Arsene Wenger is no longer mourning his team’s 3-1 loss to Chelsea, but thinks Antonio Conte’s men now have a great chance to lift the 2016/17 EPL trophy.
However, the opportunity for other teams to take over the top spot isn’t lost.
The season has about 14 more games left for every club to play, and this may provide a slip for the league leaders.
With a 9-point gap from Tottenham Hotspur (#2), and 12 points away from Arsenal (#3), the Blues now command a seemingly incontestable position at the top.
Arsenal.com had a brief chat with the club’s manager Arsene Wenger, and here’s what the Frenchman had to say:
“They look at the moment in full confidence, powerful, strong, they don’t concede goals,” he said about Chelsea’s possible chances of lifting the season’s trophy.
“It’s for them to lose it. They are in the best position, they don’t play in Europe, they can wait every week for the next game and prepare properly. They are in a very, very strong position.”
The 67-year-old coach says he has hopes for the Gunner, if they prepare better and focus on winning their upcoming fixtures. “This,” he says, “is what football is about.”
Wenger, the Premier League’s longest serving football coach, said he’ll leave critics to decide his team’s performance against Chelsea’s top dogs.
“For me it’s very difficult to come out individually on players after a big disappointment like that,” the father-of-one said.
“Certainly individually we were not at our best in some positions and it’s very difficult to speak about that straight after the game.”
The Gunners coach earned a touchline ban at a time when his team needed constant motivation, and Wenger admits it’s frustrating. Protesting against match referees was a punishable offense which he understands.
He said: “It is very frustrating because I prefer to do my job like I want to do it, but I have to pay for what I did and I accept it. We have to get on with it and I especially have to get on with it.
“It’s frustrating to watch from upstairs because you sit in the middle of people,” he confessed.
“They call on the phone, they stand up, they get down… but I don’t think that is an explanation of our defeat today.”
