Why Gary Neville is right to make Arsenal Premier League claim after Liverpool collapse

Gary Neville has been insistent that he is not putting pressure on Arsenal to win the league with his latest comments, but does feel that a Premier League title is there to take for Mikel Arteta’s side. Typically, the former Manchester United defender can get some push back from the Arsenal faithful, but his comments following the weekend’s action would be difficult to disagree with.

Arsenal have given themselves a six-point buffer over Manchester City and a seven-point gap to champions Liverpool after just nine games played so far. Almost a quarter of the way through the season, the question now remains whether the Gunners will be able to sustain this until the end.

The Gunners have achieved consistency while not picking up silverware over the previous three seasons. Three second-place finishes are evidence of that, but they have not produced enough to claim the titles the club craves.

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Neville feels, however, that their rivals' lack of consistency, combined with what he has seen from Arsenal so far, puts them in a great position not just to win the league but perhaps to establish themselves in such a position for the next few years at least.

“Just keep doing your jobs, keep doing what you do, and you will win this league, it's yours to win,” he told Sky Sports. “And I’m not saying it's yours to lose - that would be applying pressure. It’s yours to win, this is your title Arsenal, and I've never really felt that sure before and it's so early in the season it's madness for someone with the experience that I've got of winning titles to say that it's yours to win this but it really is

“Honestly, and that's not being overconfident for them, it's not placing undue pressure on them. They must feel it themselves. The Arsenal fans must feel that. They must know that this is the moment that Arsenal can get back on top and it's an incredibly huge football club who could only ever in my opinion measure themselves by winning the Premier League title.

“This idea for 20 years in the Champions League and acceptance of what I would class as failure for a top club, this is a moment for Mikel Arteta, for these players for Arsenal to sort of represent themselves as being the best in the country, and the chance and the opportunity is there for them, they've got to go and take it.”

He is right. What we have seen in these early stages is an environment that should lend itself to a title victory.

No team has lost four games in a row like Liverpool just have and then gone on to win the league. City appear to be reliant on the presence of Erling Haaland and his goals, all 11 of them in the league, with just four other goal scorers in the side all on a single goal each.

The Gunners, meanwhile, have had eleven different goal-scorers sharing 16 goals between them, the second-highest tally in the league this season. Less than a third of them have come from defenders.