Arsenal may not have the mettle to finish in the Premier League top four this season, despite playing a “more impressive” style of football than their rivals, according to Jamie Carragher.
The Gunners are top of the Premier League, sitting a point above defending champions Manchester City after six matches. Mikel Arteta’s side made a storming start by winning their first five games before being brought back to earth with a bump with a 3-1 defeat by Manchester United on Sunday.
Arsenal have finished outside of the top four and therefore failed to qualify for the Champions League for the past six campaigns, with rivals Tottenham pipping them last season. Arteta’s squad has been significantly strengthened by the summer additions of Gabriel Jesus, Oleksandr Zinchenko and William Saliba, among others, but Carragher remains unconvinced.
“I’ve been impressed with them, I just don’t know if they’ve got the squad,” the Liverpool legend said of Arsenal on The Overlap. “When I watch Tottenham, Manchester United, they’re almost getting results the same sort of way, big, powerful, tough to beat.
“When I watch Arsenal, it’s fast, energetic, I’m excited watching it, but could what happened [against Manchester United] happen too often? But the more impressive team, when we talk about how the game is played right now, the technical game and what Liverpool and Man City have done over the last four or five years, I think Arsenal are closer to that than say Tottenham or Man United are.”
Tottenham are in third place, a point behind Arsenal, but remain unbeaten alongside City. They recruited heavily in the summer, bringing in eight major signings to bolster Antonio Conte’s hand.
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United, meanwhile, have a new manager in the form of Erik ten Hag and have begun to click into place, with four straight Premier League wins following their dismal start. With the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea to also consider, it looks set to be another fierce battle for Champions League places.
Carragher’s punditry colleague Gary Neville feels similarly to the former Liverpool defender. He has been impressed with Arsenal but remains reluctant to back them for success throughout the 2022/23 season. “I said during the game that, even though Arsenal were losing, I felt more confident,” Neville said. “I don’t think they will get Champions League, but I felt more confident that you could get Champions League.”
He added to Sky Sports : “I have to say, Arsenal showed a spirit at Old Trafford. We've covered Arsenal for 10 to 12 years and we've come away from it and gone, 'that's a flaky mob, it's a soft bunch'. They're a really good side.
“Arsenal and United are not the two best teams in the league going off of what has happened to them in the last few years but I have to say they're a lot nearer to where I thought they would be a few weeks ago.”
