Former Arsenal star Thierry Henry has played down suggestions Manchester City's experience of title races will work in their favour during the run-in.
Pep Guardiola's team have won the last two Premier League titles, though the 2021-22 season went down to the final day of the season. Arsenal, meanwhile, have not lifted the trophy since Henry's own days as a player, back in the 2003-04 campaign.
City moved top of the league for the first time since August when they beat Arsenal 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium on February 15. However, they dropped back down to second on Saturday when Arsenal won at Aston Villa and Guardiola's men could only draw at Nottingham Forest.
"A lot of people will give the advantage to City because they’ve been there, because they’ve done it, because they have guys in the team that did it and they know how to suffer, they know how to chase, they know how to be chased,’ Henry told Uproxx.
‘But I’ve seen Leicester win it and nobody in that team knew what it was. So you need to keep on dreaming. You need to keep on believing you.
‘We have guys also in that team that won it — Jesus, Zinchenko. We have guys that won the title also before in the domestic league. Obviously not in the Prem, we know, but you’ve gotta believe in it, right? If you don’t win it, you won’t have the experience of winning it.
"You have to start one day, right? A lot of people (were) asking questions to City. They answered. Now people are going to ask questions about Arsenal. We have to answer."
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The comments come after Henry gave his former club advice in the light of their league defeat against Guardiola's men. The teams went in all-square at the break, but Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland struck in the last 20 minutes to hand the visitors victory.
"Now they’ve come to your place and they’ve beaten you, can you now show that you can respond?" Henry told CBS Sports. "Because, since the beginning of the season, City have had to respond to what Arsenal were doing.
"Can you keep your composure, go to Villa and rectify that straight away at the weekend? And show that you can be with them all the way and try to do something at their ground, because now it’s going to be very difficult."
Arsenal did indeed win at Villa, though they needed two stoppage-time goals to make sure. Mikel Arteta's side still have a game in hand, too, with that March 1 meeting with Everton looking increasingly important.
"You lost that one [against City] but that doesn’t mean that everything now has to go in the bin," Henry added. "You still have a game in hand. Now it’s going to be tough though.”
