Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has refused to throw in the towel in the Premier League title race after his side's crushing 4-1 defeat to Manchester City.
Despite plateauing with three successive draws before the trip to the Etihad Stadium, Arsenal's fate remained in their own hands as they lay five points clear at the summit having played two games more than the holders.
However, the Gunners were torn apart by Pep Guardiola's side in a comprehensive defeat to leave their title hopes hanging by a thread with just five games left to play this season.
Arteta's side sit on 75 points from their 33 outings this season, but should Man City win both of their games in hand, they will dethrone Arsenal with 79 points to their name on the same number of matches.
After watching his side go down to the Citizens with a whimper, Arteta was asked about Opta's predictor stating that Man City now have a 92% chance of winning the league, but he pointed out that his side were expected to finish outside of the top five before the first ball was kicked this season, and anything can happen in the coming weeks.
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"The stats said at the start of the season that Arsenal were going to finish sixth or seventh. We are where we are with five games to go," arsenal.com quotes Arteta as saying.
"Those players deserve a lot of credit, to be where we are after nine and a half months. There are still five games to play. I've been in this country for nearly 22 years and I've seen a lot of things; I know how much it shifts from game to game.
"There are no two equal games in this league. First of all, we have to lift our players, because they suffered tonight. They played against an exceptional team - they know that. But we're an exceptional team as well and today we weren't at the races at the level that was required to win the game."
Man City needed just seven minutes to break the deadlock through Kevin De Bruyne's sumptuous low effort before the Belgian turned provider for John Stones to head home the hosts' second just before the break - the Englishman's header was initially ruled out for offside before a VAR review.
Prior to Stones's effort, Arsenal showed few signs of a revival as they were suffocated by the Man City press - failing to play through the lines whatsoever - and the champions looked totally comfortable heading into half time.
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De Bruyne notched his second of the match and Man City's third early in the second half, and the game subsequently slowed to a standstill before Rob Holding netted an 86th-minute consolation.
However, Erling Braut Haaland - who had set up both of De Bruyne's efforts - finally got the better of Aaron Ramsdale in the fifth minute of added time, and Arteta acknowledged that his side were far from their best at the Etihad.
"They were better in every department. They were more aggressive, they kept the ball better, they won every single duel. We had them in the corners and from there, in two passes, they were in front of our goal. We conceded from a set play and from a throw-in against us too easily. They deserved to win the game because they were better," the Spaniard added.
"We knew we were going to need our best as a team and individually. Individually you have to be at your best, and you need 11 players to do that. Today we were far from that."
While the title is now out of Arsenal's hands, Brighton & Hove Albion's defeat to Nottingham Forest means that the Gunners are now guaranteed to finish in the top four and will be playing Champions League football for the first time since the 2016-17 campaign next season.
Next up for Arteta's men is a London derby with a struggling Chelsea side at the Emirates next Tuesday.
Ben Knapton
