Arsenal icon Thierry Henry makes ‘confident’ Premier League title claim

A ‘confident’ Thierry Henry has picked out Arsenal as the favourites to win the title as he doesn’t see a team capable of challenging his former club in the Premier League.

Arsenal got their title defence up and running in convincing fashion with an emphatic 3-0 win over Frank Lampard’s newly promoted Coventry just over a week ago.

The Gunners will look to pick up where they left off when they return to action this evening away to Aston Villa, who were hammered 4-0 at Brighton in their opening match.

Mikel Arteta will undoubtedly have been keeping a close eye on results over the weekend as Manchester City – last year’s runners-up – maintained their 100 per cent start with a 4-1 defeat of Crystal Palace.

Chelsea and Manchester United also emerged victorious at home to Brighton and Ipswich respectively, while Liverpool and Tottenham both suffered disappointing setbacks.

Victory for Arsenal at Villa Park would put Arteta’s men level on points with City, Chelsea and Premier League new boys Hull City at the top of the table heading into the third round of games.

Featuring on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football programme, Henry was asked if he deemed Arsenal the favourites, to which he replied: ‘Yeah, I think so.

‘You can see what Arsenal are about and what might happen, although you never know what can happen.

‘I just don’t see right now a team that can maybe challenge them, although City won pretty well the other day [against Crystal Palace].

‘That’s what makes me even more confident that it can happen but I remember last year also, everyone thought Liverpool was going to be difficult to beat and then they imploded.’

Twenty-four hours earlier, Manchester United legend Gary Neville made similarly confident remarks when discussing Arsenal’s title hopes for the season ahead.

According to the former England right-back, the Gunners have the best defensive unit in the league ‘by a million miles’ which gives them a major advantage over all of their rivals.

‘It’s incredible what Arsenal have done really, to sign Ezri Konsa, because they’ve got [Jurrien] Timber, [Ben] White, [Cristhian] Mosquera, [William] Saliba, Gabriel [Magalhaes], [Piero] Hincapie, [Riccardo] Calafiori, [Myles] Lewis-Skelly,’ Neville said on Sky Sports.

‘They’ve already got eight amazing defenders and now they’ve signed another really good centre-half.

‘It’s almost like they’re doubling down and saying: we’re not going to concede goals, we’re just going to make sure we’re better than everyone else defensively by a million miles – and they are. That will win them a title again.

‘If you were to ask if you’d swap Arsenal’s front players for United’s, Liverpool’s, Chelsea’s, you might actually keep the front players. From a defensive perspective or in midfield, you’d swap all of them.’

Neville went on: ‘Arsenal, of course, when you think of Timber, Calafiori, Saliba and Gabriel, that’s a proper back-four with the goalkeeper David Raya behind them. That’s the only real team I look at right now.

‘Obviously Manchester City had it when they were winning the league and I just don’t see it.

‘Obviously Liverpool had it but there’s a real lack of units that are good, solid units now.’

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