Some days, things don’t go as planned, and that was the case for us Gooners on Sunday, when we drew 2-2 in the North London Derby. To add insult to injury, our key title challengers, Manchester City (2-0 over Nottingham Forest) and Liverpool (3-0 over West Ham), both won their matchday 6 fixtures and have established gaps between us and them.
Dropping two points to Spurs may be considered a setback to our title hopes, but Gary Neville is sure that the 2023–24 league is ours to lose.
The former Manchester United defender insinuates that the fact that we are not allowing more goals than last season and have seen fewer shots on target against us means we are defensively stronger, making us in a good position for the title race.
Speaking on Sky Sports after the North London derby 2-2 draw, Neville said, “Last season, I think they [Arsenal] proved everybody wrong by how close they got, and they were pushing City all the way till the very end.
“Arsenal, I think I have them as title winners this season, which is an ambitious prediction. I just feel there’s something here. They’ve stopped conceding goals, and they’ve only had 10 shots on target against them this season.”
We need to win the Premier League this season, and Neville’s assertions indicate that our defence is the one that will do it. His words marry with Alex Ferguson’s famous quote, “Attack wins games; defence wins titles.”
Hopefully, William Saliba, Gabriel, White, and Zinchenko will be injury-free this season, and Arteta’s decision on who between David Raya and Aaron Ramsdale should start consistently at goal turns out to be the correct one.
Daniel O
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Smiles.
He’s trolling us
Winning the title was to be our bare minimum this season.We were to built on what we had and strengthen the weaknesses that were there.
The reason someone chose to dismantle our core and start reconstructing is beyond my imagination.
Apart from the psv game where the lineup was almost similar to what we had last season,we are lacking cohesion and struggling to get a win in all the other games we have played.
If we continue this way,we will surely finish lower on the table than we did last season.
‘ we stopped conceding goals ? ‘ weird thing to say after a 2-2 draw
Last season Neville predicted that we would eventually bottle the title chase even when it looked like we were top dogs for the championships. We Gooners didn’t like it, but he was proven right.
Here is hoping that, in spite of our relatively slow start this season, he would get his prediction spot on again.
I had commented in an earlier article on JA that I see Arsenal having a reverse of last season by starting slowly, maybe even poorly, and having a great run to the finishing line.
May wishes be horses for once!
Arteta is our main problem this season, because of his wrong policies. If Arteta want to keep his squat as good as last season or even more he most bench Harvertz and use other midfielders such as viera, smith rowe or even better Thomas partey if he come back from injury to pear him with Rice and Odigard infront of them for a better midfield. But this innovation will not make sense.
If we can find a proper striker in January we have a chance, provided of course we don’t drop too many points on the way. My opinion? Nketiah will never be a prolific goalscorer and we can’t continue to depend on Saka and Odergaard. Like Guardiola, I don’t think Arteta likes big CF’s like Ivan Toney someone like Darwin Nunez would be more to his liking. I know Haaland is a big CF but even Pep couldn’t say no for £51m? The bargain of the century? No coincidence Man City winning the UCL for the first time in Haaland’s first season.
I’m not finger pointing here, it is one of the most difficult positions to fill in MA’s style of football. Tall, mobile, technical and, above all, clinical finishers are difficult to find and will cost a lot of money if you do!