Gary Neville believes Arsenal will need to tighten up defensively if they are to go on and win the Premier League title, despite their dramatic win on Saturday.
Mikel Arteta's side trailed 2-0 to Bournemouth after an hour of their game at the Emirates Stadium, but three goals in the final 30 minutes turned things around. Reiss Nelson came off the bench to score a last-gasp winner, the third time Arsenal have won a game in the final minute since the turn of the year, but Neville remained concerned by the Gunners' leakiness at the back.
Arsenal conceded just 11 goals in 14 games before the World Cup break to open up a five-point lead over closest challengers Manchester City. That margin still remains, but the Gunners have shipped 14 in 12 outings since returning to action after the mid-season break.
"I thought City had a more difficult game," Neville said on The Gary Neville podcast. "They were more likely to drop points in my mind, if anybody - I didn’t think either team would, to be fair.
"So City did their job and then you expect Arsenal to go and comfortably win. The fact that they’ve won in that way gives them that extra spirit and extra momentum, because it is a game you’d expect them to win 2-0 or 3-0 just because Bournemouth are second from bottom.
But they made it really difficult for themselves. They’ve got a real momentum, they've got a spirit building, the fans are with them, I would say to them they’ve got to stop conceding goals.
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"It sounds like a really simple thing to say but when you concede goals on a run-in it’s really tough and they’ve conceded two against Bournemouth, they’ve conceded against Brentford, they’ve conceded against United, Villa, City. They’ve conceded quite a few goals, I think 11 in the last eight games.
"So they just need to manage that a little bit because they’ve got 12 games to go now. City still aren’t playing at their fluent best. We’ve got a hell of a title race."
He still backed City to come out on top, though. "I made my prediction at the start of the season and I'm not going to change my opinion on Manchester City," Neville said.
Four of Arsenal's next six games come against teams in the bottom half of the table, but Arteta's men also face tricky trips to Fulham and Liverpool. Marco Silva's Cottagers have 10 points from five home games since the December restart, while Jurgen Klopp's Reds have lost just one home league game all season and have won their last three at Anfield by a combined score of 11-0.
