Roy Keane believes Arsenal's squad hasn't been deep enough to keep pace with Manchester City and that dropped points to relegation-threatened sides have been a massive psychological blow.
City have been embroiled in a thrilling title race with Arsenal - who have led the way for most of the year - all season but have now overtaken the Gunners and in the end, could reclaim their title with three games to spare as early as Saturday. Should Mikel Arteta's side lose to Nottingham Forest on Saturday, then the Blues will be crowned champions.
But even if Arsenal win, City can still win the league in their final home game of the season on Sunday should they defeat Chelsea. Meaning they will have nothing to play for in what originally looked like a tricky away doubleheader at Brighton and Brentford to see out the campaign.
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It's been a remarkable turnaround by Pep Guardiola's side but Keane has explained where Arsenal have fallen short after being in the ascendency for so long.
"When you look at some of the games over the last five or six weeks - particularly West Ham and Southampton stand out for me - I know they dropped points losing at City, they had Liverpool - which can happen, you can’t win every game," Keane said on Sky Sports.
"They’ve won 25 league games which is fantastic, but the points they lost against West Ham and Southampton definitely knocked them back a little bit. We saw a team today that I think was physically and mentally shot, it really was.
"There wasn’t enough effort there and as soon as Brighton started flexing their muscles, passing and moving, looking really sharp, they looked quicker, sharper. We’d been saying it for a few months, if they had injuries, they’d struggle, and I think the bottom line is they certainly didn’t have the strength in depth of Man City or the experience and better quality in terms of their squad.
"They’ve just come up short and it’s as simple as that. They’ll need players - four or five players - but that’s easy to roll up your tongue and say a team needs players. Man United need players, Man City will be getting players. It’s about getting the right players and the right characters so if they ever get in this position again - pole position - and they have one or two injuries, they’ve got quality to come in.
"We spoke about Man City today, they made changes but they brought in pure quality players and the team didn’t weaken. When Arsenal make changes, the team weakens."
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