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Mikel Arteta has said that Arsenal are ready to push Manchester City to the final day of the season but warned his players not to get carried away by Sunday’s 3-2 win at Tottenham.
Arsenal raced into a 3-0 lead through a Pierre-Emile Højbjerg own goal in addition to strikes from Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz before Spurs mounted a second-half comeback.
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Cristian Romero took advantage of a mistake from David Raya to score in the 64th-minute before Son Heung-Min‘s 87th-minute penalty threatened parity only for Arsenal to hold on.
Asked before City beat Nottingham Forest later in the day if the victory was evidence his squad is ready to fight until the very end, Arteta, who registered his 100th league win as a manager, said: “Yeah 100%. I’ve seen that the whole season.
“They give me the reason to believe that every single day. We are right on it. The motivation for what is ahead is beautiful. We are all expecting that they’re going to have a real go.”
Arsenal fell away when leading the title race last year at the beginning of April but have now secured three consecutive league wins after exiting the Champions League at the quarterfinal stage to Bayern Munich. They sit one point ahead of City, who have a game in hand.
“At the end the judgement is going to be based on the outcome,” Arteta said. “If they got the goal in the last minute to make it 3-3 then we wouldn’t have been ready [to win the league].
“The margins are so small. Don’t get carried away with yourself. We want to be better. There are margins for improvement. Go again against Bournemouth [on Saturday] because it’s going to be really tough.”
Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou bemoaned the lack of maturity in his team and urged his players to learn from Argentina centre-back Romero, who hit the post in the first half before his goal sparked Tottenham into life.
“He was outstanding,” Postecoglou said. “He’s a World Cup winner and I’ve just got to get some of what’s in him into some of the others.
“It’s about now over the course of time getting from where we are to where we want to get to. To do that we’re still not absolutely laser focused on the details, the small things that get you from where we are to become a team that contends. Credit to Arsenal, they’re there now. They’re a team that does deal with the details well and we don’t.”
Spurs ended the day in fifth place, seven points behind fourth-placed Aston Villa but with two games in hand.