Journalist Charles Watts has reported that Arsenal are unlikely to benefit this season in the title race despite the current allegations against Manchester City.
What’s the word?
It was reported at the start of this week that Pep Guardiola’s side have been charged by the Premier League with 100 breaches of the financial rules following a four-year investigation.
Of course, with Mikel Arteta men pushing to win the league – currently sitting five points and one place above City in the table – the Manchester outfit are Arsenal’s biggest rivals at the moment.
With that in mind, some fans may well have been hoping to a potential points deduction could be on the cards; as we have seen Juventus suffer in Serie A this season.
For instance, Piers Morgan sent a Tweet saying: “Outrageous. Immediate points deduction!”
However, while speaking about it all on YouTube, Watts poured water on any such rumours and explained that any immediate action is unlikely to happen this season.
He said: “I’ve seen on social media all Arsenal fans are like, ‘oh, docked points. Docked points, definitely’.
“Which I can understand. But, you know, who knows how long it will [take]. All the lawyers are going to get involved, City with their legions of lawyers that they have.“This is just a start, the fact that it’s been a charge, it’s going to rumble on in courts and everything for a while. I can’t imagine we’re going to have a resolution this season. It might run on until next season. We’ll have to wait and see.“But I mean, the allegations are massive, you know, really. Really, they’re basically saying that Manchester City have been cooking their books for years.”Delayed impactSeeing as City have said they were “surprised” by the charges and are supported by a “body of irrefutable evidence”, it’s safe to assume these accusations will be denied.As a result, just as Watts points out, this one will likely go to court and will take plenty of time before anything tangible happens to the Manchester club that could directly help out Arsenal.However, all this off-pitch uncertainty could unsettle the Man City players. And seeing as they lost to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday – failing to take advantage of the Gunners’ defeat at Everton – it’s certainly been a fortunate 24 hours for Arteta and co.
