‘Not yet over Everything can change’ – Nathan Ake hints at Man City title race advantage over Arsenal
Nathan Ake says Arsenal’s Premier League run-in looks to be a “difficult” set of games for the Gunners, although believes the title race will go right down to the wire.
Manchester City find themselves eight points behind the Gunners in the table with 11 games to go, although have a game in hand over the league leaders. And the two clubs are due to meet in a potential title decider later next month.
City have beaten Arsenal twice already this season, winning their FA Cup home tie in January 1-0 before triumphing 3-1 at the Emirates in February’s league bout. Ake scored the winner in their cup clash in what has been a strong season for the Dutchman.
The utility defender has been used in various capacities this term, sometimes at centre-half, other times at left-back and more recently as part of a back three. Barring injury and loss of form, Ake will likely begin the clash with Arsenal in just under a month’s time.
He paid Mikel Arteta’s men tribute by suggesting the race for the Premier League crown will go the distance and underlined how City will have to be near-perfect to retain their title. “I think it’s going to go right to the end,” he told SportBible. “It’s very tight. Everything can change.
“We still have to play them at home, so that’s going to be a massive, massive game. We know, from now on, that every game is going to be vital. If you lose one point, if you lose two points.
“It’s so difficult to come back from it. The only thing we can do is win our games. We have a tough test coming up against Liverpool [on Saturday], which is the first one after the international break. That is going to be tough. But we need to win them all.”
Aside from the trip to the Etihad, Arsenal still have Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle and in-form Brighton to play before the end of the season. Ake believes the Gunners have a tough run-in with City’s toughest games post-Arsenal coming against Brighton and Chelsea while there is top-half outfits Fulham and Brentford to play away too.
“I think all of Arsenal’s remaining games are difficult to be fair,” the 28-year-old said. “In some of our previous games, we dropped points to teams that people didn’t expect us to drop points against.
“But they lost against Everton, too. Every game in the league is so difficult. You can’t relax at any second because teams will respond. I think it’s going to go all the way to the end. The only thing we can do is focus on us and see how it goes.”
