One Reason Arsenal Might Fire Mikel Arteta

When asked in the summer if the task of finally winning the Premier League after three second-place finishes was more difficult, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta didn’t falter

“Yes, I do,” he told the assembled reporters.

“It is getting more and more competitive each year. The level is increasing. We know that so our demands have to increase as well.

“Every year, we have to see how things develop. But I see the right balance in terms of maturity, experience, youth, hunger and all these ingredients are there.

He then made a remark which, even by the standards of a manager trying to keep a lid on expectations, was a stretch. He suggested the Gunners were one of nine sides capable of claiming the title.

“The thing is there are another six, seven, eight clubs in the league that have the right ingredients to win and there is only going to be one winner,” he explained.

“So we have to focus a lot on the things that we can control, that we can do, to achieve what we want at the end of the season.”

“The only thing that they were talking about at the end of last season and the first day through the door is ‘okay, how are we going to be better? How are we going to do more?’

“We know that we are so close now in two big competitions and we just want to make the next step. There are going to be a lot of details and moments that have to go our way. We have to push for that to happen.”

Perhaps Arteta might point to the tangle of teams that currently lie beneath Arsenal, from old foes Liverpool and Manchester City to unlikely candidates such as Bournemouth or Manchester United.

But deep down, he must now know, after its nearest rivals Liverpool suffered a sudden and inexplicable capitulation to lose four consecutive games, his side is the only reliable contender for the trophy.

A recent resurgence of Manchester City, who’d beaten Arsenal to two of the past three titles, had tempered talk of it being a cakewalk for the Gunners. Still, Sunday’s loss put a lid on the sense Pep Guardiola’s men were at the levels of the past.

Liverpool appeared to be waking from the surprising slump that saw them tumbling down the table when they thrashed Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League midweek.

However, in a dismal 3-2 loss to Brentford, the Reds looked as toothless as ever.

Arsenal, meanwhile, did what they increasingly do. They ground out an ugly but effective 0-1 victory at home to Crystal Palace.

“I told the boys that I value more this victory than any other victory this season,” Arteta said in the aftermath.

“We knew the difficulty of it after playing every three days. It was a big opportunity as well, with the things that happened during the weekend.

“But I knew we were playing against a team who have, in my opinion, been one of the best in terms of organisation and how frustrated they can make you. The moment you lose concentration, they will punish you.”

Arteta refused to be drawn too much on the club’s seven-point lead at the top of the table.

“We are where we are,” he added.

“It’s a credit to us, because we’ve been very, very consistent, knowing the difficulty of every match as well. It is early and doesn’t mean anything other than, ‘let’s keep doing a lot of things like we’re doing really well.’ But there are things to improve to give us better margins.”

Pundit Gary Neville was more blunt.

“This has got to be them, hasn’t it? This has got to be their year,” he told the Gary Neville Podcast.

“This is the fourth season on the bounce that I’ve had them to win the league, but they’re not necessarily miles better; they’re repeating their levels of consistency, and that’s all they’re going to have to do this year to win the league.

“They’re not going to have to go and get 100 points, they’re not going to have to get even 90 or 95 points to win the league, mid-80s, high 80s will win them this title, and they can do that.

“I mentioned before about the other teams [being] inconsistent and unreliable, that’s not this Arsenal team. They’re very reliable. You can trust them. The way in which they defend is fantastic. They’re all around each other. They don’t concede goals.”

Failure given these parameters would be nothing short of a disaster.

If Arsenal don’t win the league this season, it would be a good reason to fire Mikel Arteta.

The Gunners have the strongest and most settled squad in the league, with the desire to claim their first crown in over a decade.

There are simply no excuses; there aren’t nine teams, it’s one, and it’s theirs to lose.