How far away are Arsenal from becoming Premier League winners?

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Arsenal find themselves in another tight Premier League title race, and the recent 1-1 draw with Manchester City at the Emirates left Mikel Arteta visibly frustrated.  With Liverpool flying at the top, Arsenal are five points adrift, and that stoppage-time equaliser by Gabriel Martinelli felt like both relief and a missed opportunity.   Arteta said they “completely dominated” despite failing to turn control into three points. With critics believing they are not bold enough to yet become champions.

Transcript

00:00Arsenal find themselves in another tough Premier League title race and the recent 1-1 draw with

00:07Manchester City at the Emirates left Mikel Arteta visibly frustrated. With Liverpool flying at the

00:14top, Arsenal are five points adrift and that stoppage time equaliser by Gabriel Martinelli

00:18felt both like relief and a missed opportunity. Well I'm extremely proud of the players and the

00:25team. That's the overall feeling and very disappointed with the results. No, because

00:31that game we played I think 54 minutes with 10 men, so that's a different story. The pride

00:37that I feel is to do and to play and to dominate the game the way we did it against this team

00:42but with 11 players. Not too easy to say that I think, I think it's very clear what we wanted

00:46to do. Very well the game, we started the game, I think we completely dominated. I think after

00:51this scoring the goal without doing absolutely nothing before that we were a bit shaky for

00:55five or seven minutes and after that we still go grip of the game again and start to dominate

01:01it and in the second half it was a continuation of that with one different player and then

01:06with two or three different players. I leave that to you, but for me it's a lot of attacking

01:11players in that team. I think everybody tries to do its best to get the result that they want,

01:16so it's fine. No, I think he had an issue. He had an issue very early in the match and

01:22he wasn't well enough to continue. Yes, that's why he played today in that position. Yes.

01:30Throughout the match, Arsenal dominated possession, registering their highest ever share of the

01:36ball in a game against a Pep Guardiola side. Arteta said they completely dominated despite failing

01:43to turn control into three points and with critics believing they are not bold enough

01:48to yet become champions.

01:51It was amazing. I mean Arne Schlott's performance as a manager last season was incredible, but

01:55you've got to remember that he had players within the squad already that knew how to win things.

02:01You know, Salah had already won the league, Trent had won the league, Van Dijk. I mean most

02:05of that squad really had already won the league in Champions League. So yeah, they've got that

02:10experience. Arsenal, interestingly, you know, signing players, the players that they have

02:16signed are a bit more experienced. You know, Kepa, the assistant, the backup goalkeeper coming

02:26in, you know, has won Champions League with Chelsea. You know, are Arsenal going to look

02:32at targeting some slightly more experienced, proven winners? We'll see.

02:38Yeah, no. I mean, well, we saw in the Amazon documentary a few seasons ago that when Arteta

02:44loses a Dewelle, he's very upset, isn't he? So I have no doubt that he will be coming back

02:51with a real kind of maybe like a vengeful attitude, really. I think Arsenal will look at last season

03:01as a, not a missed opportunity, but they would have wanted to be the team that would have

03:05capitalised when City weren't at it. And I think the two seasons previous, Arsenal had

03:13came very close to winning the league in Haddon and were pipped by City. And I think maybe

03:19last season that took a bit of a mental toll on them. I think because they weren't really

03:25close last season, this season might just be about coming back with a bit more anger

03:30and a bit more purpose. Hopefully that anger doesn't result in any more red cards. But

03:36I have no doubt that they will come back fighting this season. And I think, yes, we haven't announced

03:44those signings, made those signings yet. But I think, you know, the players that we've even

03:48been linked with in the talks does seem like the club want to do something more than they did

03:54last summer. Last summer, the links weren't even there, which was slightly worrying. So,

03:59but, you know, still, I don't mind drawing against those big teams. Where Arsenal really

04:04need to improve upon is not dropping points to the smaller teams. You know, no offence to

04:09the likes of Brighton and Fulham, but, you know, those games are the games we really need

04:15to make sure that Arsenal are winning. And then, yeah, of course, beating the big teams

04:19as well at Anfield and at the Etihad would be, would be incredible as well.

04:24Ateta said how proud he is of his side's performance, yet clearly disappointed.

04:29He admitted that despite controlling much of the game, the result felt insufficient.

04:34For Arsenal, every drop point matters in this race. And though belief remains, this draw

04:39highlights the fine margin separating contenders from the champion.

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