Mikel Arteta sends defiant Premier League title race message

Mikel Arteta insists that his Arsenal team will not give up hope of claiming their first Premier League title in over 20 years.

The Gunners were regarded as the most likely team to usurp Manchester City at the division's summit following back-to-back finishes, but Arne Slot's Liverpool are currently leading the way by a healthy margin.

After a devastating weekend which saw West Ham escape the Emirates with a 1-0 win and Liverpool secure a 2-0 victory at City, Arsenal are now 11 points behind the Reds in second. The nature of Liverpool's triumph has many labelling them as champions elect with three months of the campaign remaining, and the number-crunchers have trimmed down Arsenal's chances of winning the title to less than 4%.

Plenty has worked against Arteta this season, although the Spaniard shouldn't be absolved from criticism when discussing the club's inactivity in the winter transfer window. Injuries have killed the Gunners, but the boss has insisted his team won't give in.

Mikel Arteta insists Arsenal have not yet given up on 2024/25 season

If Arsenal are to have any hope of getting back into the race, three points are necessary in a difficult environment on Wednesday night. The Gunners visit the City Ground to face a Nottingham Forest team that have lost just twice on home soil all season.

Very few enter the contest with confidence given what we saw on Saturday in the absence of key attackers. West Ham were able to defend their 1-0 advantage with worrying ease, and Arsenal are now meeting a Forest team with an excellent defensive record at home.

Despite all this, Arteta's message was defiant in Tuesday's pre-match press conference.

"It's been incredibly satisfying to work every day with the players and the staff to try to overcome certain situations," the Spaniard said.

"So if somebody tells you at the start of the season, by this time, you have played five times with a red card over half an hour in each of those games, and you have lost this amount of players, what's the bet? You are in the middle of the table, at least, you know, and you are out of the Champions League. That's not the situation.

"So that tells you the resilience, the resources, the ambition that the team has, every individual has and that has been probably my time, one of the proudest moments to work in that sense. The thing is that when you are there, you want more and you want more and you want more. And I'm not going to stop over my dead body," he asserted.

Arsenal will once again be without a litany of attackers for Wednesday's game, as well as the suspended Myles Lewis-Skelly. The Gunners have shown an ability to bounce back swiftly under the Spanish coach, but they require more than a mere recovery to pile a semblance of pressure back onto Liverpool.

Arteta's defiance is admirable, but Arsenal risk extending their deficit to the league leaders in midweek.

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