Arsenal are mired in a dogfight for second place right now, but it could have all turned out so different if we had only been fresh and ready at the beginning of the season. Too many players came back tired from the World Cup and perhaps their weakness led to our glut of injuries, and Arsene Wenger thinks that the early games were where we lost the advantage to Chelsea.
“There are many turning points, one of them was that we had some players back and defensively we were much stronger in the second part of the season than the first part,” Le Prof said. “We still have room for improvement there. Maybe we have more stability and more balance in the team.
“We were not consistent enough. After eight games we were 11 points behind Chelsea.
“If we win our game in hand (against Sunderland on May 20) we are 10 points behind Chelsea.
“That means in the first eight games we lost our championship and that’s what we have to address next season and start strong.
“We feel we have made progress in our consistency, our quality and our stability.
“That is what we want to continue and I believe it is important to finish as close as possible to Chelsea and come out of the season and think we are ready to challenge next season.”
This summer we have no World Cup, but perhaps our South American players may be tired after the Copa America. To be honest though these hot-blooded Latino types (like Samchez!) seem to have unlimited amounts of energy. I personally can’t see any reason why we can’t come flying out of the blocks next season, and go all the way to the top. And stay there!
Onwards and Upwards!
A fast begining makes a greater END……
oh!…how i regret the start to our 2014/2015 season and all those mediocre Teams we Lost to….. *sighs*
Swansea being one of them which we need to correct tomorrow. Very important game and 3 points needed…
Home draw with Hull City
Away loss to Stoke
Home loss to Man United (that Wilshere’s chance..)
Home draw with Man City (equalized on 84th)
That’s about 10 points we dropped when we had all the chances to win them all.
At the draw at pool
Don’t worry guys we will not have any World Cup this year. Let’s see what else we will blame for the poor start.
nor Champions League qualis and hopefully injuries – the two other excuses/reasons offered up for the poor start.
I hope we can do just as well against the top clubs next season. Irritating knowing it was that eleven point gap we never made up.. if liv manu manc had of mirrored mourinho when playing him by saying right first off were not going to concede and well go from there… would love to see the look on his face and hear his annoyance. No doubt those tactics would truly irk if always done in big games.
They will be up there from the word GO……this recent belief gives me that strength to say so……#COYG
Games we dropped points in or should have claimed more in the first half of the season:
2-2 away to Everton, 2 points dropped
1-1 away to Leicester, 2 points dropped
2-2 at home to City, 2 points dropped
1-1 at home to Spurs, 2 points dropped
2-2 at home to Hull, 2 points dropped
0-2 away to Sunderland, 3 points dropped
2-1 away at Swansea, 3 points dropped
1-2 at home to Utd, 3 points dropped
3-2 away to Stoke, 3 points dropped
2-2 away to Liverpool, 2 points dropped
Do the math, we lost the league before we even got to New Year’s Day and we lost on that day as well to Southhampton…
We beat Sunderland 0-2, 3 points gained. But yes, the rest was correct and pretty pathetic.
Every PL winner in history has dropped points in 9-12 games a season. Gonna happen. Some poor performances in that list, many at the beginning of the season with half the team out – the REAL shockers were Swansea and Stoke. Pool, City and Man U were slightly unlucky.
I hope we start well, but it depends on Wenger. Will he strengthen the weak areas of our squad in the summer? Evidence suggests he won’t do that.
I’m fed up of Arsenal starting every season in weak position, and it’s been even more painful and annoying over the last two season’s, because Wenger’s had the money to strengthen. Managers like Mourinho prefer to start in a more comfortable and relaxed position, because they make sure to strengthen the weak areas. I so wish Wenger would do this. No more rubbish panic buys like Welbeck, get them in early, and in the right positions.
2012: Arsenal start the season appallingly. Over 10 points behind Tottenham.
2013: Beat Bayern, then our season turned around, pulled Tottenham back and beat them to the top 4. Starting the next season, we were top of the league for ages heading into 2014.
2014: Calamitous. Lose our lead, get destroyed 6-0 and 5-1 and just get into 4th. Then we have our worst start to the season in 30+ years, 3-0 down to Stoke at half time. Struggling heading into 2015.
2015: Started shakily with losses to Southampton and Tottenham, but the go on our best run since the Invincibles, fighting for second place.
So really, we’re in a pattern.
2012: Awful
2013: Great
2014: Beyond awful
2015: So far, great.
Just have to break it and ensure we have a great 2016 too.
what do you guys think of us buying HAKAN CALHANOGLU?
He is a good young player and he could fit into our system cause Bayer play good football and his free kicks are amazing. But I dont see it
The same issues can resurface if AW does not enter the season properly prepared.>
– Insufficient cover/players of quality in squad due to Malaise in the transfer window (I.e there is no-one out there who can improve the Arsenal Team and we have an abundance of options).
– injuries exposing those deficiencies
– tactical naivity
I honestly hope not , but suspect so.
It isn’t only about the start though as you can’t expect us to keep the same level for the entire season. It is about consistency more than anything else. We started the 2014 season strongly but we trailed off end of the season. Chelsea started well this season but they tailed off in their dominance mid season. But consistency won them the title.
In reality we lost EPL in summer transfer window, we didnt buy dm and cb, if we had good dm and beckup cb we would be much closer to chelsea, injuries destroyed us and plus bad defense, when Mert and Koss are stable we never lose. We finally have all places covered, so next season even if we have injuries we would be good, cuz monreal or debuchy doesnt need to play as cb, Ospina, Belerin and Coq were all great discoveries, especially Coq, his defensive side is increadible, not even CB have beter stats, crazy !!!
Admini, you people over there have not said wrong. You have said well. But are Arsenal the only top club that have players who came back from the World Cup fatigued? I think Chelsea too have some who came back fatigued as well. I think Arsenal failing has something to do with the Gunners lack of early ambition to win the league like Chelsea have had and won it. The Boss was playing with an unbalanced starting XI until of recent which have now seen us fighting for a 2nd place finish in the table behind Chelsea. Nonetheless, let’s leave the future to the future for now. When we arrived in the future, I am sure the Boss and the Gunners will deal successfully with it. We should however remember that Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City and Arsenal will all be contending for a successful title winning outings next season. And the former 3 will not be folding up their hands to allow Arsenal take the coveted price. It will be a tough fight, just as it has become this season. Man City have been masquerading in the 2nd place position in the League table for 2 weeks now. To start to unmasked the masquerades, the Gunners must be very serious with their home game against the faint hopper Europa League Swans. The Gunners must not only collect all the 3 points that will be at stake on Emirates Stadium football playing pitch tomorrow night, but they must audaciously collect all the 3 points with the full time score reading as: AFC 5-0 SCFC.
I just want the OX to have 1 full season!!!!!!!