Manchester City closed the gap to Arsenal at the top of the Premier League table after the Gunners were beaten by Bournemouth
Gary Lineker admits he now has doubts about Arsenal’s title winning credentials.(Image: The Rest Is Football)
Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer are both starting to have doubts about Arsenal’s ability to win the Premier League this season after their defeat to Bournemouth. Manchester City’s win over Chelsea saw Pep Guardiola’s side reduce the gap to six points and have a game in hand on Mikel Arteta’s side.
The two teams are set for a ‘monster’ showdown at the Etihad Stadium next weekend in what could decide the title race. Despite tipping the Gunners for the title over the course of the campaign, Lineker says both he and Shearer now have doubts about Arsenal, having exchanged messages over text.
Although the pair do not completely rule the Gunners out, Lineker concedes that City could now be favourites to win the league, poking fun at Arsenal’s strange training methods in recent weeks, which saw TikTok’s played at training.
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Speaking on The Rest Is Football podcastLineker asked: “I mean Arsenal, are they imploding before our very eyes?”
“I would say no because of the Sporting Lisbon result,” fellow pundit Micah Richards replied. “So, they didn’t, we had this conversation, didn’t we? And I feel like I repeat myself all the time. Arsenal are not creating enough chances. That has been their problem for a while. And this is not reactionary.
“This is what we’ve been talking about, I would say for months now. Set pieces have been getting them over the line. And then when they get a set piece, they’re growing to the game, they have confidence. That is one aspect of it. And I think you posed a question to me, is that going to be enough? And I’ve said, well, on paper, it shouldn’t be enough.
“But they’re getting over the line with a set pieces, and you can only go off what they’re doing. And they had the massive lead. So you say, yes, it’s going to be enough. However, yesterday, they were very, very poor.”
Lineker said: “Nothing, did they? No creativity whatsoever. Didn’t seem to be any belief. Weren’t even very good defensively. And that is generally, they’ve been able to be guarantee that they were pretty strong defensively. It was the first time yesterday, particularly following City’s performance agasint Chelsea in the second half when I thought they were absolutely brilliant, you just thought to yourself, ‘blimey’
“For the first time I thought to myself, I actually don’t think Arsenal are going to do it and I’ve been convinced for months now. I know you’ve not (been convinced) and said it’s not over. I didn’t really see this.
“I spoke to Alan about this and have his take on Arsenal because he hadn’t seen the City game (at the time of recording). He said for the first time he thinks they might miss out. Next week’s game is a monster, it really is now.”
“I was having this conversation on air,” Richards replied. “When I was doing the Chelsea game with Sturridge. It’s all about your mindset. You look at each of the fixtures, some would argue Arsenal’s are better, some would argue Man City’s are better.
“But if you look at the points in which Man City dropped, Forest and the West Ham game. You can pick all those fixtures and think they’ll get three points there or they might draw. You just never know. This run in up until the end of the season is like no other.
“When you’re in that battle, I remember when I was in that fight for the league back in 2012, the games are never how you anticipate them to be. That’s where the psychological battle comes in. Because Man City have waited this long and it now looks like they’ve got their confidence back, then people will say you’ve got to go with Man City.
“But if you’re Arsenal, you’re still six points clear and you’re allowed a little bit of a hiccup. They’ve got players that need to come back, Saka needs to come back, Havertz is now back, Eze is now back, Merino is the only one that’s struggling a little bit. They should be thinking in that camp they’ve got enough to get over the line.
“It’s about the mentality and mental thinking towards the end and Man City have that because they’ve done it. Arsenal haven’t done that yet, that is why there are so many questions.”
Lineker would draw comparisons between Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United and Guardiola’s crop of City players and their ability to win titles consistently. He said: “Arsenal are fighting themselves. Some of the stuff. I’m loathed to be too critical of the methods, but Arteta’s verge towards cringeworthy things in training.
“With the pens and then they’re playing TikTok films in training. I’m just thinking, you’re doing things differently. Don’t do things differently. If you’re in contention you’ve just got to be calm. This is what we always do, training is normal. Then all of a sudden, you’re doing things differently and drawing attention to yourselves.
“You are showing the world the pressure is getting to you. If you do something differently, keep it in house, keep it quiet and make sure nobody is videoing it. It must be difficult.”
Richards posed the question whether Arteta was introducing unusual training methods to put the pressure onto himself, rather than the players and Lineker agreed it could be a possibility.
