Gary Neville still believes Manchester City have what it takes to win the Premier League title and feels Arsenal need to tighten up their back end to stand any chance in the ensuing run-in.
The Gunners started off with a stutter in their most recent match by falling behind two goals at home to bottom-of-the-table Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon but rallied to pull of a remarkable comeback, while City had already beaten high-flying Newcastle earlier in the day.
Neville is inclined to think that Reiss Nelson’s dramatic, stoppage-time winner would have provided massive amounts of confidence and belief, he still feels they are conceding way too many goals for comfort.
Speaking on The Gary Neville Podcast, he said: “I thought City had a more difficult game. They were more likely to drop points in my mind. I didn’t think either team would to be fair.
“So City did their job and then you expect Arsenal to go and comfortably win. The fact that they’ve won in that way gives them that extra spirit and extra momentum, because it is a game you’d expect them to win 2-0 or 3-0 just because Bournemouth are second from bottom.
“But they made it really difficult for themselves. They’ve got a real momentum, there’s a spirit building, the fans are with them, I would say to them they’ve got to stop conceding goals.
“It sounds like a really simple thing to say but when you concede goals on a run-in it’s really tough and they’ve conceded two against Bournemouth, they’ve conceded against Brentford, they’ve conceded against United, Villa, City. They’ve conceded quite a few goals, I think 11 in the last eight games.
“So they just need to manage that a little bit because I think they’ve got 12 games to go now. City still aren’t playing at their fluent best. We’ve got a hell of a title race.”
When questioned if he is would change his mind about City winning the title, Neville continued: “No, I made my prediction at the start of the season and I’m not going to change my opinion of Manchester City.
“The reason I’ve not turned on Jurgen Klopp is because what you do over a period of five or six years you build up a trust and you earn the right to be thought of in a way that you’re a winner and you don’t write him off. I would never write off a Jurgen Klopp team and say that’s him done at Liverpool, he’s finished.
“Arsenal haven’t proven to me that they can handle the last 10 games of a run-in. They haven’t proven that to me. And when they do, I’ll take my hat off to them and say congratulations.
“But I’m not going to change it because I know how difficult that 10 games is. And they could do it, but I still feel Manchester City have got massive experience and if they hunt them down in that last few weeks it’s tough!
“I’ve been hunted down three or four times and lost, and I’ve hunted other teams down five or six times and won so I know how it feels. If your legs go in that last few weeks it can be two or three weeks to go and it can just turn.
“So there’s a long way to go yet so I’m not going to change my opinion. It upsets Arsenal fans but we need Arsenal to win the Premier League, we can’t have City winning it every year, we need to change it up. It’s good when a Leicester, Liverpool or Arsenal win it, we want that competitiveness. We’ve seen in other countries where teams win it five, six, seven, eight years [in a row], it’s no good.”