{"id":24436,"date":"2026-08-21T09:32:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T09:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=24436"},"modified":"2026-08-21T09:32:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T09:32:33","slug":"martin-keown-backs-ahead-of-schedule-max-dowman-to-play-big-role-in-arsenals-premier-league-title-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=24436","title":{"rendered":"Martin Keown backs &#8216;ahead of schedule&#8217; Max Dowman to play big role in Arsenal&#8217;s Premier League title defence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"article-body\">\n<div>\n<p><span>Ending a 22-year title drought<\/span><span> has finally silenced outside critics who questioned Arsenal&#8217;s bottle in crunch moments, according to Keown. The former centre-back feels reigning champion status provides vital inner belief, even with rivals desperate to knock them off their perch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Addressing the weight of expectation, Keown added: &#8220;You know, when you win the Premier League, of course everybody wants to beat the champions. There&#8217;s been pressure on Arsenal over the years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;The narrative was that they had blown it, had bottled it. I think now they can enjoy being champions and take that into the game. It gives you that extra air of confidence and belief. So, no, you can&#8217;t worry about that. Just go and win your games, and hopefully you&#8217;re better than the rest.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ending a 22-year title drought has finally silenced outside critics who questioned Arsenal&#8217;s bottle in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}