ARTETA: My brain is telling me we’ll do it!

MIKEL Arteta says his brain is telling him that Arsenal will be Premier League champions. The Gunners go to Manchester United tomorrow, but before then Manchester City have the chance to go above them in the table.

Ahead of the United match, Arteta said: ‘My brain tells me, when talking to the players, that we are lifting the Premier League. That’s what my brain is doing at the moment and I want to follow my brain and my gut. This is the way I want everybody to think as well. Hopefully we can achieve it.’

Fulham, City’s opponents today, were filmed flying kites in training this week but Arsenal will still hope for a favour from their West London neighbours, and Arteta (below) is confident Fulham’s unconventional methods will pay dividends.

‘The power of team bonding, nobody knows what it is, but sometimes you get amazing results with it,’ he said.

‘I’ve been in teams struggling to win and you go out for dinner and then you go on an unbelievable run. I’m positive that’s what’s going to happen to Fulham.’

Arteta is equally unfazed about Erik ten Hag bringing up refereeing decisions from Arsenal’s victory over United in September and the galvanising effect that could have on the home players. In March, after United’s FA Cup quarter- final triumph over Liverpool, Ten Hag bizarrely referenced the 3-1 defeat by the Gunners, saying: ‘For instance, at Arsenal, in the fourth game of the season, in the 87th minute, we should have had a penalty on Rasmus Hojlund.

‘Then we scored with (Alejandro) Garnacho, disallowed, and then we conceded a goal which should always have been disallowed. Such moments help you. Every team needs such moments, and we never had that moment and this could be that moment.’

Asked whether Ten Hag bringing up the defeat would motivate United, Arteta said: ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how they are feeling about this, but we have enough to think about how we are going to beat them and what we have to be to be better than them.’ Bukayo Saka and Takehiro Tomiyasu are doubts for tomorrow. Saka was wearing strapping in training on Thursday, while Tomiyasu was absent. Both face fitness tests today.