Ian Wright makes Arsenal vs Newcastle and title race predictions | Football

Ian Wright has backed Arsenal to choose themselves up from their crushing defeat to Manchester City and win the Premier League title this season.

The Gunners found themselves in an imperious position within the title race earlier this month, knowing victory over Bournemouth would have opened up a 12-point lead at the highest of the table.

However the Cherries stunned Arsenal to expire 2-1 winners on the Emirates, piling much more pressure on Mikel Arteta’s men ahead of last weekend’s potentially pivotal trip to the Etihad.

A moment of brilliance from Rayan Cherki ensured Arsenal got off to the worst possible start in Manchester, however the visitors found a right away response through Kai Havertz at the opposite end of the pitch – gifted to them by Gianluigi Donnarumma.

City rallied again, though, with Erling Haaland scoring what proved to be the winner within the sixty fifth minute, while Eberechi Eze hit the woodwork and Havertz squandered two golden possibilities in a pulsating second half.

Pep Guardiola’s side followed this up by beating a down-and-out Burnley team on Wednesday night, a result that saw the club leapfrog Arsenal and go top – on goal difference – for the primary time because the opening week of the campaign.

Giving his thoughts on the newest episode of The Overlap, Wright outlined the positives has has taken from Arsenal’s setback, now that the dust has settled.

‘I used to be obviously very emotional last time [on the last show], I used to be very emotional about it. But leading into that was obviously Southampton and Bournemouth so I used to be reeling off of that, and it wasn’t great against Sporting,’ the ex-Arsenal and England striker said.

‘But I said within the last show that I just desired to see something from us, show us that you could do something, you possibly can give us something.

‘If we’d won the sport previously and done well attending to Manchester City, there’s never going to be the: it’s selected the Manchester City game. You must attempt to get that cushion so whenever you play that game, whatever happens, you’re okay since you’ll beat the remainder.

‘So leading into that and the best way we played, obviously, I used to be upset. But we played well enough to win the sport, we must always have at the very least got the draw out of that game.’

Wright felt Arsenal were ultimately punished by their lack of ‘ruthlessness’ in front of goal in Sunday’s top-of-the-table showdown.

‘Watching Eze, [Martin] Odegaard and Havertz, we created the sort of possibilities that we must always have taken. We should always have taken them,’ he added.

‘While you watch City, they do give possibilities up and should you’re going to be ruthless, you are taking them and Arsenal could have won that game.

‘Haaland had one likelihood, bam, took it, so I’m rather a lot higher now because now what they’ve got to do is be ruthless with every thing.’

Based on what he saw within the performance against City, Wright is hopeful Arsenal could have enough to win the title, even whether it is a case of ‘creeping over the road’.

‘I’m gonna go along with: we’re going to win the league,’ he replied when asked for his title prediction.

‘The possibilities we created against that City side, I feel we could do the identical against the teams coming. Obviously we’re going to must be rather a lot more ruthless with taking our possibilities.

‘But before that, leading into that, I didn’t see us creating enough possibilities within the games leading into that, in a time where with the history of what we’re doing on this stage of the season, we’ve sort of faltered.

‘I believed in that Man City game, the large game, we created enough possibilities where if we do this against other teams and get ourselves back to that defensive solidity that we had before leading into this a part of the season and finish this with ruthlessness.

‘We began the season with ruthlessness with people saying, “Oh, it’s Arsenal’s, it’s Arsenal’s to lose”, everybody was saying it, because we looked absolutely faultless in the best way we were.

‘Now, everybody’s faltering and on this City game I believed we did enough. if we will play like that, even when we’re attempting to creep over the road, we will probably do it.’

Wright called on those players with experience of winning major titles to step up and drag the remainder of the squad back on target after what’s going to have been a difficult few days.

‘We’ve got to seek out the fight,’ Wright, Arsenal’s second-highest goalscorer in history, continued.

‘We’ve got Piero Hincapie who has won the Bundesliga, we’ve got Gabriel Jesus and we’ve got Jurrien Timber who has won in Holland, three players who’ve seen it off.

‘They should step into that team and check out to make them understand what it’s going to take to complete this off because everybody in there can be having doubts, there’s nothing flawed with that.’

Looking forward to this weekend’s motion, Wright backed his beloved club to come back away from their clash with Newcastle with all three points.

‘We’re winning this game, either 2-0 or 3-0,’ he said.

‘I feel we’ve got [got that in us]… 3-0! We’d like that sort of result.’

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