12 May 2023 , 21:30
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Mikel Arteta will not stop his players from watching Manchester City - but warned Arsenal must be ready to seize on any slip-up.
Gunners boss Arteta knows that if there is to be any shift in the title race then it will surely be this weekend with Arsenal and City playing back-to-back on Sunday. City must travel to Everton who are fighting for their lives for a 2pm kick-off and that potentially tricky fixture comes in between their two-legged Champions League semi final with Real Madrid.
Meanwhile, Arsenal face Brighton at 4.30pm which is another difficult match but it could be their best chance of regaining top spot if City drop points at Goodison Park.
It could be difficult for the Arsenal players to be focused on the job in hand at the Emirates but Arteta insists they can handle the pressure.
Arteta said: “For sure, before we go on the pitch we know the result and everybody will know it because it will spread out like this. Will we be watching it? Probably not.
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“We have to focus on our preparation and we’ve been doing that for the last ten or 15 games and nothing’s changed. You keep an eye on what’s happening, you have to have information but the demands we put on ourselves, we can only control the things that we can control.
“When you have to win, win and win, we’ve been like that for the past three months, it’s extremely demanding because of the position that we’re facing and obviously City have been playing a lot of games as well.
Arteta insists his Arsenal players can handle the title race pressure (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)“But that’s what we’re here for. It starts on Sunday again. Three games to go. This is the crucial one. We want to elevate our hopes and our enthusiasm to keep going because there’s still everything to play for.”
Whatever happens next, whether Arsenal win the title or not, it has still been a season way beyond last summer’s expectation levels. They started the campaign hoping just to get into the top four but are still in the title race with three games to go.
Yet despite enjoying such a terrific season, Arteta insisted that Arsenal are still a long way from where he wants to be, especially now they can look forward to getting back into the Champions League next season.
Arteta, who could be without Oleksandr Zinchenko and William Saliba for the rest of the season, said: “We are still very far. We can be much, much, much better at a lot of things still. Huge margins.
“We can be much better in our build-up, attacking man-to-man situations, attacking open spaces, defending deep, set pieces, we have huge margins to do in terms of game management, a lot of things we can do still much better.
“We can be more ruthless in killing games. It’s a lot of things that we have to seek for improvement because we don’t have a single player who has reached his peak. Not one. And when that happens we as coaches have to be curious to understand: what can we do to get them better?
“The Champions League is another level, a different level. You see the presence of the players, the charisma, how they handle the occasion. It’s just magnificent to watch.
“We want to be ‘really’ in the Champions League, representing our club in the right way. We have to seek that level. There is no secret. If you want to be at that level you need certain ingredients.”
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