WeeklySA_AdminDOWN TO THE WIRE: DOWN TO THE WIRE: GUNNERS LOOK TO OPEN FOUR-POINT GAP WHEN BOURNEMOUTH COME TO TOWN…
By Sports Reporter
It’s an exciting finish to the Premier League season, with just a handful of matches to go to find out who will win. Arsenal are currently sitting at the top of the table, with Manchester City hot on their heels.
If the Gunners win, it’ll be their first title in 20 years – they last won the Premier League title in 2004. The Gunners will be looking to open up a four-point gap at the top of the Premier League when Bournemouth come to town on Saturday for Arsenal’s latest must-win match as the title run-in goes down to the wire.
The omens for a fourth-successive three-point haul are good given Arsenal have won all of our seven home matches against the Cherries in history, and have only ever tasted defeat at their expense once in 15 matches anywhere. But as last season showed when Arsenal edged a 3-2 thriller after falling two goals behind, they’ll have to battle hard to earn the right to sit top of the table for another week.
Andoni Iraola has built a talented side that is in-form, confident and on track to record their best-ever Premier League campaign. With Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City playing on Saturday evening against Wolves, Mikel Arteta will be hoping he is the Spaniard smiling most come the end of another pivotal day in the championship chase.
Despite beginning the season without a win in their first nine league matches and new boss Iraola already under severe pressure, the Cherries have since amassed 45 points, with only the current top four claiming more in that time.
Spearheaded by the goals of Dominic Solanke, who has 20 in all competitions, a great run of seven wins from nine leading up to the new year saw them haul themselves away from danger, but that was undone by a winless seven-game streak bringing them into March. However six wins have come from their last 10 to leave them as one of the most in-form sides in the division.
Last weekend’s 3-0 success against Brighton & Hove Albion saw them break their record Premier League points tally, moving them to 48 and a spot in the top half of the table. They are also one short of beating their previous high of 13 top-flight wins in a campaign, as Iraola proves that patience pays off.
What the managers say;
Arteta: “We know we’re going to have to earn it again tomorrow. It’s going to be a really tough match but the team is ready. You need that [resilience] at any stage, but now obviously with what is there to win, we know that we’re going to have to win games in different ways, and that can be one. Hopefully tomorrow it’s not that, but if it has to be to win it, it’s welcome.
0“I have a different game in my head for tomorrow [than last season’s win] but we are going to have to perform really well tomorrow and be our best. If we do that, we have a really good chance of winning.”
Andoni
Iraola: “We know the narrative of the game, we’ll be quite thin again, we have some important players out, but I also think we are in a good place; we want to finish strong. “Knowing all the numbers and the game we played against them [earlier in the season]; they beat us and it was easy for them, it was the game we felt furthest from the opposition. But I think we are stronger now. I think we have improved and I hope we can give them a good game.”
