Will Arsenal Win the League?

(Arsenal Celebrating a goal against Liverpool via CNN)

If you had told me in August that Arsenal would be top of the league by the end of February, I would have laughed in your face! It is without a question that Arsenal has shocked the world this season. This team doesn’t give up; Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester United, you name it, they have defeated them all! But how? How has a team that for years has struggled to make it into the top four, a team that has gone from manager to manager since Arsene Wenger left, how are they all of a sudden top of the premier league? It’s hard to explain, considering Arteta’s time at Arsenal up to this season has not been the best. When he moved to the Arsenal hot seat in 2019, his side was very inconsistent and had to fight hard to scrap an 8th-place finish followed by another 8th-place finish the next season. Last year, however, was a different story for Arsenal. It started how Arsenal usually start a season, two losses in their first two games and no goals scored. It was so bad that fans called for Arteta to get sacked because they thought he had lost the dressing room, he was out of his depth, and change was needed. This criticism sparked this team into life because, after their nightmare start, they seemingly couldn’t stop winning! Game after game, it was relentless. Everyone thought Arsenal would surely get top 4 and be in the Champions League, but a loss at Newcastle and Tottenham at the end crushed their top 4 dreams and meant they had to settle for Europa League for this season. After the collapse, Arsenal fans were hoping for top 4 this season, but they got so much more. Now to answer the question, will Arsenal win the league? Yes, I think Arsenal will win.

Although Manchester United is 5 points away from Arsenal, they need the squad depth to keep up. This season under Erik Ten Hag, Manchester United has proved the haters wrong by beating big teams like Manchester City 2-1, Liverpool 2-1, and Arsenal 3-1, all at home. The issue with Man United is their need for more squad depth. Casemiro has been a standout star for them but recently has been getting suspended, and the difference in quality when Casemiro is in the squad and when he is not shows. Manchester United tends to get outplayed in the midfield because Casemiro is a leader who dictates and takes charge. Without him, the midfield looks nervous and lost. Other players like David De Gea and Marcus Rashford are pivotal to their season, and one injury to any of them will throw United out of this race.

Manchester City is always the favorite to win the league, but what they don’t have that Arsenal have is passion. Arsenal fans are one of the most supportive groups of people this season. This year, Arsenal hosted Manchester United at home and struggled to keep United quiet throughout the match. When the game was locked at 2-2, it was destined to end as a tie. The game ended 3-2 for Arsenal because of the crowd's roar motivating their team to keep pushing on to find a winner, which came in the 90th minute from Eddie Nketiah. Manchester City fans are so used to winning they don’t have that kind of passion to push their team enough, and we had seen that in games like Nottingham Forest when they tied 1-1 or Brentford at home when they lost 2-1 to a late Ivan Toney goal. Manchester City has talented players, but Arsenal has passionate players; Granit Xhaka, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Aaron Ramsdale, Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka, all fight for the badge along with other important players. Unfortunately, I can’t name many Manchester City players who will fight hard for the badge as much as the Arsenal team fights. Football has become a game where money always wins, but there have been cases where passion wins, for example, Leicester City and their heroic charge for the Premier League title in 2016, nobody expected them to win, and they didn’t have the multi-million dollar talented players, they had passionate players. 2023 might be the year of the Gunnars.