Mikel Arteta has responded to Emmanuel Adebayor's 'Arsenal are cursed' claim

Emmanuel Adebayor was part of Arsenal teams which fell short in their pursuit of a Premier League title under Arsene Wenger

Former Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor wondered aloud in 2023 whether the Gunners were cursed after a long Premier League trophy drought. However, the club's form this season under Mikel Arteta is giving them as good a chance as ever of putting that to rest.

When Adebayor joined Arsenal in January 2006, they were less than two years on from their Invincibles season. The Togolese international scored 62 goals in 142 games during his time at the Emirates Stadium but never finished above third in the league table.

During the 2009/10 season, the striker - who later joined Tottenham on loan and then permanently - riled Arsenal's fans with an exuberant celebration after scoring against them for Manchester City. Speaking to Sky Sports in 2023, he said he hoped the supporters had got over that moment while wishing Arsenal well - though he worried a curse had been put on the club after nearly two decades without a league title.

"Last season we were all rooting for them to win the league and they came very close," he said, referring to the 2022/23 campaign when Arsenal finished five points shy of champions City. "When it reached around January and February, I was telling all my friends, 'I hope these boys will not start dropping points.' This is how it was with me when I was playing for Arsenal.

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"We'd be first or second and then around February a player would get injured or suspended and that's it. The league is gone. We had a great team but a young team, we needed a leader.

"So when I saw them starting to drop points, even when Man City were several points behind, I said, 'Listen to me, I don't know whether there is a curse on the club, but it's going to be difficult for them to win the league.'"

Adebayor noted Arsenal had risen impressively just to be in the position where they were challenging for titles at all. He talked up the 2023 signing of Declan Rice but even the record buy wasn't enough for them to reel in a City side who picked up 91 points in 2023/24.

Another runner-up finish followed last season, this time behind Liverpool. However, Arteta has been attempting to show the best response to suggestions of a curse is to deliver results on the pitch.

His team sit nine points clear of second-place City, who have a game in hand. Maximum points from their last seven matches would take them to 91, while they need just 14 points from those fixtures to match Liverpool's title-winning tally from last term.

They are also into the quarter-finals of the Champions League after a 3-1 aggregate victory over Bayer Leverkusen. Their opponents in the next round are Sporting CP, the same team that eliminated them from the Europa League back in 2023.

After Tuesday's 2-0 home win against Leverkusen, Arteta was asked about his priorities with City standing between them and a first major trophy since the 2020 FA Cup on Sunday, as two of Adebayor's former sides meet at Wembley in the Carabao Cup final.

"Every decision to be honest was focused on today's game," Arteta said. "What was at stake was huge, we've been three times in the quarter-finals but I don't know how many [in total]. Not that many, I don't think, and that tells you how difficult it is to achieve it, and now we can start to think about Sunday."