Even when Arsenal suffered a serious setback to our Premier League title hopes recently after back to back losses away to Everton and Man City, we did manage to score. We scored first in both games in fact, so keeping a clean sheet in both would have seen us six points better off right now and just three behind the league leaders Chelsea.
Of course we could also have claimed the points if Arsenal had added to those opening goals but you cannot always rely on that. What we do seem to be able to rely on is finding the back of the net at least once. In the last 14 matches in all competitions the only one in which Arsenal drew a blank was that awful EFL cup loss to Southampton and that was not the real Arsenal.
No doubt Sam Allardyce will have Crystal Palace well organised and hard to break down tomorrow but with all the creative and attacking talent at Arsene Wenger’s disposal we should be able to do it at least once. But as well as looking for the breakthrough, Arsenal must put a very high value on our own defensive discipline to keep another clean sheet.
That has not been happening enough. In those same 14 games I mentioned the only clean sheets were against Reading in the EFL cup and our last league game against West Brom. With Giroud bagging a late goal that clean sheet was massive and I think we have to be looking at the same outcome tomorrow.
Bob.
Liverpool making City look average. You want to see how good a player or team is, give them no room to breathe. Kill their play completely. Mentality issue for Arsenal and always has been. I can only imagine how deadly we could be if we had 10 outfield players at all times with the mentality of Alexis and even Coquelin. It would take something special to lose on the day and we would be saying good game to the opposition instead of we saw that coming… Give it all on the day every match day.
Like you say, we do need more players with the mentality of Coquelin, and Alexis, but mentality is also instilled by the manager. Klopp has them fighting for everything, same with Conte, but you don’t see that from Wenger. Get Simeone in, and bet he’d instil a fighting spirit with the same group of players.
Man City have made Liverpool looked like Real Madrid
Arsenal made City looked like Barcelona
Teams are making Chelsea look like the invincibles
Arsenal is making first place look like it’s impossible
Wenger is making fourth place look like a trophy
The board is making arsenal fans dream like they can win the league
AKBs are making Wenger look like there are no better coaches in the world except Wenger
Wenger is making AOBs look like prophets
Chelsea don’t look like drawing anytime soon let alone losing. Also United are improving. Spuds and United will fight hard with us, Liverpool and City for 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
Rubbish day. No chance of closing gap on Liverpool or Chelsea if we win tomorrow. We can leap over Man City to 3rd though
If we don’t win Spuds could push us down to 5th.
Its vital that we defeat Crystal Palace tomorrow. Any win is good enough for me.
Reading the comments so far you are all right but perhaps even more important than all your points are the fans. I don’t think the stadium was quiet for a single second, yet at the Emirates unless we score you can hear Kroenke counting his money. The fans are just as much as Wenger or the players to blame for our performances sometimes. Even when other teams are losing you can hear their fans push and cheer them
Scoring more goals than your opponent is more important than a clean sheet, imho.
I would prefer winning to clean sheet