As Arsenal look ahead to the final matches of the title race, Jamie Carragher issued a huge warning to Mikel Arteta and his side ahead of the final run-in
Jamie Carragher has warned Arsenal not to allow their Champions League semi-final to cloud the challenge Fulham will put up. On Wednesday, the Gunners travel to the Spanish capital to face Atletico Madrid in the first-leg of their tie.
Despite beating Atletico 4-0 earlier in the European campaign, the fixture against Diego Simeone’s side looks set to be a tense and uncomfortable affair. Three days later, Mikel Arteta’s side play host to Fulham in a must-win clash in the Premier League title race.
City will be level on points with the Gunners if they win their game in hand, meaning the north Londoners surely cannot afford to drop more points if they want to win the league. However, Carragher, who won the Champions League but never the Premier League as a player, warned Arsenal their gruelling period of three matches in six days will take it out of them.
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Speaking on Monday Night Football, Carragher said: “I know this myself when playing Champions League semi-finals when you play Wednesday-Tuesday, that is a big difference between playing Tuesday-Wednesday.
“You are actually playing three games in six days rather than three games in eight days and that is a massive difference at this stage in the season and that is why I really worry for Arsenal about this (Fulham at home).
“So you play Wednesday night there (away at Atletico) which is really difficult, you have to travel back away. Fulham are a decent side and then you have got to go again on the Tuesday night.
“For me they have been very unfortunate the way the games have fallen, so three games in six days is really tough. “It’s when there is that two-day turnaround it is very difficult to recover.
“For me when I am looking at Arsenal’s fixtures, that (Fulham) would be the one that would worry me more than anything because of the situation of Atletico Madrid.”
After Fulham, Arsenal play host to Atletico for the second-leg, on Tuesday, May 5, before travelling to relegation battling and ever-improving West Ham United on Sunday, May 10. Arteta will need the full extent of his squad, if he has ambitions of winning the club’s first ever Premier League and Champions League double.
Arsenal got back to winning ways in the Premier League with a hard-fought 1-0 home victory over Newcastle United last weekend. It’s a result which moved them to the top of the table, albeit City have a game in hand, due to facing Southampton in the FA Cup semi-final.
After the victory, Arteta issued a rallying cry to his players, saying: “I’m really happy for the win. We talked about game one and how important that was. We did the job. We should have finished with a bigger margin in certain moments of the game.
“But when it’s 1-0 it’s always tough because they have quality, because they brought so many good players on the bench as well. And when we don’t finish the action, especially the open ones that we had, the margin is going to be smaller.”
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