Wenger Tips Tightest Title Race Yet

With Liverpool looking like potential champions for the first time in more than a decade and the Gunners showing that, despite their youth, they can match it with the best, Wenger's comments are more than reasonable.

However, it is not at the top of the table where the Frenchman believes the most significant change has occurred.

"It could be tighter than everybody expected it to be because the teams in the second part of the league have improved," Wenger said in The Sun.

"To go away and win at Stoke, at Blackburn, at Bolton, at Wigan, it’s difficult, more difficult maybe than 10 years ago. And to deal with the Champions League and all these games is very difficult."

Wenger knows a thing or two about struggling against supposed drop-zone fodder, as Arsenal have lost to Stoke City, Hull City and Fulham so far this season. Combine those results with the amazing 4-4 draw against lowly Tottenham Hotspur, and you have a side who were already on the ropes in the title fight.

That is why Saturday's clash against Manchester United was of such importance to the London giants. Defeat at the hands of Sir Alex Ferguson's defending champs could well have proved the knockout blow - and an embarrassingly early one, at that.

But the Gunners triumphed, thanks to Samir Nasri's brace, and their hopes of claiming a 14th English title are far from dead.

"I didn’t imagine the consequences of a defeat. I felt beforehand that it was important not to think about that, just think you want to win," Wenger continued. "Part of the preparation was to go into the game with a winning attitude — that is what we tried to build up.

"If you open the press or listen to the media, you always have the feeling that the world will stop if you lose the game. But, in reality, it goes on the next morning. When you are under a lot of fire from the press, it’s not easy and I believe this team has a lot of character. They have shown that and kept playing the way we want to play.

"In our job, we can talk, talk, talk but, at the end of the day, it’s what you produce on the football pitch and against United the answer was right. When you don’t win you get criticised and you have to take that and deal with that and show that you can take it."