Alan Pardew has revealed that he found something Mikel Arteta said in his press conference after Arsenal’s win over Crystal Palace really ‘interesting’.
Arteta’s side beat Palace by a solitary goal on Sunday afternoon at the Emirates, to move four points clear at the top of the Premier League.
Eberechi Eze pounced on a loose ball inside the box to acrobatically slam home and secure the Gunners’ victory in N5.
On the same weekend, rivals Liverpool and Manchester City slumped to defeats away at Brentford and Aston Villa, respectively, leaving the North Londoners in a commanding position in the title race.
Alan Pardew says Mikel Arteta’s comments after Crystal Palace win were ‘interesting’
This weekend may ultimately turn out to have been a defining one in the season.
The Gunners stretched their lead over Liverpool to seven points, while their points gap with City is now seven.
This will not only significantly bolster Arsenal’s belief in the title race, but it will also be hugely damaging to Arne Slot and Pep Guardiola’s teams.
Speaking in his press conference after the game, Arteta claimed that he values the victory over Palace more than any other win the Gunners have enjoyed this season.
“I just told the boys that I value more this victory than any other victory this season,” he said.
“Because we knew the difficulty of it, you come after playing every three days, you have a big opportunity as well with the things that happened during this weekend.
“I knew, you know, we play against a team that in my opinion has been one of the best recently in terms of organisation, how difficult they made it, how frustrated they can make you and the moment that you lose that concentration, they will punish you for sure.”
Palace boasted the second best expected goals difference in the league prior to this clash, and this likely fed into how delighted Arteta was with his players.
That said, the defeats for Liverpool and City are what would’ve made the three points more satisfying.
Speaking on talkSPORT, former Premier League manager Alan Pardew revealed that he found these comments from Arteta ‘interesting’.
“I thought that was interesting what Arteta said in his press conference after the game,” Pardew said.
“He was sort of pointing out how important this particular weekend was with Liverpool losing and Man City going behind.
“The win against Crystal Palace to take all three points and not a point, you know, to take all three and get that little cushion what they got now, it is one of those things that you might look back on, you know, when you get to the end of the season and go, ‘Oh, that was a big weekend that’.”
How many more points should Arsenal need to win the league?
It might be slightly early to start working out the mathematical implications around the season, but Arsenal fans will certainly be doing this anyway.
Gary Neville thinks Arsenal won’t need more than 90 points to win the title, and he’s probably correct. The maximum number of points City can now accumulate is 103, while it’s 102 for Liverpool.
| Position | Team | Played MP | Won W | Drawn D | Lost L | For GF | Against GA | Diff GD | Points Pts |
| 1 |  ArsenalArsenal | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 3 | 13 | 22 |
| 2 |  BournemouthBournemouth | 9 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 16 | 11 | 5 | 18 |
| 3 |  TottenhamTottenham | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 17 | 7 | 10 | 17 |
| 4 |  SunderlandSunderland | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 7 | 4 | 17 |
| 5 |  Manchester CityManchester City | 9 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 17 | 7 | 10 | 16 |
| 6 |  Manchester UnitedManchester United | 9 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 15 | 14 | 1 | 16 |
| 7 |  LiverpoolLiverpool | 9 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 16 | 14 | 2 | 15 |
Both of these teams have several issues that would suggest it’s very unlikely that they’ll drop fewer than 12 or 13 points in the rest of the season.
In fact, with City heavily reliant on Erling Haaland sustaining his absurd form and Liverpool dealing with several problems, you would expect both teams to drop 20 points at least between now and the end of the season.
That would mean that 84 points would be sufficient for Arsenal to win the league, meaning Arteta’s side need around 21 wins from their remaining 29 games to stand a very good chance of lifting the piece of silverware that has eluded them for so long. This is certainly a plausible outcome.
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