Oh, the things that football can make you do.
[ MORE: Highlights, analysis after Man United 0-1 Arsenal ]
Arsenal are hot in pursuit of their first Premier League title in 20 years, but they need Manchester City to lose or draw one of their final two games to do it. No matter which way you look at it, this has been an incredible season that the young Gunners and Mikel Arteta won’t soon forget, nor their fans either.
And yet, it all comes down to rooting for their most hated rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, to do them the favor of all favors on Tuesday (3 pm ET): beat Man City to effectively hand Arsenal the title. Faced with no other choice, Leandro Trossard pledged his (temporary) allegiance to the lilywhite half of north London after scoring the winning goal against Manchester United on Sunday.
On the surface, Manchester City (85 points, 91 goals scored, 33 conceded) could very well walk all over Spurs (63 points, 71 scored, 59 conceded) and waltz to Championship Sunday with a two-point lead, only needing to beat West Ham at home to clinch the first-ever four-peat in English top-flight history. Digging a bit deeper, though, is an interesting statistical tidbit: Man City have only scored one goal in six games at Tottenham’s new stadium, where they have a record of 1W-0D-5L since its opening in 2019. The goal came in City’s FA Cup fourth-round victory back in January.
As for Arteta, he admitted it wasn’t his side’s best performance of the season, but it was enough to get the job done and that’s all that matters this time of year.
