We welcome Manchester City to the Emirates on Sunday evening in a Premier League match that we hope to win comfortably. Many analysts believe that beating Manchester City is the only way to increase our prospects of winning the Premier League title that they won last season.
Predictions for that game have been made, and I want to focus on two of them: Paul Merson’s and Dimitar Barbatov’s.
- Paul Merson in his SportsKeeda column believes we will struggle to overcome Manchester City without both Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli. He believes we could have beaten City if one of our two wingers had been available, given the defending champions are likewise not at their best without Rodri (and even Kevin De Bruyne). Merson believes we can split the points, predicting a 1-1 tie for u
- In defence of his prediction, he said in his Sportskeeda column, “If I had predicted this game on Tuesday, I’d have definitely backed Arsenal to win this game. Manchester City are without Rodri, and they aren’t the same team.
“Arsenal will now have to do without Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli, and I can’t see how Arsenal can win this game.”
Dimitar Berbatov, like Merson, believes there will be no winner when we play our main title rivals. He suggests that both of us are fantastic on a good day, and that the difference may be determined by who is wiser than the other, and who capitalises on the faults of the other. He predicts that the game will end 2-2.
- In his Metro column, he had this to say about his prediction: “In the end, we’ll just have to see who’s smarter. Both teams are very similar; we see how they both play, using the space, attacking constantly, and waiting for the opponent’s mistakes, and obviously, Mikel Arteta is obviously a student of Pep Guardiola’s, so I think it’ll be a draw in the end.”
What do you think of the game, and do you think we will defy all odds and win it?
