Get French football news Had the chance to speak to former France, Arsenal and Manchester City defender Bakari Sagna. In this installment, Sagna reflects on his former club’s season so far and their prospects of winning the Premier League title.
With Arsenal and Manchester City’s season so far, how do you feel about the outcome of the Premier League title race?
I think Arsenal are reaching their potential and the season they are having now is a natural progression from the last three or four seasons. They find stability, energy and synergy within the team. They have found their cruising speed, which makes them competitive whether in the Premier League, Champions League or cup competitions. They expanded their roster to be able to be competitive because that’s what they’ve had problems with in the past – the number of injuries in crunch time.
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William Saliba comes to mind. This was a big issue last season when Saliba was injured. There was a lack of stability defensively, and now it looks like their defense is solid and even in difficult games, even if they are not at their best, they are still able to get a point in the game. This is the difference between this year and previous years. When the going gets tough, they can still win. This is the sign of a big team, a champion. You can’t play well every week; you can’t always meet the fans’ expectations in terms of the way you play. There are a lot of games, a lot of different games; players will start to feel a certain fatigue. But despite this, they managed to keep winning, dealing with the pressure put on them by Manchester City, Aston Villa and others.
As for Manchester City, I think it’s normal for them to experience some decline after so many years of success. They set the standards so high that everyone is shocked when they don’t meet them. But after winning so many trophies in four or five years, after rebuilding the team – because it was a rebuild – they gradually became competitive and today they are in second place, not far away, so the league is not a done deal yet. The gap between the two teams was not huge, and Arsenal only needed one mistake to put pressure on the team to return. So there is still a lot to enjoy.
This exclusive interview is reproduced from Get French football news and can be found here
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