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Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville has told Mikel Arteta's Arsenal what he can achieve if his team continues to perform as they are after their huge win over Tottenham at the weekend
Gary Neville believes Arsenal can win more than just the Premier League if Mikel Arteta's squad continues to perform like they did against Tottenham on Sunday.
It was a debut north London derby to forget for Thomas Frank as his Spurs side were dominated for 90 minutes by Arsenal. A stunning Eberechi Eze hat-trick, alongside a Leandro Trossard first-half goal, sealed the deal for the Premier League leaders.
Their latest victory gives them a six-point lead at the top of the table over second-place Chelsea after Manchester City's weekend defeat dropped them to third.
Spurs' defeat leaves them without a league win at the Emirates Stadium for over 15 years. Neville was on commentary duty in north London, and the Manchester United legend was impressed with what he saw.
He told The Gary Neville Podcast: “Very good, a lot to like about them. Over the last few years they have been building towards trying to win a title and they haven’t won that title yet.
"But they do a lot of things very well and I think the narrative going into today’s game, that I wasn’t even entertaining in the last 48 hours, was this: without Gabriel, or Gabriel is injured.
"No one is interested anymore. Arsenal fans aren’t interested, Mikel Arteta is not interested, and what they demonstrated today is that they’ve now got a squad that can cope without players being fit. You know during a season certain players are going to miss certain games.
"We’ve seen Hincapié come in today, Mosquera has done it throughout the season, so don’t let that narrative build — nobody is interested in excuses.
“We heard last year he had no Saka, no Odegaard the year before, two years ago, three years ago no Saliba. That’s not this Arsenal team. The mentality is such that they’ve moved beyond that period where they are looking for excuses or think it can impact them if a player is missing.
“They’ve got a really good squad. The drop-off between player number one in the team and player number two who comes in is small. Declan Rice would be a problem, but he is an exceptional talent and someone who is very different.”
He added: “It’s not only a squad that should go on and win the Premier League — and I’m not jumping ahead of myself here — it’s a squad that I can see winning the Champions League in the next two or three years.
"It might not be this season, because sometimes when you go to win your first Premier League, you become so consumed by that and you can sometimes get done in a European game in midweek on a two-legged tie.
“But they’re getting to that level of performance, resilience, stability and consistency. It’s a very consistent-performing team, this one that Mikel Arteta has got.”
Arsenal now find themselves in comfortable positions across both the Premier League, where they sit top, and the Champions League, where they have won all four opening games. However, Neville did outline the one concern he has for Arteta.
He continued: “The only player you’d be slightly worried about losing for a period of time is Declan Rice, because you can’t replace that. That’s your Roy Keane, that’s your Rodri — that’s the player that holds you together.”
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