Gary Neville has refused to rule Arsenal out of the title race despite the Gunners suffering shock back-to-back defeats (Picture: Sky Sport)
Gary Neville has maintained Arsenal can win the Premier League title despite their bid having been rocked by consecutive defeats.
Arsenal would have expected to collect a maximum haul from subsequent games against West Ham and Fulham, but instead suffered shock London derby defeats that exposed their deficiencies in attack.
Bukayo Saka is Arsenal’s top Premier League goalscorer so far this season with six, followed by Eddie Nketiah who has five, but three of those came in one game against Sheffield United, while he has now gone an entire calendar year without finding the back of the net away from home.
Gabriel Jesus, meanwhile, has scored seven in all competitions, but four of those have in Europe where Arsenal made serene progress to the knockout stages of the Champions League.
Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard supplied a steady stream of goals last term, but both are down on last season’s numbers in open play, while Leandro Trossard and summer signing Kai Havertz have just six between them in the league.
Mikel Arteta is hopeful of bolstering his attack in the January transfer window but Arsenal face being priced out of the race to sign either of their top two targets, Ivan Toney and Victor Osimhen.
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Liverpool’s resounding 4-2 win over Newcastle last night means the Gunners now trail Jurgen Klopp’s relentless winning machine by five points and with Manchester City now on the verge of overtaking them, Arteta’s men can’t afford to be anything other than perfect in the coming weeks.
Despite their precarious position, Neville believes Arsenal are capable of working through a sticky patch and finishing the campaign above their rivals.
He told Sky Sports: ‘I’m not going to change my prediction, you can’t flip flop halfway through a season. They’re not completely out of it.
‘They’ll be disappointed, they will be disappointed with themselves and the Arsenal fans will disappointed in these last two or three weeks because I think they’ve missed an opportunity to put themselves in a great position.
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‘Not where they’d be in a position where you’d say they’re going to win the league but that four, five, six point gap they should’ve had in these last few weeks they’ve just got to work it out.
‘They’ve had a difficult patch but they can come back, they still can win the league. The issue is at the top end of the pitch where they have had a problem putting the ball in the back of the net at this moment in time.
‘The striker is an issue. They’ve got two good strikers in Nketiah and Jesus but they’re both two and three striker. They’re not a No.1 striker and they need that.’
MORE : Why Mikel Arteta was furious with Bukayo Saka during Arsenal’s defeat to Fulham
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