GiveMeSport
·22 April 2023
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·22 April 2023
Theo Walcott has named the team he believes are the best in England following Southampton’s 3-3 draw against Arsenal.
Walcott was on the scoresheet against his former club as Southampton took a shock 2-0 lead inside the opening 15 minutes at the Emirates Stadium.
Arsenal eventually rescued a point against the Premier League’s bottom side, scoring two late goals through Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka, and remain top of the league by five points ahead of their top-of-the-table clash against second-placed Manchester City on Wednesday.
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However, City have two games in hand over the Gunners and are now favourites to win this season’s Premier League title after Arsenal drew their third successive match.
Despite the fact Arsenal failed to beat rock-bottom Southampton, Walcott believes the Gunners are “way better” than City after playing against the two clubs this month.
City thrashed Walcott’s side 4-1 at St. Mary’s on April 8 - but the former England international was more impressed by Mikel Arteta’s side than Pep Guardiola’s.
“Arsenal are just incredible,” Walcott, 34, told NBC Sports. “We played Man City the other week and I thought Arsenal were way better than them.
“That’s how I see Arsenal at the moment. We can take a lot of positives from this game because they [Arsenal] are the best team in this league at this moment in time.”
Walcott is now hoping that Arsenal, the club he played for between 2006-2018, will now go on and win their first Premier League title since 2004.
“My son’s going to be really disappointed that I didn’t celebrate but I just couldn’t,” Walcott added.
“It was a very indifferent day for me today, I felt like I couldn’t win. Hopefully now Arsenal can go on and win the league and beat Man City on Wednesday.”
Beating Man City to the Premier League title would confirm Arsenal’s status as England’s best team - regardless of what their next opponents achieve in the Champions League.
However, in order for that to become a reality they will probably need to avoid defeat against Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne and co. at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday.
If City win that crunch match in Manchester it will be difficult to envisage Arteta’s side ending the campaign with the Premier League trophy.