Arsene Wenger believes it can be misleading to judge teams on the gap in points between them.
Newly-crowned champions Manchester United will go into Sunday’s clash at Emirates Stadium at least 13 points clear of their closest rivals Manchester City.
City manager Roberto Mancini claims that the difference in quality between the sides is much closer than the table suggests, and Wenger agrees.
“Man City is for sure a very good side that can compete with Man United,” he said. “They dropped some points this season that were unexpected and Mancini is right on his statement.
“I agree completely with him and we have seen that again when they played against Man United.
“We have a game that is based on collective expression so it's difficult to compare man-to-man. At the moment, we are 20 points behind and that is linked with our bad start to the season but mainly to the fact that against the big clubs, we did not do well.
“Then I can tell you that in Germany, Dortmund are 20 points behind Bayern Munich and they just beat Real Madrid 4-1. The same people that say 'you are 20 points behind' are the same that say Dortmund is the best team in Europe.”
Copyright 2025 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
