Arsenal kept up the pressure on Manchester City and Liverpool with a mammoth win over Sheffield United last night.
The Gunners have been in rich goal-scoring form recently, making it 21 goals from their past four Premier League games with a 6-0 victory on Monday.
That put them back to within a point of City and two of Liverpool at the top of the table. And in quotes from The Independent after the game, midfielder Declan Rice praised the consistency of both of the sides above Arsenal.
“I think if you look at the two other teams at the top, they don’t look like they are going to slip up anytime soon,” Rice admitted. “Obviously we were the last to play, so it is always on our mind that we have to win if we want to stay in it.
“There is such a long way to go, anything can happen, 11 games of football is a really long way. Hopefully we can keep winning matches, but it is one game at a time.
“We have been in this position before and I think it is just stay humble. Wait for the games to come and attack them when the day arrives.”
Rice praises Liverpool form
Liverpool really do find themselves in a title race now. With 11 games left to play, just two points separates the top three.
As Rice says, that is still a relatively long time in football, especially when things are so tight. But we’re getting towards the home straight and there are three left standing.
From a Liverpool point of view, many will still see City as being the team to finish ahead of. Having won the last three titles, Pep Guardiola’s side have earned the right to be seen that way.
But Arsenal really are on some run. After beating Liverpool 3-1 in January, the Gunners have won their next four league games by a combined score of 21-1.
With the Reds meeting City this weekend, the door could be opened for Arsenal to jump ahead.
And yet, we don’t feel as though Mikel Arteta and his team will sustain this challenge. Maybe this is misplaced, but the Gunners feel to have been incredibly fortunate throughout the season.
Whereas Liverpool have struggled with injuries for much of the year, Arsenal have had their best XI available pretty much constantly. Rice himself has started all 27 of their league matches, for example. So has William Saliba. Bukayo Saka has missed just one.
Although they’ve smashed a couple of teams in recent games, they did also lose 1-0 to Porto halfway through this four game period. They’re far from infallible.
Nevertheless, they’re very much in it at the moment and are waiting to pounce. If Liverpool don’t look like slipping up then neither do Arsenal. Big two months ahead.
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