Arsenal midfielder Martin Zubimendi refused to accept his team’s supposed status as outright Premier League title favourites, instead ranking their chances at closer to 50-50.
The summer recruit from Real Sociedad has made a swift adaptation after leaving his boyhood club. A pair of goals, which both came against Nottingham Forest, serves as an unexpected bonus to the level of control which he has permeated from the base of Arsenal’s midfield.
Zubimendi has only suffered one defeat since joining the Gunners, who have opened up a three-point lead at the Premier League summit. This early advantage, coupled with Liverpool’s ruinous run of form, has prompted many to prematurely assign Arsenal as clear title favourites. Naturally, no one at the club is getting ahead of themselves just yet.
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When asked by Radio Marca to rate his side’s chances of ending a two-decade title drought this season, Zubimendi was initially cautious. “I couldn’t give you a number,” he mused before adding, “but I do know we’ll be there. Football is very fickle, and details make the difference. They’re small details, and sometimes it’s even a coin toss.”
Three points clear at the top of the table and Opta has them winning the league in more than half of their simulations.
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Arsenal have routinely found themselves on the wrong side of a two-way title battle, finishing second in the last three Premier League campaigns. No team in the 137-year history of England’s top flight has ever served as the runner-up in four consecutive seasons.
Even if Zubimendi rates Arsenal’s chances at little more than 50-50, the expectation of success is very much there. Not that he’s bothered. “I’m really not feeling it,” Zubimendi told AS in a separate interview this week.
“No one here talks about obligations or having to win anything. This will be the reward for the work we put in during the season, and more than pressure, I see the fans eager. They know what it’s like not to achieve their goal. More than pressure, it’s motivation.”
Arsenal’s rise to the top of the Premier League has been underpinned by two factors; a rock solid defensive rearguard and set-piece dominance. Both aspects were in full effect at Craven Cottage this weekend, as the Gunners denied Fulham a shot on target while scoring the game’s only goal from a corner.
“We’re a very well-rounded team,” Zubimendi insisted, “we work very hard on both the strengths and weaknesses of our opponents before each match. The staff does an immense job giving us the necessary tools to make everything easier.”
“We’re a very solid, very compact group where we all want to win, and that’s transmitted,” he added.
The Spanish midfielder even had a little chuckle about Arsenal’s set-piece prowess. “The truth is, it doesn’t surprise me,” he grinned. “Set pieces are something we work on every day; you can also see it in our league; it’s not just us, but many teams are scoring goals. It’s an area I’ve had to improve and pay close attention to.”
Mikel Arteta put Arsenal’s strength from dead balls down to a process of constant adaptation. “We keep evolving and keep improving,” the proud manager declared this week. “It’s a system that when you put it in place, the system has to learn every single day, every single game, to become better.”
