“Gives Me More Confidence” – Gary Neville Sticks With Arsenal Title Pick After Chelsea Draw

By The Editor
on 22nd October 2023

Gary Neville sticks with Arsenal title pick…

Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville has maintained his stance that Arsenal will become Premier League champions this season after Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge, he said on The Gary Neville Podcast.

Speaking from the ground after we came back from two goals down in the final 15 minutes to level the game, Neville was impressed by the fight in a match where we were short on quality.

It was arguably the worst we’ve played since the backend of the 2021/22 season in terms of basic quality with the team unable to move the ball through the thirds fluently.

Neville claimed that much of our poor play was actually down to how Chelsea defended with Mauricio Pochettino deciding to play without a recognised central striker.

It allowed the west Londoners to co-ordinate a mobile press with the likes of Cole Palmer and Conor Gallagher charging down our central defenders.

“Today they’ve been really poor,” Neville summarised.

“But that gives me more confidence that they’ll win the league today by the fact that they’ve come back and salvaged a point out of a game where they were well below par.

“They were well below par. That’s the worst I’ve seen Arsenal play – credit to Chelsea by the way in which they defended, a lot of it was to do with Chelsea – but it was the worst I’ve seen Arsenal on the ball for a long time. They really struggled in the game, they couldn’t create a chance, they didn’t have a shot on target for 70-odd minutes.

“I think it’s a really good point for Arsenal. I think they’ll go in that dressing room today and wake themselves up and go; ‘come on, that wasn’t good enough.’

“But, I’ll tell you what, it doesn’t half feel good when you get a point away at a big ground…the fact that you’ve not played well and stolen a point is a brilliant feeling,” Neville added.

As we prepare for another tough trip on the road in the form of Sevilla, it will be interesting to see if we can write that performance off as an off-day.

Players were returning from the international break and the conditions were horrible. It’s up to Arteta and the coaching staff to nip this in the bud and get us back on track.