Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta rejected the suggestion that the Premier League crown is effectively his side’s to lose as they prepare to face Sunderland.<\/p>\n
With second-placed Manchester City hosting third-placed Liverpool in Sunday\u2019s final action, Arsenal had the chance to extend their lead at the top of the standings. Arteta insisted the match with Sunderland is no more significant than any other and that the team must keep concentrating on the immediate task.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery weekend is crucial,\u201d he told his Friday news conference. \u201cThere are weekends that for other possible results or other games, maybe they are a little bit more important but at the end you need to just conquer a certain amount of points if you want to achieve your goals and the three points against Sunderland tomorrow are going to be really tough and we\u2019re going to have to really earn them.\u201d<\/p>\n
When told the only side capable of stopping Arsenal from being crowned Premier League champions next summer are the Gunners themselves, Arteta was clear in his response. \u201cNo, I don\u2019t agree,\u201d he said firmly. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, because any team has the capacity, and I\u2019m sure they believe as well that they can do it, so we are fully aware of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know our strength, we know the things that we have to improve as well, and we’re just focused on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though Arsenal are widely accepted as favourites this season and there has been debate about their place alongside some of the division\u2019s all-time great sides, Arteta refused to dwell on reputation or credit. \u201cIt\u2019s not about credit, it\u2019s about doing it, and once you\u2019ve done it, do it again, and that\u2019s what we have to do,\u201d he said. \u201cToday, train at our best, try to improve, try to give a lot of clarity to the players and understanding of the game that we have to play tomorrow and tomorrow is execution day again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arsenal\u2019s trip to Sunderland comes 24 hours before the weekend\u2019s headline clash between City and Liverpool. Predictably, Arteta had no interest in picking a winner. \u201cI\u2019m just focused on tomorrow\u2019s game, how crucial, how difficult and how tough it\u2019s going to be and that\u2019s the first step we have to make,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta rejects the idea Arsenal have the title secured, urging focus on Sunderland and daily work…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172,689],"tags":[1162,1215],"class_list":["post-4308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","category-sunderland","tag-analytics","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308","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=4308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}