Joe Cole believes Manchester City will beat Arsenal to the title – but only if their appeal of the Premier League’s guilty verdict is successful.

An independent commission found Man City guilty of over 100 breaches of financial regulations between 2009 and 2018.

Manchester City, the dominant force in English football over the past decade, arranged ‘sham contracts’ and ‘relied on sham agreements to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs’.

Etihad Bosses confirmed they had appealed the decision at the start of the month, claiming the commission’s ruling contained ‘clear material errors of law, principle and fact and is unsafe’.

Man City also said it had filed a ‘comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence [that] exists in support of all of its positions’.

Manchester City have lost two of their five games since the guilty verdict, suffering their first Premier League defeat of the season on Saturday, losing 2-1 to Aston Villa.

Enzo Maresca’s side are still joint-top of the Premier League, though, boasting the exact same record as defending champions Arsenal after eight games.

The Gunners suffered a shock defeat 3-0 at Brighton before the international break but have bounced back with three successive league wins and a hard-fought 2-2 draw with Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

Former Chelsea and England midfielder Cole backed Manchester City to dethrone Arsenal before a ball was kicked and still thinks Maresca will lift the Premier League trophy, but only if the club’s appeal is successful.

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If that proves not to be the case, Cole believes Arsenal will clinch back-to-back Premier League titles, with every other club in the division still ‘catching up’.

Asked for his latest Premier League title prediction after the weekend results, Cole said on The Dressing Room podcast: ‘I think Arsenal.

‘If Man City’s lawyers go to work, they win the league. The lawyers are the most important people in this right now! If not it’s Arsenal and everyone else is just catching up.’

Liverpool legend and ex-England defender Jamie Carragher also views Arsenal as favourites to win the title given the uncertainty at Manchester City.

‘We’ve said before that Arsenal are not the most exciting champions we’ve ever seen,’ Carragher told Sky Sports. ‘They still lack stardust in the final third and didn’t get that superstar over the line that they wanted in the summer.

‘There was talk of Vinicius Junior coming in obviously and Julian Alvarez but they didn’t get those deals done. They do lack star power in the final third and we saw more evidence of that on Sunday.

‘Some people will also say that Mikel Arteta has still got the reins on and is stopping them from showing their absolute best going forward because they value the defence so much.

‘But they’ve got the best squad in the country and the best starting line-up, I don’t think anyone can go up against that really except maybe Man City.

‘We said all of this last year as well, they didn’t have a game-changer but what they had is two top-quality players in every position.

‘I still see Arsenal as the team to stop. We obviously don’t know what’s going to happen with City, we have to take it as it is right now.’

Arsenal’s next Premier League game is a daunting trip to Liverpool on Sunday, while Man City host in-form Brighton the day before.