How Arsenal have advantage over Liverpool and Man City

[Oyedibu Fikayo Odunayo]

How Arsenal have psychological advantage over Liverpool and Man City
ARSENAL have a psychological advantage in the Premier League title race.

That is according to former Tottenham defender Eric Dier – who believes his Spurs side suffered from playing after rivals Leicester back in 2016.

Mauricio Pochettino’s side ended up finishing 11 points adrift of champions Leicester eight years ago – and were even overhauled by Arsenal on the final day.

But until their penultimate away game of the campaign against Chelsea – which would become known as the “The Battle of the Bridge” – their hopes of a first Premier League title were still alive.

Yet Dier, 30, has now opened up about having to watch Leicester win before Tottenham played, admitting it had a mental impact on the North London side.

Speaking about Bayern Munich losing ground to Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga, he told The Overlap: “Obviously you never want to rule out winning the league, but the defeat against Borussia Dortmund was a bit of a sucker punch.

“I’ve been in that situation before with Tottenham when Leicester were going for the title.

“I felt it was really unfair at the time because they seemed to play before us every single week, and it was never like we can win first and put the pressure on them.

“Every weekend was a bit of a sucker punch because they would win their game, so we were never able to gain any momentum.”

With these comments in mind, SunSport has taken a look at the confirmed times of Arsenal, Man City and Liverpool’s games – with Mikel Arteta’s men playing first in three of the next five fixtures.

The times and dates for the round of fixtures on the weekend of May 11 have not yet been confirmed, while all three sides will play at the same time on the final day, May 19.

But Arsenal are the first to kick-off when they take on Wolves, Chelsea and Bournemouth.

And Man City will be one game behind Arsenal and Liverpool from April 21 as they miss a round of fixtures to play Chelsea in the FA Cup.

However, times aside, Arsenal still have the most difficult run-in with trips to Tottenham and Manchester United the stand-out fixtures.

Liverpool and Man City also face Spurs, with Pep Guardiola’s side not yet having a confirmed date for their clash away at Ange Postecoglou’s men.

There are only two times when Arsenal are not playing first – one of which is this weekend when they host Aston Villa after Man City and Liverpool’s games.

Then on April 27 they face Tottenham the day after Jurgen Klopp’s men go to West Ham.