Gary Neville’s comments on Manchester City “relishing” the title race have aged poorly, with Arsenal capitalising on this new curse…
Momentum is back on the side of Arsenal in the Premier League title race following a potentially decisive bank holiday weekend.
A long-awaited title was Arsenal’s to lose towards the end of March, but they threw away their sizable advantage with back-to-back Premier League defeats following losses in the Carabao Cup final and FA Cup quarter-final.
At this stage, Mikel Arteta‘s squad were once again being dragged down by the immense weight of the expectation at the Emirates, with their fearful mindset and the additional impact of key players being unavailable taking over at the worst possible time.
This was made worse by Pep Guardiola getting a tune out of his imperfect squad when it mattered most, with a new-look preferred XI rising to the occasion of contesting for a Premier League title.
Man City had previously missed opportunities to close in on Arsenal due to their own fragility, but the possibly game-changing January additions of Marc Guehi and Antoine Semenyo, plus the emergence of Abdukodir Khusanov, Nico O’Reilly and Rayan Cherki, helped Guardiola to puzzle together a side that has looked primed to snatch another title from their rivals’ grasp.
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From sitting nine points adrift, Man City ensured the title was back in their hands by beating Arsenal 2-1 on April 19 in one of the games of the season.
Man City then knew that they would be champions once again as long as they won their remaining five games and finished with a greater goal difference than Arsenal, and this certainly felt achievable now that they had found their groove.
However, the knock-on effect of reaching the FA Cup semi-final was that the Gunners would have two Premier League games and the chance to pile on the pressure before Man City’s trip to Everton on Monday night.
Arsenal sides in previous seasons would have completely folded after the setback at the Etihad, but they recovered to beat Newcastle United (albeit unconvincingly) before turning on the style in a one-sided victory over Fulham, having returned to the front-foot approach which served them so well at the start of this campaign.
And while Man City’s victory over Arsenal felt massive, these two results (and especially the manner of the performance against Fulham) now feel even bigger following that 13-minute capitulation at The Hill Dickinson Stadium on Monday night.
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Gary Neville’s words age like milk…
Man City did show resilience to salvage a point against Everton, but a last-grasp salvo was only required because Guehi and Khusanov had calamitous moments after they were among the players lauded by Neville last month for “relishing” the title race while playing with a “chest out” confidence.
Neville said: “(Abdukodir) Khusanov hadn’t emerged, (Marc) Guehi was at the club, (Antoine) Semenyo wasn’t at the club and (Nico) O’Reilly wasn’t at this level.
“All of a sudden these four or five players – Khusanov, Guehi, Semenyo, O’Reilly and (Rayan) Cherki – have just stepped up a massive level in the last four to six weeks.”
This was true before the Everton match and it is also fair to say that Arsenal had been “consumed” by the title race, but there has been a rather substantial swing in the momentum over the past few days, and it is partly because Man City’s players have been the first to slip both literally and figuratively in the final stretch.
While Arsenal came of age against Fulham and refused to go into their shell, Man City’s rebuilt squad collapsed under adversity at Everton as the naivety of certain players dragged them down.
Now, it would be foolish to suggest that the title race is now over, as there have been endless twists and turns this season. Still, Arsenal’s supposed weakness of having poor mental strength has actually nudged them closer to the title, and it will be hard to look past them if they attack West Ham with the same impetus they displayed against Fulham.
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