Arsenal now back in the title race!
After a very slow start for the Gunners with a heavy loss to Liverpool and a difficult draw against Leicester, Arsenal fans were kicking themselves thinking that our title chances were falling away before the season had even really begun. Now after three wins in a row and a pick up in form, the Gunners find themselves back amongst the mix of the title challengers in the early stages of the season.
Obviously first things first, we are five games into the season and even if we hadn’t had this run of wins, realistically there would still be a chance of challenging for the title. There are still another 99 potential points to be won and you never know what will become of the usual title challengers over the course of a campaign. Arsenal have now won their last three games on the trot and currently sit in third place. This means Arsenal are now back amongst the top four, although we are still five points behind the leaders Manchester City, who are yet to get anything less than all three points under Pep Guardiola.
After the 4-1 win against Hull this weekend, Arsenal fans will be hoping the team now pushes forward to keep this run going and according to Sky Sports pundit Niall Quinn, Arsenal have an opportunity to ‘cement their position amongst the title challengers.’
Quinn said after the match: “After winning at Watford and Hull so emphatically you would expect them to do the same at Burnley and Sunderland. At home, you always fancy them. If you are an Arsenal fan looking at their upcoming fixtures, you are saying we can get right in the title race.”
I wouldn’t say Arsenal won emphatically against Watford and Hull because although the score lines will suggest that Arsenal gave them a beating, in reality Arsenal did as always, make the match much harder than it should have been. Against Hull, the Tigers were down to 10 men after a red card and a penalty was given in Arsenal’s favour. Arsenal could’ve put the game to bed, but missed the penalty and then largely struggled for periods of the game against a 10 men Hull City side. At Watford, The Gunners played some great football and opened up chance after chance, but failed to take the opportunities being set up on a plate.
The main factor behind challenging for the title is consistency. Leicester showed the entire league last year that you don’t need to have the best team, you just need to have a squad that works well together, believes in themselves and that the team is consistent. That is Arsenal’s biggest problem, we often can’t get all three points from our league challengers, but then we also lose points against some of the leagues lowest ranked clubs. A team that is going to win the league wouldn’t do that and so if Arsenal really want to keep amongst those at the top, it’s vital the Gunners keep up this run of form.
By AH
Let’s not get too excited
It’s too early. There is a lot of time yet
Let’s just focus on one match at a time
Right now I am not even thinking about the PL
Because our next match is League Cup away to Nottm Forest
Hopefully Caz, Coquelin, Alexis and some other guys will get some well deserved rest as they played 3 matches in a week. They need the rest
I wouldn’t mind seeing Xhaka, Eleney, Gibbs, Holding, Perez, Giroud play
Nope. Xhaka must get rest. There’s Krystian Bielik. The League Cup is meant to our reserve players. If we rated this tier 3 cup, I wonder why many of us considered our back to back FA Cup titles as “Mickey Mouse” one. Only in England footballers play 2 domestic cups at once. It’s so unnecessary and it’ll harm clubs who play in European competitions. FA must stop this greedy things.
Anyway, not mind for Giroud or Perez to play. They need to score goals.
need city to loose this year, clearly in the race,
We were never out of it to begin with!!
Same thing every season, everyone oo’s and aa’s at other teams signings while completely disregarding our squad and the capabilities within it despite the fact that we finished above all the other big teams and the same things were being said last season…
And for the Theo haters..
12th minute – drifts wide, picks out Sanchez with a brilliant ball in that Sanchez puts over
16th minute – drifts wide again, teases in an uncomfortable cross back-post for the keeper. after failing to deal with the cross Iwobi drills a shot that clips Sanchez and we score the always crucial opener.
17th minute – Sanchez, Ozil and Theo combine pressing well force a turnover in a deadly position. Takes an inch perfect, recovery tackle to prevent Sanchez getting the shot away cleanly.
23rd minute – drifts in to the pocket vacated by Sanchez, gets off a tame shot directly at the keeper.
39th minute – drifts wide, puts it on a plate for Coquelin who’s illegally blocked shot results in a penalty and a red card.
54th minute – searing 1-2 with Iwobi, regulation Theo dink – 2-0 Arsenal
70th – 75th minute – 2 more chances, A mishit long-shot and dink never really came close to testing the keeper.
78th min – Great run ahead of Sanchez on the counter, Sanchez follows on with Theo’s missed chance and puts the game to bed.
His frustrating moments were still incredibly Theo-ish. But with an excellent game from Sanchez playing a false-9ish role Theo relished in the space and time he was afforded and was a big part of pretty much all the moments that put the game to bed.
Theo, Coquelin and Iwobi have been fantastic as players who rarely get put in most fans (myself included) first XI’s!
Exactly people want to moan and moan about theos deficincies altough I do agree he should’ve been working on his dribbling but they neglect the fact that he brings pace, creates space with his intelligent runs/movement and has FINAL PRODUCT. A hungry theo can be huge for us in the title race and with consistent game time under his belt his dribbling and passing should improve
OT. Where’s Ibra and Pogba now? With two defeated in a row, ManUre is heading to crisis. Looks liked Jose “specialist of failure” spell is going to haunt himself. Run Jose run! Hahaha…
Three defeats..
Both City and Livepool’s form is scary now. Liverpool took 7 points away at Arsenal, Tottenhum and Chelsea, played only once at home. Had they won at burnley, they would been favorites , Over city.
Up next in PL is Chelsea, if we beat them, then we can say that we are in it, right now, we are behind both City and Liverpool in terms of favorite list for the title.
We need to beat Chelsea at home
On paper it looks like we are back in contention but in reality we are still outsiders with a chance and will need to beat all our rivals just to stay in with that chance and then keep on winning. impossible..no…improbable…yes.
point of correction. Arsenal was never out of the title race.
Just staying close to the pack is fine right now, later down in the season we will see where we are at (about christmas).
A chelsea is going to be a good test for Arsenal, it will prove if our mentally has improved.
While many will say there are too much cup matches, i feel it is necessary for squad development, the further we go in these competition the better for the squad moral and team overall.
I now feel we were too harsh after that sou result. It’s really important to pick up points at times you don’t deserve them. The team that wins the title is usually the team that has the most of these kind of days.
the same way i was not worried with our”slow”start im not getting carried away and start talking up our title challenge,the season is a very long one with a lot of football left to be played.