Arsenal beat Burnley 1-0 at Emirates Stadium on Saturday, and Kai Havertz’s headed first-half goal may have done more than settle the match. It kept Arsenal on course for a title race that could be decided before they even walk out at Crystal Palace on Sunday.
The win was Arsenal’s fourth straight in the league and their eighth 1-0 victory of the season. It was also their 32nd clean sheet in all competitions this campaign, underlining a run that has turned tight wins into a habit. The last time Arsenal conceded in open play was in their defeat by Manchester City on 19 April, and they have now gone six matches while allowing just one goal. In the Premier League, they have conceded only 26 times, the fewest in the division.
Declan Rice did not hide what the result felt like inside the dressing room. “I think we deserve to be champions, 100% speaking honestly,” he said, before adding that this has been Arsenal’s season even if Manchester City’s recent standards make it impossible to dismiss them. “We have put ourselves in a really good position and all I have been saying is that we have to keep going,” Rice said. He also pointed to the scale of the finish line ahead: “There is one more. Thirty-eight games nearly completed and at the end you can say you are a champion, but you have to go out there on Sunday and perform because Palace is not going to be easy.”
Arsenal entered the match after three straight second-place finishes and a 22-year wait for the league title, with the pressure building 90 minutes before kick-off and every result carrying title weight. Mikel Arteta said the team’s first half was as sharp as anything it has produced this season and joked that the job had pushed him close to the limit. “I thought that the amount of hair that I have is never going to go away but in this job it is going to test it to the limit,” he said. “We played some of our best football of season in first half.”
The arithmetic now is simple. Anything but a Manchester City win at Bournemouth on Tuesday would hand Arsenal the title before Sunday’s league finale. Even if City do win, Arsenal would still need only a victory at Crystal Palace to clinch the championship. For a club that has not lifted the league trophy in 22 years, the path is there; now it is a question of whether Arsenal can finish the job in the final 38 games of the season.
