How Arsenal have psychological advantage over Liverpool and Man City with seven games left in Premier League title race

8 months ago 65

ARSENAL have a psychological advantage in the Premier League title race.

That is according to former Tottenham defender Eric Dier – who believes his Spurs side suffered from playing after rivals Leicester back in 2016.

How the title race fixtures compare

Here is how the fixture times for the confirmed games look:

Man City (Luton H) – 3pm Saturday
Liverpool (Palace H) – 2pm Sunday
Arsenal (Villa H) – 4pm Sunday

Arsenal (Wolves A) – 7.30pm Saturday
Liverpool (Fulham A) – 4.30pm Sunday
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Arsenal (Chelsea H) – 8pm Tuesday
Liverpool (Everton A) – 8pm Wednesday
Man City (Brighton A) 8pm Thursday

Liverpool (West Ham A) – 12.30 Saturday
Arsenal (Spurs A) – 2pm Sunday
Man City (Forest A) – 4.30 Sunday

Arsenal (Bournemouth H) – 12.30pm Saturday
Man City (Wolves H) – 5.30pm Saturday
Liverpool (Spurs H) – 4.30pm Sunday

Mauricio Pochettino’s side ended up finishing 11 points adrift of champions Leicester eight years ago – and were even overhauled by Arsenal on the final day.

But until their penultimate away game of the campaign against Chelsea – which would become known as the “The Battle of the Bridge” – their hopes of a first Premier League title were still alive.

Yet Dier, 30, has now opened up about having to watch Leicester win before Tottenham played, admitting it had a mental impact on the North London side.

Speaking about Bayern Munich losing ground to Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga, he told The Overlap: “Obviously you never want to rule out winning the league, but the defeat against Borussia Dortmund was a bit of a sucker punch.

“I’ve been in that situation before with Tottenham when Leicester were going for the title.

“I felt it was really unfair at the time because they seemed to play before us every single week, and it was never like we can win first and put the pressure on them.

“Every weekend was a bit of a sucker punch because they would win their game, so we were never able to gain any momentum.”

With these comments in mind, SunSport has taken a look at the confirmed times of Arsenal, Man City and Liverpool‘s games – with Mikel Arteta‘s men playing first in three of the next five fixtures.

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How the title run-ins compare

It's going to go right down to the wire with just one point separating the top three - but how do Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City's run-ins compare?

ARSENAL: Aston Villa (H), Wolves (A) Chelsea (H), Spurs (A), Bournemouth (H), Man Utd (A) and Everton (H)

LIVERPOOL: Crystal Palace (H), Fulham (A), Everton (A), West Ham (A), Tottenham (H), Aston Villa (A), Wolves (H)

MAN CITY: Luton (H), Brighton (A), Nottingham Forest (A), Wolves (H), Fulham (A), West Ham (H) and Tottenham (A TBC)

The times and dates for the round of fixtures on the weekend of May 11 have not yet been confirmed, while all three sides will play at the same time on the final day, May 19.

But Arsenal are the first to kick-off when they take on Wolves, Chelsea and Bournemouth.

And Man City will be one game behind Arsenal and Liverpool from April 21 as they miss a round of fixtures to play Chelsea in the FA Cup.

However, times aside, Arsenal still have the most difficult run-in with trips to Tottenham and Manchester United the stand-out fixtures.

Liverpool and Man City also face Spurs, with Pep Guardiola‘s side not yet having a confirmed date for their clash away at Ange Postecoglou’s men.

There are only two times when Arsenal are not playing first – one of which is this weekend when they host Aston Villa after Man City and Liverpool’s games.

Then on April 27 they face Tottenham the day after Jurgen Klopp‘s men go to West Ham.

How Arteta made Arsenal horrible again, with Tony Pulis tactic and gentle star turned into Diego Costa-style hate figure

By Dave Kidd

BOTTLERS, chokers, shandy-drinking southern softies.

These were the charges levelled at Arsenal when they blew the title last season.

And even if the actual reason they failed was because William Saliba got injured and Rob Holding had to start, Mikel Arteta clearly took those accusations to heart.

If his team are not crowned champions next month, the Gunners boss has categorically ensured that they won’t go down being accused of nicey-niceyness.

Because, as well as being thrillingly entertaining and free-scoring when they want to be, this season’s Arsenal are also thoroughly horrible.
They are not here to make friends. They are not interested in being anybody’s second-favourite team.

And so, six days after stink-bombing the Etihad with a display of Mourinho-esque anti-football for a 0-0 draw, Arsenal turned up at the home of former bogey-team Brighton and s***housed their way to a thoroughly impressive 3-0 win.

How wonderful for the travelling Gooners to witness Ben White — against his former club — going down as if he’d taken a bullet to his neck when Brighton’s Pervis Estupinan brushed against him.

White is renowned as a gentle and decent bloke, intelligent enough to challenge the zeitgeist and claim there might be things in life other than football.

And yet suddenly he’s become some Diego Costa-style anti-hero hate figure, his wife goading the masses by posting social-media pictures of them playing a childish card game on a sun lounger after he’d refused an international call-up.

Because Arsenal are horrible again. Even Ben White is a villain.
And that might just be Arteta’s greatest triumph.

Click here to read Dave Kidd’s column in full.

To read more from Dave Kidd, click here.

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