Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 has publicly placed Arsenal among his principal picks to challenge for the Premier League title, citing the established relationships at the heart of the team. Asked for his title predictions by BILD, Mbapp\u00e9 highlighted Arsenal\u2019s core of players \u2014 William Saliba, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka among others \u2014 as a reason for optimism that the club could finally end its long wait.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, Liverpool has to be mentioned first and foremost, as they\u2019re determined to win one title after another,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut I also have high hopes for Arsenal, because the core of the team has known each other for a long time, and that\u2019s a crucial factor in football.<\/p>\n
“And Manchester City is always at the forefront anyway, with Pep Guardiola and Erling Haaland.”<\/p>\n
Pressed for a clearer prediction, Mbapp\u00e9 conceded the choice was difficult and offered Arsenal as a possible winner. \u201cThat\u2019s tough,\u201d the Real Madrid forward said. \u201cMaybe Arsenal, maybe it will be their year. It would certainly be easier to say City or Liverpool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those remarks arrive with the Premier League table still taking shape after the opening fixtures. Liverpool have opened up a two-point lead after the first three games of the season, a position helped by a 1\u20130 victory over Arteta\u2019s Arsenal before the international break. Arsenal sit third, with two wins from three games.<\/p>\n
Manchester City, meanwhile, have started poorly by their standards and find themselves 13th after two straight defeats, a run that has piled the pressure back on Guardiola. Mbapp\u00e9\u2019s assessment underlines the tightness of the race and the belief that squad cohesion can be as important as high-profile signings when the title is decided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mbapp\u00e9 lists Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City as title contenders and backs Arsenal’s core…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[826,253,272],"class_list":["post-2577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-declan-rice","tag-erling-haaland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}