Arsenal have nine games to get themselves over the line in the race for the Premier League title this season, with things currently in their hands. The Gunners sit eight points clear of rivals Manchester City, having played one game extra heading into the final run-in.
Should Pep Guardiola manage to win that game in hand, the gap reduces to five points, with a head-to-head win later down the line leaving a one game swing between the two. It's a lot of assumption, but for Arsenal fans, the reality they are predicting is needing to keep that gap there.
It means any other points dropped could throw a spanner in the works over the title run, with the likes of Liverpool, Newcastle and Chelsea still to play. "What we can control is what we can do," Mikel Arteta said after victory over Leeds last weekend, taking games one at a time.
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"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."
It's the sort of message that keeps things in perspective and stops the type of spiraling into upcoming fixtures as seen above. However, there will be few denying that any change before the games could add extra issues into the mix for Arteta and his squad to deal with.
One of which has come across London as rivals Chelsea dismissed Graham Potter and, according to reports, look set to hire Frank Lampard as the interim coach for the remainder of the campaign. Should the former England international manage to find a response from the team, the Gunners could be handed a nightmare scenario.
That scenario being one in which Lampard is able to get one up over the north London outfit, being an important clash that could decide the title race. There will be plenty hoping that isn't the case, especially given the London derby links on top of the general title stakes.
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