Former Manchester United full-back Gary Neville has made a bold statement by comparing last season’s Arsenal team to the current Liverpool side.
Gary Neville believes Arsenal were as good, if not better, last season than the current Liverpool club, which is poised to win the Premier League championship.
The Gunners have fallen substantially behind in the title chase, with injuries taking their toll on Mikel Arteta’s team. Arsenal were 16 points behind the league-leading Merseysiders heading into Sunday’s 1-1 draw against Manchester United.
Arteta’s team finished second in each of the previous two seasons, but they were much closer to Manchester City, which won the title both times. If Arsenal does not win the Champions League this season, they will go without trophy for the fourth straight season.
And former United full-back turned commentator Neville has stated that if last season’s Arsenal team were still playing, they would be champions this season. The 2023/24 team Neville refers to finished the campaign with 89 points, just two off eventual winners City who claimed an unprecedented fourth straight crown.
“Arsenal still should have been closer to them,” he told Sky Sports when questioned about this season’s gap to Liverpool. “Arsenal from previous season were as good, if not better, than Liverpool this season, thus Arsenal should be neck and neck with Liverpool.
“I realize they’ve been injured, but you have a strategy for that. Arsenal haven’t signed a striker in three years, and now they’re complaining about not having one. They have Havertz up front, and they have Jesus. To be fair, he does not fancy Jesus as a striker.
“Havertz is his only choice, and obviously you’ve got a strategy in place for losing a player or two over the course of 55 games. So the idea that they don’t have a backup for Harverts and Jesus doesn’t sit good with me, and you know they’ve left themselves short in the transfer window.
“They’ve signed a lot of players to compensate for the fact that Saliba was the problem two years ago, when they plainly fell apart in the latter part of the season, so they’ve signed a lot of center-backs. They then identified a problem with midfield last year and signed players to address it.
“So, in my opinion, Arsenal have underperformed due to bad recruitment and a little bit of rigidity with set pieces. If Arsenal had the same number of points as last season, they would be champions this season. Arsenal has struggled this season, which will pose a challenge for Mikel Arteta. I think he did an excellent job, but he needs to return to the level he was at last season next season.”
