What a weekend! Arsenal gets back to winning ways, and Manchester City continues to lose.
Before the break, Arsenal were in their worst league form in a while; they didn’t win their last 4 games with 2 draws (Arsenal 2-2 Liverpool, Chelsea 1-1 Arsenal) and 2 losses (Bournemouth 2-0 Arsenal, Newcastle 1-0 Arsenal).
These results should have eliminated them from the title race, but they didn’t. It didn’t because of these results:
Bournemouth 2-1 Manchester City
Brighton 2-1 Manchester City
Manchester City 0-4 Tottenham
Given Arsenal’s form prior to the break, if Manchester City had won these games as they should have on paper, our Gunners would have undoubtedly been eliminated from the title race.
That said, Arsenal seem to have regained their form, or at least that’s what their top performance versus Nottingham Forest, beating the Nuno Espirito Santo-led side 3-0, suggested.
While Arsenal managed to shake off their poor form, Manchester City (our previously expected main title rivals) were schooled by the Tottenham Hotspurs. Our boisterous neighbors successfully scored four goals against City, securing a significant victory over a Manchester City team that found it difficult to match their level of intensity.
Looking at the PL table, Cityzens are only a point ahead of our Gunners. For now, Arsenal must avoid dropping points to keep the point gap from growing.
Speaking on Sky Sports, pundit Gary Neville stated of Manchester City’s current drop in form: “If you’re Arsenal or Liverpool, you must feel there’s NO excuses now. I’m looking more at Arsenal with that statement. This was Arsenal’s season if it wasn’t going to be City’s.”
Arsenal needs to use City’s decline in performance as motivation; they need to keep them on their toes by pulling off one of those legendary winning runs as they look to close the gap with league leaders Liverpool, who deserve serious consideration.
Daniel O
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Gary Neville is spot on
With an 8 point lead and the best goal difference I’d say Liverpool are favourites. Then it’s everyone else. If Liverpool hit a bad run then it’s wide to take the lead. Very important for Arsenal to get on a good streak now.
*wide open
I am just so disappointed right now. We shot ourselves in the foot this season when Man City is struggling big time. We seem to be giving away yet another opportunity to take advantage of Man City’s inconsistency at the start of the season. Now we are 9 points behind Liverpool already.
If Arsenal are boosted by Man City’s recent run of bad form in the Epl. And as a result have capitalized on it. And closed the gap to one point on them in the table last weekend.
But what are the Gunners going to do about Liverpool who they are lagging behind them by 9 points? So as to start to close the arrears behind them and also overtake them and Man City to sit on top of the league by the halfway mark in the season campaign?
I think the answers to the questions that I’ve raised, will be for Arsenal to hit top form consistently. And go on a winning run winning all their Epl matches before the turn of the year unfailingly. And from there see what happens.
There will always be excuses where Arteta is concerned .🥱
Someone seems to be overlooking Liverpool in this contest.
Liverpool have to be favourites. Unfortunately, our wobbly start to the season has meant we will have to play catch up.
We really just need to take each game as it comes for now.
City are certainly in a run of poor form but they’re not the only title challenger currently of course. Something from the BBC website today is worth repeating, I think:
“Liverpool’s haul of 31 points from the opening 12 matches has only been equalled or bettered 10 times in Premier League history. Eight of those clubs went on to win the title, with only Arsenal in 2022-23 and Newcastle in 1995-96 not celebrating at the end of the season after such an impressive start.”