Ray Parlour will be thrilled if Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal bore their way to the top of the table on Sunday according to dailymail.
That is the positive message from the former-Highbury favourite ahead of the North Londoners’ titanic early-season title trip to Manchester City. The visitors start two points adrift of the champions, needing a win to overtake them at the summit.
And if that means assuming a safety-first approach, banking another clean sheet on the road, before snatching it on the counter, Parlour will have no complaints.
For, much like last weekend when Arsenal emerged 1-0 victors at Tottenham, points are more important than free-flowing displays in the battle to stay in touch with Pep Guardiola’s men.
Parlour, who lifted three Premier Leagues under Arsene Wenger from 1998-2004, said: “Absolutely. If you win the title, no-one looks back at certain games and remembers they weren’t good.
“You are the champions. It doesn’t matter how you did it or how you got there.
“I go back to my era and the Invincibles season, we had some really poor games, which we should have lost. But we had this grit, this winning mentality to always get over the line.
“Nobody cared about a poor game against Portsmouth or whoever. That’s the beauty of football. It’s always about results not always the performances.” Not that Parlour deemed the North London derby success eight days ago disappointing in any sense. Quite the reverse.
He was mightily impressed at how Arteta’s troops adapted to being without injured skipper Martin Odegaard and suspended midfielder Declan Rice. The former-England man, 51, insisted: “I thought it was really good given they were missing two big players.
“Arsenal set their stall up really well. The back four was so solid. They are such a strong unit. It was hard fought but Arsenal ticked every single box. When they were up against it, they defended well as a team. When they got their chance, they took it.
“Arteta will have been delighted and you could see the joy on the players’ faces at the end. It reminded me of the old days a bit…and one-nil to the Arsenal!”
Although they had the better head-to-head record against City last season – taking four points from six – thee Gunners still fell two short of their rivals’ eventual tally.
Yet Parlour, 51, believes something similar in this campaign, starting Sunday at the Etihad, could prove enough to halt City’s four years’ Premier League dominance.
“A point wouldn’t be the worse thing,” added the Talksport presenter. “In my time, Man Utd was always the big game. If we took four points off them, we knew we’d be there or thereabouts at the end of the season.
“On Sunday, City might also play on the break. Obviously, Erling Haaland’s on fire, with nine goals in four games, and is the one to stop.
“He’s the big difference between the squads. But then Arsenal have William Saliba, who was brilliant against Spurs, and Gabriel in defence.
“If anyone can keep Haaland quiet, it’s them.”
