Former Manchester United defender Gary Neville may have been left red-faced over a prediction on Arsenal from January. The footballer turned pundit backed the Gunners to finish below the Red Devils, despite Mikel Arteta and his side continually flexing their title credentials.
The north London outfit continued their fine form at the weekend with a 4-1 win over Leeds United to begin their final ascent towards the Premier League trophy. Arsenal now sit eight points clear of Manchester City - who have played one game fewer - with nine games to get themselves over the line.
"What we can control is what we can do," the head coach said on the title race after victory over Leeds. "We’ve been discussing that for the past few days. After the international break there was a lot of tricky situations to manage with a few players. There’s always a question about how the players will react after that. I think they were exceptional, they were really at it, everybody wanted to be involved and we won the game in a convincing way which is good and the only thing that we can control."
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Across the division there were plenty of high stake clashes, one of which came at St. James' Park as Newcastle looked to continue their bid for the top four as they hosted Manchester United. In a repeat of the Carabao Cup final, the events were almost flipped as the home side took control of the tie.
Goals from former Arsenal youngster Joe Willock was followed up by Callum Wilson's effort to give the Magpies all three points and saw them leapfrog the Red Devils into third. The result leaves the Gunners a whole 22 points clear of Man United, with Neville's prediction aging poorly.
He said on the Gary Neville Podcast in January: "No, [Arsenal] won’t win the league. Manchester City will win the league and I think Manchester United will finish second and I know that’ll annoy Arsenal fans.”
It shows just how well Arsenal have done in their run to continually prove people wrong, but the key task of getting over the line still lies ahead.
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