Mikel Arteta’s ‘angry’ outburst speaks volumes amid Liverpool league battle

There’s no shortage of twists and turns in this Premier League title race.

But surely few could have predicted that West Ham would secure a 1-0 away victory at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday to cast further doubt over Arsenal’s title hopes.

Those of a Liverpool persuasion will have most certainly been left watching with wide eyes as the Gunners threw away a golden opportunity to claw back some ground to the league leaders.

Instead, points dropped at Villa Park became a point gained for Arne Slot’s men amid their ongoing push for a 20th English top-flight title.

Mikel Arteta drops stark Premier League admission

Have the wheels fallen off for the North London-based outfit?

Mikel Arteta stopped short of claiming the title race was done and over, though his post-match comments after a shock defeat to the Hammers were still rather telling about their credentials.

The Spanish head coach admitted he was ‘very, very angry’ after observing a display that was ‘nowhere near the level needed to win the Premier League’, in quotes carried on X (formerly Twitter) by Fabrizio Romano.

Arteta: “I am very, very angry. Very disappointed. That was nowhere near the level needed to win the Premier League”.

“Congrats to West Ham but a lot from our side we didn’t get right. I never felt that we were at the standard and the level that we needed”. pic.twitter.com/yNk581HXMY

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) February 22, 2025

With 12 games to go in the battle for Premier League supremacy, Arsenal have a lot of work to do to gain ground on Slot’s relentless Liverpool machine.

Arsenal need Liverpool to suffer a two-game calamity

It’s difficult to see a clear route back into this title challenge for the Gunners without us enduring horrendous back-to-back results in our upcoming top-flight games.

There’s always the possibility of dropping points to Manchester City at the Etihad, whilst the threat of Newcastle shouldn’t be underestimated (even at home to the Magpies).

Even trying to maintain a purely objective outlook, however, we just can’t see Liverpool emerging from the two games without an absolute minimum of two or three points.

Perhaps optimistically, we firmly believe this team is more than capable of coming away with maximum points – an outcome that would surely kill Mikel Arteta and Arsenal’s remaining spirit.

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