Should never count out Liverpool whilst Klopp is there
Next season let’s see who the manager is. If Alonso could be very interesting though most managers find PL tougher than any other league !!
Let is be on record also that Arsenal have been with out thier most influential midfielder since last September, add to that the absence of Timber, Jesus, tomiyasu who hasnt played since december and zinchenko of which half of them are guarantee starters in this team.
Injuries are part of football and over the years we have really been affected. So who ever eventually wins the league come may deserves it and it wont be because the other team had injured players.
City are getting their injured players back now, so I fully expect them to start pulling away. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they win all their remaining league games.
Realistically, we’ll probably have to win all our remaining games, and beat City away to win the league.
If we can keep the gab between us city and liverpool the same way it is now then i see us beating city at the etihad.
I watched City’s game against Bournemouth over the weekend and they looked vulnerable and beatable. Bournemouth squandered so many chances and could have won that game. I would be surprised if City won their remaining league games. They have to play Liverpool at Anfield, for instance, and that is a tricky game for them even with Liverpool’s injuries. Still have Tottenham away as well. Brighton away,Arsenal at home,Villa at home and Palace away are not guaranteed wins for them either. Think all three teams will drop points and it will be a close finish.
All three main contenders have vulnerabilities. Both Liverpool and MC really should have been more susceptible to losing points they way they have played this season. However, as long as they stay in games they maintain a psychological advantage over most other teams. Many of the other PL teams are likely to crack under pressure.
I’m more concerned about Liverpool, they keep winning despite their amount of injuries and they don’t even have to necessarily play well to win because of the firepower upfront.
Man City will not go on that expected end of season run most people believe they would as this year is the most competitive the league has been in a long time.
We have the most difficult remaining fixtures out of the three teams with Man City, Spurs, Man Utd away where we historically don’t do well at as well as Brighton and Wolves away too. I would however expect us to win all our home games left although Chelsea could be tricky despite their current predicament which the reverse fixture showed where we really should have lost the game but we managed to get the draw in the end.
The Man City game will really set the tone on whether this squad can go all the way and lift the title. Get a draw or even a victory there that could do wonders to the belief of the team right through to the fans and then I would then be confident we would reverse that Old Trafford hoo Doo and beat Spurs too.
To summarize if we were to win the League from this position(currently trailing Man City and Liverpool in
the table) being at a disadvantage of not having the winning experience within our ranks compared with the other two and as I have already mentioned the toughest run-in then this will arguably be up there with the Leicester triumph in terms of against all the odds.
Not impossible but City away is a tough ask let alone winning the title. In their last game at Luton they had Rodri, Foden, Dias, Alvarez and Doku on the bench, they still won 6-2!! That’s what we are up against and with Grealish injured again it probably won’t make any difference. The key is keeping our top players fit then we do have a realistic chance.
Agree Andrew, but with our injured players coming back and if we played the same starting eleven against Newcastle, our bench would have Partey, ESR, Gabriel, Timber, Ramsdale, Tomiyasu, Nketiah, Nelson, Viera and Trossard!!
How does THAT bench look to you my friend?
Oh and we beat Newcastle 4-1!!
Ken, the reason I said winning at City would be a tough ask is that we haven’t done it in over 12 years. Again, in my opinion, City do have a stronger bench stressing that we need to keep our top players injury free.
I agree Andrew, but my belief is that our bench will be a very important part of our run to the end of the season and it really will be a very strong one, if, as you say, we can keep ALL our players fit….. just as pool and city have to do.
Another non realisy who for whatever odd reason of his own seems to believe that past years going back twelve years when both had completely differnent teams, have by some ludicrous reasoning SOME BEARING on now!
Its bonkers “thinking”! I can easily understand if he simply thinks City have a better team than we do NOW and therefore will lbeat us THAT IS A REASONABLE OPINION.
But to conclude that past games have ANY bearing on NOW, is simply unintelligent!
No Gooner with any real intellect would dream of discounting Liverpool in the title race.
It is, frankly, the suggestion of a fool. The race between all three clubs is far too close to call and that OUGHT to be plain to anyone with any football knowledge.
The same Liverpool that sit top and have been ravaged by injuries and have been playing academy players ,not sure how anyone could discount them .
Latest bookies odds sum up how close it is:
Man City 11/10
Liverpool 2/1
Arsenal 3/1
Even taking into account Liverpool’s injury list, they are still contenders. Going to be a great finish to the season.