Mikel Arteta watched on from home as Liverpool overtook them in the league table whilst Manchester United embarrassed themselves late on against Chelsea, conceding twice in two minutes to lose 4-3 at Stamford Bridge.
The Red Devils’ result was a frustration for Arsenal, but despite United not being in the same race as the Gunners, the result in west London might end up helping them.
Man United manager Erik ten Hag has been facing a lot of scrutiny and needs to get his side back to winning ways. Doing that at the weekend would be of considerable benefit to the Gunners considering their next opponents are Liverpool.
Ten Hag only recently ended Jurgen Klopp’s hopes of a four-trophy haul in his final season at Liverpool when the Reds were dumped out of the FA Cup in extra-time. A full-time result of 2-2 prior to the extra-time drama would be more than welcomed by Arsenal as they travel to Brighton looking to go top ahead of the northwest derby on Sunday.
Ten Hag spoke post-match against Chelsea and effectively promised to take the negative emotions forward into their next game. Saying: “First I have to deal with this but we can’t deal with this for long.
“We have to recover very quickly. We have to turn this around, so from Friday we will be in a positive mood, looking forwards.
“We have to take energy. We will be mad, angry and you can take a lot of energy from that and that is the way we have to do it.”
United proved that they can indeed upset the odds with their aforementioned win over Liverpool in the cup.
They again are the hosts and will have a raucous Old Trafford crowd behind them – although they again lost a number of players to injuries and could have something of a makeshift backline for the arrival of their historic rivals.
“We have qualities,” Ten Hag said. “We have great players, we can play very high standards.
You see against Liverpool and [Chelsea]. We can compete with, beat, the best teams in the Premier League.
“When you do it in the Premier League, you can do it across Europe. But we need to learn now how to win games. We have to step up. We have to make better decisions, individually and as a team.”
Arsenal will face Manchester United in the penultimate game of the Premier League season.
How both side’s seasons look by then could be very intriguing indeed for both the title race and the challenge for Champions League and potentially European qualification in its entirety should the Red Devils fall even further behind Aston Villa and Tottenham.
