Arteta: Arsenal Title Fight Continues

Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta has struck a defiant tone after a damaging weekend in the Premier League title race, saying the Gunners will give up Premier League title fight ‘over my dead body’ despite slipping 11 points behind leaders Liverpool.

Arteta made this claim on Tuesday ahead of the Gunners Wednesday’s game at The City Ground against 3rd place Nottingham Forest.

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On Saturday, West Ham defeated the second-place Gunners, preventing them from closing the gap on Liverpool at the top of the Premier League. Arne Slot’s Liverpool then went on to beat Man City on Sunday to go 11 points clear; the Spaniard remains defiant in the title race and is not giving up.

Many commentators conceded the title to Liverpool after their victory – but Arteta is in no such mood to exit the race as he also admitted that Saturday’s 1-0 defeat by West Ham was a “tough one to take”.

Despite setbacks, Arteta added that he enjoyed daily work with players and staff

“It’s been incredibly satisfying to work every day with the players and the staff to try to overcome certain situations.

If someone tells you at the start of the season that by this time, you have played five times with a red card with over half an hour in each game and you’ve lost this amount of players [to injury], what’s the bet you are in the middle of the table at least and out of the Champions League.

But that’s not the situation and it tells you about the resilience and ambition that the team has. That has been probably one of my proudest moments in that sense. When you’re there, you want more.

And over my dead body will we stop thinking that way and putting everything we possibly can to improve that.”

When asked if he believed Arsenal could still win the Premier League, he said it’s still possible but something special has to be done by the Gunners.

“If we can’t, I might as well go home. Mathematically it is possible.

Three days ago we could close a gap and you are like ‘you are one-and-a-half games away’.

The difficulty is higher than three days ago but if you are going to win the Premier League you have to do something special.

If you are going to win the Premier League with the circumstances we have you will probably have to do something that nobody else has done in the history of the Premier League.”

Arsenal currently sit second in the English Premier League table with 53 points after 26 games while Liverpool are top of the table with 64 points after 27 games.