Gary Neville has said Arsenal should retain the Premier League trophy “by a street” after neither Manchester City nor Liverpool looked like title-winning teams on the opening weekend.
The Gunners began their title defence with a routine 3-0 win over newly-promoted Coventry City on Friday night. Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka scored first-half goals for Mikel Arteta’s side before Martin Odegaard added a third after the break.
City and Liverpool drop points
Man City and Liverpool, who could be two of Arsenal’s biggest rivals for the title, were both in action on Sunday. Enzo Maresca’s team came from behind to beat Bournemouth, while Andoni Iraola’s side scored a last-minute equaliser at Newcastle United.
Maresca’s first Premier League game in charge of Man City looked set to end in defeat as Bournemouth led for almost an hour following Marcus Tavernier’s first-half opener. But Marc Guehi headed home a late equaliser before Josko Gvardiol scored an injury-time winner for Manchester City, who finished seven points behind Arsenal last season.
Liverpool trailed twice at St James’ Park but Dominik Szoboszlai’s penalty with virtually the last kick of the game earned the Reds a point at a much-changed Newcastle.
Neville’s verdict
Neville cannot see Liverpool mounting a title challenge after their opening draw with Newcastle and says there are also “lots of questions” over Man City in their first season without Pep Guardiola. As a result, the Manchester United legend and former England defender expects Arsenal to storm to back-to-back Premier League titles.
“Last week when we were previewing the season all I kept thinking was this is going to be the most unpredictable season and it’s going to be intriguing,” Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast. “We’ve got new managers, lots of new players and so much change at the top. Arsenal should win this league by a street.
“We’ve seen Tottenham get beaten, Man United lose, Liverpool nearly lose, Man City scrambling for a win at home… The unpredictable nature we thought we’d see at the top we have seen on this opening weekend. It’s played out pretty much how I thought it would do.”
Questions over City and Liverpool
On Manchester City’s opening win over Bournemouth, Neville added: “They deserved to win the game if you look at some of the chances they missed. I thought they were really bright early on but the shock for me was the formation with Nico O’Reilly at left-back and Marc Guehi in midfield. It was a bit of a surprise and didn’t look quite right.
“It was really important for Man City and Enzo Maresca to get that win because there’s pressure on him there. They deserved to win but it wasn’t plain-sailing, there’s still a lot of questions there. We’re measuring Man City and Liverpool by the standards they’ve previously set and they’re nowhere near those standards.
“You can’t say Liverpool didn’t deserve a point out of the game because they created a lot of chances. I think Liverpool will be happy with the point and the way the game ended but deep down, when you’re measuring yourself against the teams they’ve had recently that have won titles, I think they’ll be thinking ‘we’ve got a lot of work to do’. They’re nowhere near a title-winning team I don’t think.
“If you’re going to play those two full-backs, you better have two amazing centre-backs and two very good defensive midfielders who are going to stop counter-attacks. You need to compensate for that. Their midfielders aren’t really holding players, quite often they empty the midfield by running forward, so I think that’s a real problem for the balance for Liverpool.
“The other big thing for Liverpool is they’ve got Isak and Wirtz who are going to have to start playing soon. We’ve been kind on them two. They need to start delivering and they need to improve. There were some positives for Liverpool but there’s a big question over Isak and Wirtz still, those two need to deliver.”
