We are now one third of the way through the 2023/24 EPL season and at the beginning the bookies made Manchester City the hot favourites to retain their crown for a record fourth time, despite Arsenal running them very close in the previous campaign.
Spurs, Arsenal, and Liverpool all started strongly to stay in touch with City but with Pep Guardiola’s side having a stalemate against the Reds last week, it is Arsenal that have finally clawed their way to the top of the table for the moment, while Tottenham have dropped like a lead balloon in the last few games with injuries to their best players.
So now the best online beting sites have made Man City a more realistic price of 7/10, although still hot favourites, while Arsenal are now a best-priced 4/1 with Liverpool just behind at 5/1.
There is still a lot of discussions about who will end up as City’s biggest challengers this year, with varying opinions from fans and pundits alike, and I think even most of us Arsenal fans fully expect Man City to end up as Champions once again, although we are still very hopeful that Mikel Arteta can keep motivating our youngsters to stay on top right to the end this time around.
One opinion I’ve read lately, which may interest you, is from the Man City legend Richard Dunne, who played for the Citizens for ten years, and he doesn’t think the Gunners will last the pace. He opined: “City and Liverpool will be up there. I’m still not sure about Arsenal and if they can compete in all the different competitions. Is their squad big enough? People have already spoken about their lack of a centre forward. They’ve created their own problems in the goalkeeping department, which now seems to be a big issue. Tottenham have shown they’re just not strong enough with a few injuries. I’m more inclined to go with Liverpool.”
The fact is that he could be right. We have had little opportunity to rotate our starting line up as much as would like to, as we are trying to fit in the gruelling Champions League fixtures as well as the title challenge, and our ever-fluctuating injury list has not been very helpful either.
As much as us Arsenal fans would like to see Arteta bring in strong reinforcements in January, the restraints of FFP and our wage ceilings will make it very hard to justify another large foray into the transfer market in January, so we may have to wait until summer to bring in our top targets.
Do you think Arsenal has enough strength in depth to challenge on all fronts right to the season’s end?
No we are so thin in MIDFIE;LD and Attack, its not a joke. There are very few options in those arears right now. I f the game gets difficult eg Newcastle game, the manager had no-one to change the game hence we lost. Zero creativity and no shot at goal to trouble the opponent. We were exposed in that game
For me we need to get a killer striker,and in the midfield area we also need a cover there. With consistency we can go all the way and win the league. Dona
Plainly, at least to realists, we DONT.
We are doing well, but to topple City we will need to do FAR BETTER than merely well!