\n<\/p>\n
Arsenal travel to Manchester City knowing their Premier League could be eradicated by next Wednesday.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 17 Apr 2026<\/span>17 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mikel Arteta has urged spluttering Arsenal to embrace the \u201chuge privilege\u201d of facing Manchester City in a potentially decisive showdown in the Premier League title race.<\/p>\n Arteta\u2019s side are six points clear of second-placed City ahead of their blockbuster clash at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n But City have a game in hand on the Gunners and a victory for Pep Guardiola\u2019s men would tilt the balance of power in their favour heading into the final weeks of the season.<\/p>\n Adding to the drama of the do-or-die battle, Arsenal are enduring an untimely loss of form after losing three of their last five games in all competitions.<\/p>\n They were beaten by City in the League Cup final, suffered a shock FA Cup quarterfinal exit at second-tier Southampton and slumped to a home league defeat against Bournemouth.<\/p>\n The Gunners were well below their best once again on Wednesday when they edged past Sporting Lisbon, drawing 0-0 to secure a 1-0 aggregate victory in the Champions League quarterfinals.<\/p>\n But, despite criticism of Arsenal\u2019s perceived mental weakness under pressure, Arteta is convinced his players have the right character to take a huge step towards winning the Premier League.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have earned the right to be in this position and to be challenging, with an opportunity to win against arguably the best team and best manager this league has ever seen,\u201d Arteta told reporters on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is a huge privilege. We see this as a big opportunity for us. Who is more privileged to be in this position?<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how Pep and Man City are feeling, but I feel very privileged to have earned the right to be in this position to play such a big and great game.\u201d<\/p>\n Arsenal are chasing a first English title since 2004 after finishing as runners-up for the last three seasons.<\/p>\n In 2023 and 2024, they squandered substantial leads that allowed City to pip them to the title.<\/p>\n But Arteta knows that beating City this weekend would put Arsenal in a virtually unassailable position of strength.<\/p>\n \u201cWinning at this stage, then you are a bit closer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are six games to go. Obviously, it is a really important one for both teams.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will incline the balance a little bit, but winning a game in the Premier League is so tough for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Arteta has challenged Arsenal to learn from the pain of their League Cup loss to City in a rematch with even higher stakes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pain we felt afterwards, [we need] to use that the right way on Sunday,\u201d he said. \u201cTo learn from that game and the things that we want to change for the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n Arteta refused to deny a report that a fire was lit at the club\u2019s training ground this week in a motivational ploy after he told his team to play with \u201cpure fire\u201d against Sporting.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery game we use different themes to try and prepare for the game in the best possible way, and that depends on what we do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best ones are the players\u2019 initiative; those are the ones I love the most.\u201d<\/p>\n Arsenal have failed to win any of their past 10 league games at the Etihad Stadium, losing seven of those meetings, in a barren run stretching back to 2015.<\/p>\n Arteta dismissed suggestions that he could tell Arsenal to play for a draw to maintain their six-point lead over City.<\/p>\n \u201cWe prepare every game to win, that is why we are where we are, and we are going to continue to do the same,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Arsenal travel to Manchester City knowing their Premier League could be eradicated by next Wednesday. Published On 17 Apr 202617 Apr 2026 Mikel Arteta has urged spluttering Arsenal to embrace the \u201chuge privilege\u201d of facing Manchester City in a potentially decisive showdown in the Premier League title race. Arteta\u2019s side are six points clear of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Arsenal \u2018prepare to win\u2019 against Man City<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"