Fixture list may have been kind but Mikel Arteta has rebuilt the culture and the squad to look ready for a return to the top levelMikel Arteta has received the time required to shape a squad over two and a half years. Everyone wants a quick fix in football but sometimes changing a club’s strategy takes time and Arsenal could be about to reap the rewards.We are only two games into the new Premier League season so no one should get too carried away with six points against Crystal Palace and Leicester but the signs are promising. The victories have set the platform for a great start to the campaign, especially with winnable matches against Bournemouth, Fulham and Aston Villa...
Will City or Liverpool be champions? Burnley or Leeds to go down? And surely Spurs won’t lose at Norwich … will they?This season’s final-day title battle will have an air of familiarity as Manchester City look to pip Liverpool to the post for the third time in the last decade. Steven Gerrard will be in the opposition dugout at the stadium where the greatest finale of all played out 10 years ago. Folklore is in the air, but Pep Guardiola might feel frustrated that it has come to this. City could have few complaints with their draw at West Ham, digging in to rescue a vital point after a disastrous first half – but had Riyad Mahrez scored his late...
For the second successive match Mikel Arteta’s players were knocked out of their stride by a raucous home crowdAfter a season of gentle optimism, global improvement and reasons to believe, it felt as if it was all going to come down to this. The question was if Mikel Arteta’s best José Mourinho impression after the north London derby, ostentatiously avoiding explicit comment and covering for his Arsenal players by making himself the story, was to have the desired effect.In a season of the Spaniard’s team providing half-answers to many, they did it again at St James’ Park. They had the guts but they lacked the nerve required of them on a Monday night that was always going to be more...
Spurs sat back in the north London derby, then applied their shoulder to the wheel to bump and press Mikel Arteta’s sideTwo minutes into the second half of this north London derby, Harry Kane took the ball inside the Arsenal penalty area and entered into a chest-bumping grapple with Gabriel. Kane stalled a little, struggling to keep his feet. Then he did something that seemed to capture the physics, the newtons of this match in a single collision. Kane pushed and found no resistance, no pressure in front of him.Gabriel fell backwards, swished aside like a pair of rickety saloon bar doors. The ball was nudged back to Son Heung-min, who smashed it past Aaron Ramsdale to make the score...
Crunch time for Manchester City, Liverpool and Spurs, while Watford could be sent downFor the second week in a row, Liverpool can get their work done before sitting back to see how Manchester City fare. The extent of any European bounce or, in City’s case, hangover may be hard to predict but Jürgen Klopp’s men have certainly built up a fearsome head of steam to carry into the final four games. Like Liverpool, Spurs have a rival sitting just above them who, by and large, keep on winning: falling five points behind Arsenal this weekend could prove very costly going into Thursday’s north London derby and it adds to the sense that neither team can really afford anything but victory...