{"id":17564,"date":"2023-04-20T11:06:29","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T11:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-title-chasing-arsenal-seek-home\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T11:06:52","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T11:06:52","slug":"soccer-title-chasing-arsenal-seek-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-title-chasing-arsenal-seek-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer-Title-chasing Arsenal seek home comforts against Southampton"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Martyn Herman<\/p>\n

LONDON (Reuters) – Arsenal’s title pursuit has entered choppy waters but they have the perfect opportunity to steady the ship when they host the Premier League’s bottom club Southampton on Friday with a seven-point lead up for grabs.<\/p>\n

With a first championship since 2004 glinting on the horizon, Mikel Arteta’s side have displayed signs of nerves in the past two weeks as they twice squandered two-goal leads to draw 2-2 away at Liverpool and West Ham United.<\/p>\n

Those results have allowed a rampant Manchester City to move within four points of the Gunners with a game in hand and Pep Guardiola’s treble-chasing reigning champions now have their destiny back in their own hands.<\/p>\n

However, Arsenal remain in a powerful position with seven matches of the season remaining, four of which are at The Emirates which according to Arteta could be a crucial factor.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard looked rather crestfallen after the draw at West Ham in which Bukayo Saka missed a penalty. But Arteta was far more upbeat when speaking to reporters on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“My players are really looking forward to tomorrow — to get the game we want and the result we want, playing in front of our crowd again,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s a Friday night. It has to be electric. There are seven games left. We have four to play at the Emirates, which is a big thing and we are looking forward to it.”<\/p>\n

With an FA Cup semi-final against Sheffield United on Saturday, Manchester City’s next league game is Wednesday’s potential title-decider at home to Arsenal.<\/p>\n

Arteta said his players must put all thoughts of the looming trip to the Etihad out of their minds until after the Southampton game.<\/p>\n

“We just have to focus on what we have to do each day,” Arteta added. “The club hasn’t fought for this position for a very long time. It is in our hands and we want to do it.”<\/p>\n

TOP FOUR<\/p>\n

The battle to finish in the top four reaches a head on Sunday when Newcastle United host Tottenham Hotspur.<\/p>\n

Newcastle slipped to fourth place last weekend following a 3-0 defeat at Aston Villa but fifth-placed Tottenham then slipped up by losing 3-2 at home to Bournemouth.<\/p>\n

Newcastle have 56 points from 30 games with Spurs three points worse off having played a game more.<\/p>\n

Victory for Newcastle would be a huge step in their bid to return to the Champions League after a two-decade absence.<\/p>\n

The fight for survival at the other end of the table continues with second-bottom Leicester City in desperate need of a home victory against mid-table Wolverhampton Wanderers after a dreadful run of eight defeats in nine league games.<\/p>\n

Leicester, who appointed Dean Smith as interim manager last week, have 25 points from 31 games, with Southampton on 23 points and in danger of being marooned.<\/p>\n

Third-bottom Nottingham Forest (27 points), who are without a win in 10 league games, visit Liverpool on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Everton, hovering just above the drop zone on goal difference, are at a Crystal Palace side seeking a fourth straight win since Roy Hodgson returned as interim manager.<\/p>\n

Leeds United, who are two points above the relegation zone, travel to Fulham.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Ken Ferris)<\/p>\n

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By Martyn Herman LONDON (Reuters) – Arsenal’s title pursuit has entered choppy waters but they have the perfect opportunity to steady the ship when they host the Premier League’s bottom club Southampton on Friday with a seven-point lead up for grabs. With a first championship since 2004 glinting on the horizon, Mikel Arteta’s side have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":17565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3J0FP-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17566,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17564\/revisions\/17566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}