Theo Walcott declares Arsenal 'way BETTER' than Manchester City
Theo Walcott declares Arsenal ‘way BETTER’ than Manchester City after Southampton’s 3-3 draw at the Emirates… with the former Gunner revealing his son will be disappointed at his non-celebration after netting against his former club
- Southampton put a major dent in Arsenal’s title aspirations on Friday evening
- Theo Walcott admitted he felt ‘indifferent’ – saying he felt like he couldn’t win
- Arsenal lead Manchester City by five points having played two games more
Theo Walcott has declared Arsenal ‘way better’ than title rivals Manchester City after Southampton held on to a draw on a pulsating Friday evening at the Emirates.
Bottom club Southampton twice held a two-goal advantage – 2-0 and then 3-1 – but were pegged back within three dramatic minutes in the dying embers of the game as Mikel Arteta’s side sought to keep their faltering title bid on track.
Walcott, who played for the current league leaders between 2006 and 2018, put the visitors 2-0 up early in the first half and admitted to harbouring mixed emotions at denying Arsenal three vital points.
‘Arsenal are just incredible. We played Man City the other week and I thought Arsenal were way better than them,’ he told NBC Sports.
Southampton were defeated 4-1 at home by Manchester City earlier this month.
Theo Walcott – himself a former Arsenal player – has declared Mikel Arteta’s side ‘way better’ than Manchester City
Arsenal rescued a point after trailing 3-1 heading into the dying embers of the game
Walcott claimed that it was an ‘indifferent’ day for him – revealing that he felt he couldn’t ‘win’
‘That’s how I see Arsenal at the moment,’ he added. ‘We can take a lot of positives from this game because they [Arsenal] are the best team in this league at this moment in time.’
Regarding his goal, which saw Southampton take a shock 2-0 lead, Walcott revealed that his son would have been ‘disappointed’ by his lack of celebration.
‘My son’s going to be really disappointed that I didn’t celebrate but I just couldn’t,’ the 34-year-old said.
‘It was a very indifferent day for me today, I felt like I couldn’t win. Hopefully now Arsenal can go on and win the league and beat Man City on Wednesday.’
‘Everyone feels a bit deflated I think, that’s the sense I got from the fans and both teams,’ Walcott went on to say. ‘We were in a great position of course and we kind of threw it away.
‘Before the game we would have taken a point against the team at the top of the league but with five minutes to go we felt we were in control.’
A similar feeling of deflation was felt among the Arsenal players, with a solemn Gabriel Jesus saying afterwards that he and his team-mates ‘dropped a little bit of’ their ‘level and focus’.
Gabriel Jesus urged his team-mates to stick together amid perhaps their most difficult period of the campaign
Manchester City have hit their stride in recent weeks and have closed the gap on the league leaders
‘A lot of things is going on now,’ Jesus told Sky Sports. ‘We don’t want to come here and talk negative because we are very positive, what we are doing this season is amazing. The Premier League is tough.
‘Now is the difficult moment. It is time now to stick together until the end. We still have a lot of things to do this season, it is not over, we are still five points clear. Manchester City have two games in hand but if we want to be champions we have to go there to win the game – that is all.
‘Everything can happen. Obviously we are not happy with the last three games, we dropped points and we know this is true, no one has to tell us. We dropped a little bit of our level and focus, this is the Premier League, it is so difficult to win this competition.
‘We are still there, we are still fighting and we will fight until the end.’
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