Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta given reason to be 'furious' ahead of five crunch games

failure to beat and all but wrap up qualification for next season will leave Mikel Arteta 'furious', Jamie Carragher insists. The Gunners face an increasingly challenging set of fixtures to seal their entry into next year's European competition.

Arteta's side are 10 points ahead of sixth-placed Chelsea with four games remaining, with the top five teams in the Premier League come the end of the season all set to qualify for the Champions League. Their passage into the tournament seems a formality, but Carragher believes Arteta will see tough upcoming league matches against Bournemouth, Liverpool and Newcastle and lament Arsenal's failure to beat Palace. Those matches come during a period in which the north Londoners face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League semi-final.

Speaking on Sky Sports after Arsenal drew 2-2 with the Eagles, Carragher said: "I think he'll be furious tonight, Mikel Arteta, because they'll be fine in terms of qualifying for the Champions League, [but] you want to put that to bed as early as you can. When you look at the fixtures, they've got Bournemouth at home in between the two biggest games of the season [against PSG].

"If you win tonight, you can almost write the Bournemouth game off and change the whole team. I now don't think he's in a position to do that, because of what comes next - Liverpool away. If you put a really weakened team out against Bournemouth, which I think he would have wanted to do to really go for this Champions League final, and you lose the game, you then go to Anfield. There's a good chance you're going to lose at Liverpool on the back of playing PSG.

"If they lose the next two games, the other [challengers for the top four] are a point or two behind you. Then you've got Newcastle - it becomes a crunch game. That's why I think he'll be furious, and it's why he went with his strongest team at Ipswich. He wants to put [Champions League qualification] to bed now, and then you can concentrate on these two Paris Saint-Germain games.

"They'll qualify for the Champions League for next year, but you just don't want to be looking over your shoulder. Manchester City are six points behind them - City have had an awful season by their standards, but they've won the same amount of games as Arsenal."

Arsenal can place one foot in the Champions League final by beating PSG in the first leg of their semi-final next Tuesday. The second leg takes place in Paris on May 7.