Alan Shearer aims brutal dig at Arsenal in new Premier League title prediction

Manchester City have the opportunity to slash Arsenal’s lead at the top of the Premier League to just two points this weekend

Alan Shearer believes the Premier League title race will be decided when Manchester City welcome Arsenal to the Etihad Stadium in April. The Gunners squandered the chance to establish a seven-point cushion at the top of the table on Wednesday night, conceding a late equaliser against Wolves at Molineux.

Before Arsenal lock horns with Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday evening, Pep Guardiola’s side will host Newcastle United on Saturday afternoon. Manchester City could slash the deficit to just two points, and pile the pressure on the Gunners.

In an interview with Betfair, Shearer claimed that Arsenal are beginning to feel the pressure. The Newcastle United legend said: “Cracks are starting to show now for Arsenal, and I think because of being 2-0 up and then being pegged back as they were by the team bottom of the Premier League in Wolves, it doesn’t look good.

“I pretty much expected this. I never thought they’d run away with it. Very rarely do teams do that, particularly with teams that haven’t won it for a long time, like Arsenal.

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“So, from that point of view, I get it and understand it, but that would be a concern, and whether they like it or not, Arsenal probably haven’t liked people going on about them bottling it, them chucking it away, and the pressure being on them.

“They probably haven’t liked it. Well, they won’t like what’ll happen in the next few days now, because the noise will get a lot louder. There’ll be a lot more of that now because of what happened on Wednesday, and you can imagine how loud it’ll be if Tottenham beat them on Sunday as well.”

Shearer continued: “But I think for the neutral, it’s brilliant. I think it sets up a title race which is going to be exciting between now and the end of the season, but yeah, you would start to think a bit more that cracks are showing for Arsenal, certainly more than what you did beforehand.”

Arsenal have dropped more points from winning positions in the Premier League this year (seven) than any other team apart from Crystal Palace and West Ham (both eight), but Shearer believes they’ll take the title race to the wire.

The former Blackburn Rovers striker added: “The Premier League title is also still in Arsenal’s hands because if they win every game, they win the league. Technically, it’s in both of their hands, and everyone was always going to look to that game, at the Etihad in April.

“That was always going to be a key game anyway, and it obviously clearly is. But I think I’m right in saying they’ve only won something like two of their last seven games, and that’s a massive concern.

“Having said that, after what happened on Wednesday evening, then I’d be looking to the next game and I would actually love it to be a huge one and that’s what they have with it being a North London derby, that’s exactly what it is at Tottenham, with them also having a new manager, and you put all that together, then it becomes huge.

“I have been in this situation with Blackburn, and know what it’s like when people are saying are they going to chuck it away? I’ve been in there when we had a lead and were clawed back so I know exactly how they’re feeling.

“I know exactly what the Man City camp will be feeling in terms of they would have watched that game last night, Pep would have watched it and the City players would have watched it and thought ‘here we go, it’s our time, let’s take advantage of that at the weekend.’

“City play Newcastle, whose record at City is dreadful, as we know. So yeah, there are still going to be twists and turns in between now and the end of the season.

“I think there’ll be a time where City will be top, and where Arsenal will be top, and I guess it’s probably going to come down to that game in April. I do think Man City’s result at Anfield was a game changer in terms of City going for the league, because if they hadn’t have got that, it might have been very different.

“They wouldn’t have put so much pressure on Arsenal…”

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