Rob Holding has urged us to target maximum points from our final five games to try and stay in the title race, starting with three from tonight's game against Chelsea.
A win against the Blues would see us return to the top of the table before Manchester City are next in action, and having seen us start the campaign with five straight victories, Rob is hoping we can end it that way too to keep the hope alive right until the end.
Analysing the run-in, he said: “We’ve got five games to go now and we have to worry about what we can control, which are those five games. If we get maximum points, what will happen in the other games elsewhere will happen, and we’ll see where we are at the other end of the season.
“We’ve secured qualification for the Champions League next year which was one of the big goals at the start of the year, so that’s a nice positive to take, but we’ve still got five games left. If we can get 15 points from them we’ll see where it leaves us at the end of the season.”
The first of those five games comes against Chelsea tonight, who head to Emirates Stadium on the back of five-straight defeats and languishing in 12th position in the table.
But just as Mikel Arteta has stressed, Rob will not be taking anything for granted given the quality at the Blues’ disposal, and he admits that after their spending spree across the last 12 months, the number of options they could call upon makes things difficult when trying to predict how they’ll line up.
“That plays into their advantage because we don’t really know what to expect,” the defender added. “We know the quality that they have. Frank Lampard is back there now, a club legend so he might get them going for a London derby, you never know.
“We know the quality of players they have. We know they’re not on a great run right now, but in a London derby anything can happen. You’ve just got to be ready for anything.
“It’s a little bit of the unknown but we’ll do as much prep as we can here, focus on ourselves and hopefully get the three points.”
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