Arsenal: Will Arsenal’s end-of-season form haunt them again?

With the noise around Arsenal trying to win the title due to their history under Arteta, the Arsenal boss was asked if he needed to ensure his team did not panic and focused on their task.

“This is what we have to do,” he said. “What I mean is that we will be willing and ready to win every game and all we can do is focus on that and raise the levels collectively and individually to be better than the opposition every week.

“It’s just the stuff we need to do, that’s the most important thing.”

Before Manchester City’s dramatic win over Liverpool on Sunday, Arsenal appeared to be nine points ahead.

But following Erling Haaland’s late penalty to secure three points and their win against Fulham on Wednesday, the gap was reduced to three points and the pressure on Arsenal increased again.

Asked if playing after City would put new pressure on his team, Arteta said: “I don’t think so, I think we’ve played well after them a few times this season and won games.” he said.

In the 17 matches in which Arsenal scored their first goal in the Premier League this season, their draw with Brentford was the second time they failed to win, along with losing to Manchester United in January.

Midfielder Declan Rice couldn’t have said it better: “This is an up and down part of the season.

“You can’t be so naive to think it’s going to be easy. We’re playing against the best teams every week. We’ve got to keep pushing, keep believing in ourselves, keep controlling the controllables.”

“We have to block out the noise from outside. We’ve done that really well. People will talk about the title race and Arsenal but we’ve got a really quiet group.”