Mikel Arteta and his Arsenal team will give Liverpool a guard of honor at the weekend after the Reds won the race for the Premier League title with four games to spare.
While it is a tradition for teams to give a guard of honor before the games that take place after the title is confirmed in England, there is no obligation. Chelsea fans booed as their players did it for Liverpool at Stamford Bridge last weekend.
But Arsenal will line up at Anfield on Sunday and clap the Reds’ players onto the field. There is currently a 15-point gap between the sides in the Premier League table with three fixtures left to play.
According to the Daily Mail, Arsenal has already made the decision. Had it decided against giving a guard of honor, it would have attracted plenty of criticism.
“It’s tradition,” Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca said last week. “We have to do that, and we are going to do that. They won the Premier League, so they deserve it.
“In terms of the gap (between Chelsea and Liverpool), it is there, you can see this clearly. My feeling is we are (moving) in the right direction and hopefully this gap can be smaller and smaller and smaller.
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“The difference is they have been consistent compared to us. For part of the season, we were very good, then we lost some games. This has probably been the main reason why.
“And also in terms of experienced players that know how to win games and these kinds of things, I think they have something more compared to us.”
Virgil van Dijk was asked by reporters after the Chelsea game what the guard of honor meant to him. “It’s about respect,” he said. “I think it’s well deserved, and there’s three more to go.”
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Arsenal will play in the Champions League this week, looking to reach the final by progressing past PSG. Howver, Ousmane Dembele has given the Ligue 1 giant the lead in the tie.
“Yeah, big time,” Arteta confessed when asked if losing to Arne Slot’s team was a bitter pill to swallow. “It was in my tummy [that it hurt], yeah. I understand that it’s a team that’s being more consistent, and it has a lot of ingredients that you need to win it. But it’s very painful, yeah.”
“I take the opportunity as well to congratulate Liverpool and what they’ve done, the management they’ve done, how consistent they’ve been,” Arteta added. “I think they fully deserve to win.
“They were the better team, they had so many attributes, they had a consistent squad available. And we’re going to try again. But up to that moment next season, now we’re going to have to finish the season very strong.”
