Paul Merson says £67.5m Arsenal star will be the ‘X-factor’ in title race with Man City | Football
Paul Merson is confident that one Arsenal player can be the ‘X-factor’ for Mikel Arteta’s side as they look to hold off Manchester City and win the Premier League.
The title race has ebbed and flowed throughout the season but looks set to go right down to the final weeks of the campaign.
City have blown hot and cold this season, but a hard-fought 1-0 win over Leeds United on Saturday evening saw them move within two points of Arsenal at the top of the table.
The Gunners will have the chance to restore their five-point lead on Sunday, but face a potentially tricky encounter at home against fifth-place Chelsea.
And Merson said his former side should expect a tough test against the Blues, who are fighting hard to keep themselves in the mix for Champions League qualification next season.
‘For me, I think they’ve got to take the game to Chelsea,’ he said on Sky Sports. ‘Chelsea will probably sit back like they did in the semi-final and soak it up and try and get Arsenal on the counter-attack.
‘But yeah, big, big football match this. I think if Arsenal win this game, you could tick another big team off that they’ve beaten.’
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Arsenal should head into the encounter with plenty of confidence after their dominant 4-1 win over arch-rivals Tottenham last weekend.
It was a particularly productive derby day for Viktor Gyokeres and Eberechi Eze, who both scored twice to make it a tough first outing for new Spurs boss, Igor Tudor.
Eze now has five goals in his two games against Tottenham this season, but has otherwise not hit those same heights in an Arsenal shirt for large swathes of the season.
Merson, though, believes there is far more to come from Eze in an Arsenal shirt, and said the 27-year-old could be one of the key players for the Gunners in the final ten games of the season.
‘It’s a hard position to play, the 10,’ ha added. ‘You don’t just put someone in there and go, ‘go and do what you want. You’ve got to make things happen’.
‘You’ve got to find pockets and Eze’s very good at that. I thought that was what he was bought for, was to get in those little pockets.
‘If you get him on the ball, he can turn, he’s elegant, he goes past people like they’re not there.
‘That game was perfect for Arteta. They win the game 4-1 and Gyokeres gets two goals and Eze scores two. If you could pick two players you want to score the goals, that would be it.
‘If these two hit fire until the end of the season, Arsenal win the league if they can go and be 8 out of 10 every week.
‘We said at the start of the season, when Eze got bought, he was the X Factor. He was the one that was going to get them over the line and I still think that could be the case, as long as he plays and Arteta trusts him.’
But asked if Eze has the full trust of Arteta yet, Merson replied: ‘No, I don’t think he does trust a lot of people. I think Arteta plays on sparks, where he’ll watch someone, they’ll do something wrong, and then you’re out of the team.
‘I’ve seen it with Calafiori not long ago. He had a nightmare game, gets ripped off, and doesn’t play again.
‘Eze gets caught on the far post against Matty Cash at Aston Villa and don’t really play again. You’ve got to give them a chance. Trust in them more, these players. I don’t think he does that enough, in my opinion.’
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Paul Merson says £67.5m Arsenal star will be the ‘X-factor’ in title race with Man City | Football
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