Micah Richards would not let the title race go. On The Rest Is Football podcast, the former Manchester City defender said Arsenal's grip on the Premier League was not yet secure after Sunday’s win over West Ham, even with Mikel Arteta’s side now within touching distance of the trophy.
“It's not over yet. I don't believe the title race is over yet, Gaz. I just think there's another twist,” Richards said. Gary Lineker was less convinced, replying: “It's hard to see them slipping up now.”
Arsenal beat West Ham on Sunday to stay ahead in the title race, while Manchester City answered 24 hours earlier with a 3-0 win over Brentford that cut the gap to two points. That result still leaves Pep Guardiola’s side with a route back into the contest, but it also means Arsenal can now finish the job if they hold their nerve over the last two league games.
Lineker pointed to the shape of those games and the pressure around them. Arsenal have Burnley at home and Crystal Palace away in their remaining league fixtures, and he said he expected the West Ham trip to be the one that could trip them up. “I'm not so sure. I always thought that [game vs West Ham] was going to be the hard one,” he said. He added that Arsenal were facing “a team fighting for their lives showing significant improvement in the second half of the season, albeit their last result was a poor one.”
The wider picture still favours Arsenal. City need more than one result to go their way, and the margin is thin enough that every minute will matter. Arsenal have also built their position on defence as much as attack, and Lineker said that has been the constant running through their season: “The one thing I would say about Arsenal this season is that they've had really strong patches, they've had little dips but what they do throughout the season is defend bloody well.”
There was another brief scare at the London Stadium, where David Raya kept his 18th Premier League clean sheet after Callum Wilson had an equaliser ruled out in added time following VAR intervention for a foul by Pablo on the Arsenal goalkeeper. It was the kind of moment that can decide a title race by itself, and it kept Arsenal in control when the game threatened to tilt.
Lineker also raised a complication in the schedule that could matter further down the line, saying Crystal Palace would have the Conference League final shortly after their match with Arsenal. That sort of detail has a way of hanging over the closing weeks of a season, especially when a title is on the line and one club still has a live chance to overtake another.
For Richards, the belief was simple: the race is not finished until the points say it is. For Lineker, Arsenal now look almost impossible to catch. The next step is clear enough. City go to Crystal Palace next Wednesday, and if Guardiola’s team are going to turn this into a genuine late twist, they may need the sort of result that changes the mood of a title run-in at once.
