Gary Neville has explained why he has now ruled one of Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal out of this season’s Premier League title race after a dramatic weekend saw injury-time goals affect both the defending champions and the Gunners, and with Paul Merson’s somewhat extravagant claim proving true.
When the new season got underway, Neville ran the rule over six would-be title contenders, deciding that Liverpool, Arsenal and Man City would once again battle it out for glory and insisting that the likes of Chelsea, Newcastle and Aston Villa would not be able to mount a charge.
“Between Liverpool, Arsenal and Man City, all of them have got cases to win the Premier League,” Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast back in August.
“All equal cases as well, I don’t think you can look at any of the three and think they’re definitely above the others.”
“All three of those teams have got genuine cases. Liverpool may be slight favourites, but I don’t think any club will be completely confident to win the league, even though they all have a great chance. It’s really close, I think.”
Six games into the new season, that table has now started to take a familiar shape, with Liverpool first and Arsenal now second.
A decisive weekend, though, so the fate of the race change dramatically with Arsenal scoring an injury-time winner to win at Newcastle, while Arne Slot’s side lost their 100% start after conceding in added-time to lose 2-1 at Crystal Palace – now the Premier League’s only unbeaten side.
And while Man City also claimed a win – an expected 5-1 triumph against Burnley – Neville no longer thinks Pep Guardiola’s side, currently seventh – are in the mix, naming Arsenal as having the best squad in the league.
“Mikel Arteta has got a brilliant squad. He’s got a brilliant squad, I think he’s got the best squad in the league and maybe the best team in the league and I say that quietly because Liverpool are excellent,” Neville said after their 2-1 win at St James’ Park.
“There’s only two teams that can win this league – Liverpool and Arsenal – I don’t think anyone else can.”
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Neville thinks he can ‘smell something’ with Arsenal as Merson stance hits home
Neville then said of the jubilant scenes at full-time on the Gary Neville podcast: “Rightly, they should be celebrating! It was absolute bedlam up there. You know there’s nothing better than seeing a last-minute winner unless it’s against your team.
“But seeing the Arsenal players at the end obviously celebrating and the Arsenal fans up there, that felt big. I think when the first goal went in, you can sort of smell something. A lot of big questions have been asked of Arsenal in this last week, but rightly so. And he [Arteta] has changed today.
“He’ll play it down, Mikel Arteta, you’ll hear him say, ‘we’ve not done anything differently’. But his team selection at the start of the game was more positive. His substitutions were everything he could have thrown at the game.
“If you’re going to come off a football pitch, make sure you’ve used all your weapons. Make sure you’ve used everything in your armoury. And he did that.
“So, even at 1-1, my message, I was thinking about if it stays 1-1, I would have been praiseworthy of Arsenal. I would have said that they’ve done everything they possibly can. The manager made the right decisions. He makes the right substitutions, but it’s just not quite come for them.
“But the reason you get the winner at the end is because of the intent. I said last week, we’ve got to stop looking at what Mikel Arteta says or what managers say and look at what they do.
“So, if they say they’re going to go for it, they want to win the league, they think they can win the league, they believe they should win every single match, then let your substitutions tell us that. Let your team selection tell us that.”
Neville’s claims feel all the more pertinent after Merson reasoned that the title race would have been over had Liverpool won at Selhurst Park and if Arsenal had suffered defeat on Tyneside.
In the build-up to the weekend’s games, Merson stated: “I said last week that Arsenal need four points in the next two games to be favourites for the league title,” he wrote in his column for Sportskeeda.
“Well, they got one at home to City and now they go to Newcastle.
“If Arsenal return to winning ways this weekend, we will look back on that point against Manchester City as a good one. But I fear for them if the exact opposite happens at Newcastle. Only time will tell.
“Should Liverpool win at Selhurst Park, they will go eight points clear of Arsenal before the Gunners play Newcastle away from home.
“So if Liverpool win this game and Arsenal lose on Sunday, the title race is over, finished! I know it sounds crazy and Arsenal have good fixtures coming up, but eight points between them will be too much.
“We were all choosing between Liverpool and Arsenal at the start of the season.
“And if anyone was on the fence back then and I told them Liverpool would have an eight-point head start, no one would have backed Arsenal for the title!”
Merson added: “Arsenal have a good run of fixtures coming up after this game. But if you don’t beat Newcastle, you are basically entering that run with an eight-point lead to chase down.
“If you’re a team in the title race, you don’t want to be playing catch-up when the easy fixtures come along, you want to use them to get away from other contenders and kick on instead!”
Arsenal pair reveal thoughts on St James’ Park drama
Speaking after the game, Arsenal winger Bukayo Saka was overjoyed with the result, despite admitting frustration at some of the officiating in the game.
“Unbelievable, nothing better than a late winner in football. Speechless, I’m so happy,” Saka said.
“There are a few things we can speak about, for example the penalty. For me if we have VAR it is for a clear and obvious error, and the fact that it took the ref that long to decide shows it is not a clear and obvious error.
“It is things like this that always go against us, but today we got what we deserved, and that’s why we are all so happy. It doesn’t matter now, does it?”
The Arsenal star who scored the crucial equaliser, Merino, said he and his teammates are ‘confident’ of their title chances.
“Winning the way we won today shows the character of the team, how much we trust each other, how confident we are,” Merino said.
“That doesn’t change, no matter the result. We are confident we have an amazing team, an amazing squad, amazing staff and amazing fans, so we are ready for it.”
In other news, a stunning report has claimed that Arsenal have stepped up their pursuit of a Juventus maestro by making contact with the Italian giants and starting talks with his entourage.