Mikel Arteta says Arsenal must cling to the belief that they can pip Manchester City to the Premier League title as he prepares his men to face faltering Manchester United on Sunday.
The Gunners are one point ahead of second-placed City, but the defending champions have a game in hand and will retain the title if they win their last three matches.
Arsenal have a terrible record at Old Trafford — they have won just once there in the league since 2006 — but they are facing a troubled United team who have lost their way under beleaguered boss Erik ten Hag.
Arteta, speaking at his pre-match press conference on Friday, said his players must keep their focus even though they are not in control of the title race.
“We have to think it is going to work and what’s going to work is that we try to be better than our opponents and beat them and the final outcome, that will be something else,” the Spaniard said.
“At the moment that is not in our control. We know the difficulty in our history when you look at what we’ve done over there (at Old Trafford) so we’re going to have to be at our best to earn the right to win the game.”
Arteta warned that United remain dangerous despite winning just two of their past 10 league matches.
United forward Alejandro Garnacho thought he had won the reverse fixture at the Emirates Stadium in September, but his late goal was ruled out for offside and Arsenal scored twice in the final minutes to win 3-1.
“That tells you the difficulty of facing them, their quality,” said Arteta.
City, chasing an unprecedented fourth straight Premier League title, travel to Fulham on Saturday, with the chance to leapfrog Arsenal before the Gunners kick off in Manchester the following day.
“They’ve been on an unbelievable journey in the last 10 or 15 years but we want to change that. We’re trying to do everything we can to improve and get better and better,” said Arteta, who previously worked as Pep Guardiola’s assistant at City.
“You have to keep improving and try to be better than them when you face them head-to-head and in a long, long, long season with a lot of demands in this league.
“It’s been an unbelievable journey (for Arsenal) in every sense with a lot of changes. We have come far from where we were, that’s true, but there’s still a lot to come.”
