Mikel Arteta insists Arsenal are still gunning for the Premier League title as he praised his squad for refusing to settle for Champions League qualification.
Having topped the table for much of the season, Arsenal slipped from the summit following Manchester City’s 2-1 win at Fulham on Sunday afternoon.
City have now won eight successive league games, including a 4-1 humbling of the Gunners last week which put a fifth title in six years in their own hands.
Conversely, Arsenal have taken just three points from their last four fixtures but their form over the course of the campaign has at least guaranteed a return to Champions League football after six seasons away from Europe’s top table.
While City are now favourites, Arteta will be aiming for a return to form when struggling Chelsea visit the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night as he refused to rule Arsenal out of the hunt.
“We have achieved what it was difficult to achieve and we can still achieve the Premier league because there are five games to go and a lot of things are going to happen still,” he said.
“Now the title race is not in our hands anymore. What is in our hands is to try to win the games we have left and the rest is down to City.
“What we have to do is forget about what happened last week, learn from it and move on to the next game with a full tilt at home, with our people, London derby, and put things right.
“I know what we were trying to do, what the objective was what we’ve been doing and we still have the nicest part of the season to play with five games to go. But when I still look at it, this is not over.
“I am incredibly proud and thankful to everyone who has contributed to bringing Champions League football back to this club with five or six games to go, it is something that hasn’t happened in over a decade in this football club.
“So congratulations but also thank you for still being upset and not accepting that Champions League is not enough and we want more because this squad is going to demand to get what we want.”
Victory over Chelsea would take Arsenal back to the top of the table for at least 24 hours having led the pack for 247 nights so far this season.
The Blues, having spent a reported £600million on players in the last two transfer windows, are on a run of eight games without a win and have Frank Lampard as interim boss following the sacking of Graham Potter in April.
Arteta, though, believes Chelsea’s plight is proof a club needs more than just a huge transfer budget to be successful.
“In our model we have very important things,” he said.
“First of all, is to have the right people and I think we have the right people. Then we have the right players who can compete, they can challenge, they can understand their role within the team.
“You need quality, goal threat, physicality, you need a lot of things in this game and that is extremely difficult to find that thin balance with the players.
“Recruiting is just… you have the best intention but then the player has to come here, has to fit in, has to get that chemistry with the manager, the team-mates, the staff, the country. It is not easy at all so credit to everybody who makes those decisions as well.
“They have exceptional talent. If they make that work, they can do anything because they have the players, they have the infrastructure they have the history to do it.”
Bristol City Women 0-4 Man City Women: Hosts relegated as Fowler double inspires WSL leaders
Mary Fowler scored twice to set WSL leaders Manchester City on their way to a 4-0 rout of Bristol City, who suffered relegation as a result, on Sunday.
With Arsenal having drawn with Everton earlier in the day, Man City knew a victory would be enough to take the title race down to two teams.
That victory duly arrived in emphatic fashion, with all four of Man City's goals arriving in the second half.
Fowler's fantastic strike opened the scoring in the 62nd minute, with the Australia international doubling her tally soon after, paving the way for an Amy Rodgers own goal and Alex Greenwood's late header to seal a huge victory.
Arsenal are now out of the title race, with Chelsea - who have two games in hand on Gareth Taylor's team - the only side capable of catching Man City.
The Robins, meanwhile, will be playing in the second tier again next term.
Data Debrief: Bristol heading down with a whimper
Bristol City have failed to score in their last five games in the WSL, a run of 544 minutes without a goal.
They mustered just 0.09 expected goals (xG) to Man City's 3.4, with the visitors having now kept a clean sheet in nine of their 20 league games this season.
De Rossi demands more from 'tired' Roma ahead of crunch run
Daniele De Rossi acknowledged his Roma team may be tired, but he insisted they must not allow themselves to be embarrassed.
Roma fought back to draw 2-2 with last season's Serie A champions Napoli in a pulsating fixture on Sunday.
Tammy Abraham's late header secured a point for De Rossi's team, who took the lead through Paulo Dybala's penalty before going behind to goals from Matias Olivera and Victor Osimhen.
With Serie A set to have five teams in the Champions League next season, Roma occupy fifth spot with four matches remaining, but sixth-placed Atalanta are just two points behind with a game in hand.
There is also the small matter of a Europa League semi-final against Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen on the cards over the coming weeks, and De Rossi set the stall out.
"We drew, it is not a result to throw away, but it is not the result or the performance that we wanted," Roma coach Daniele De Rossi told Sky Sports Italia.
"At times you can steal the ball off Napoli, but we then gave it back again too many times. Napoli had a lot of chances in the first half, we did better in the second, but we have to do better.
"Look, we are tired, but we cannot start thinking that we’re tired and that means we can be embarrassed in the final few weeks of the season."
Roma host Leverkusen on Thursday before taking on Juventus on May 5, with a crunch clash against Atalanta – who are also into the Europa League semi-finals – set to follow after the away leg against Xabi Alonso's team.
Key to a successful end to the campaign for Roma will be keeping Dybala fit. The Argentine has been involved in the joint-most goals (12) in Serie A since the turn of the year, scoring nine and setting up three, level with Juve's Dusan Vlahovic.
PSG's latest Ligue 1 title arrives as Monaco lose to Lyon
Paris Saint-Germain have been crowned as Ligue 1 champions after Lyon overcame Monaco 3-2 on Sunday.
A 4-1 midweek win over Lorient ensured that one more victory would be enough for Luis Enrique's team to get over the line, but PSG failed to get the job done themselves when they faced relegation-threatened Le Havre on Saturday.
That game was the 700th match of the QSI era at PSG, and the club's 1,900th in France's top flight.
However, PSG's wait to win their third straight title did not last long, as less than 24 hours later, Lyon – who will face the Parisians in the final of the Coupe de France at the end of May – came out on top in a topsy turvy encounter with second-placed Monaco.
Substitute Malick Fofana was the matchwinner for Lyon, and ultimately the player who handed the title to PSG.
Wissam Ben Yedder had put Monaco ahead in the opening minute, but quickfire goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Said Benrahma turned the match on its head before half-time.
Ben Yedder netted his second to restore parity on the hour mark, and thought he had sealed his hat-trick when he volleyed in from a free-kick, only to have strayed offside.
With only a win good enough for Monaco to stay in the fight, the visitors were then caught out in the 84th minute, with Fofana racing onto Lacazette's throughball and finishing calmly.
After a dismal start to the season, relegation looked a real possibility for Lyon, but they are now, with three games remaining, still in with a shout of qualifying for Europe.
PSG on the other hand now have 12 Ligue 1 titles to their name, with 10 of those coming under QSI's ownership. Aside from the COVID-impacted 2019-20 season, five of their last six league titles have been secured before the start of May.
It also means Luis Enrique remains in the running for a treble in his first season at the club, with PSG taking on Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League semi-finals next week.
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