On Saturday evening, the Gunners took a trip to the London Stadium, where they breezed past West Ham United in style, beating them 5-2 to move into second place.
Arsenal supporters who made the journey across the capital remained confident in their team’s chances to bring the Premier League title back to London for the first time in seven years, despite their slow start to the season, winning just seven out of 13 league games so far.
Mikel Arteta’s side have fallen short of champions Manchester City for the past two seasons, losing out on the league by just two points last year.
Robert Segal, who has followed Arsenal since 1966, was optimistic that they could still win the league, he said: “We’re very much in the running, we’ve had a very different start to any of the other teams. Fortunately, we’ve played a lot of the top teams away and got those out the way.”
Segal added: “It’s been tough, we’re nine points behind but it’s not yet Christmas, anything can happen.”
“I’d say Liverpool are our main competition, I think Man City have had some amazing years but what has happened to them has shot them, I’m not sure they’re going to be able to recover,” he said.
“Pep [Guardiola] has never gone through this difficult a spell in his career, when you’ve got to the top of a mountain, it’s hard to stay there,” Segal added.
Manchester City are without a win in their last seven games across all competitions and currently find themselves 11 points behind leaders Liverpool in fifth place.
Arsenal supporter Bader Almalik also remained faithful in the Gunners’ chances this year. He said: “I believe Arsenal can win the league, we are still only in the 13th fixture now, not even halfway.”
“There’s a long way to determine who will win the title. I believe Arsenal will go on a run to make them compete and win the league,” he added.
Almalik explained that Arsenal’s underwhelming start has been down to a number of key injuries sustained early on. He said: “We’ve missed [Martin] Ødegaard over the past month or two, he’s a very important player in our squad. Now that he’s come back everything will change, we’ve seen his impact already in the past couple of games.”
“We will get better and better, fixture by fixture,” he added.
Dennis Xu, another travelling Arsenal supporter shared this view. He said: “So far there have been so many injuries, we are just unlucky. In the long term our players are still young, we have a promising future.”
Jan Willem, a West Ham supporter from the Netherlands did not share the optimism of his Arsenal counterparts. He said: “Liverpool will win the title this year.”
With Liverpool beating Manchester City 2-0 on Sunday, Arsenal are still nine points shy of the top spot but above City in the table.
There are 25 games remaining in the Premier League season and Arsenal are yet to play a number of key fixtures including Liverpool away at Anfield and Manchester City at home.
