Arsenal take on Burnley tomorrow at Turf Moor, and now is the time to show that we mean business. The Gunners have been dire away from home this season, with our sole win coming at Everton, and if we do not improve on our travels from now, we can kiss any hopes of challenging for the top three spots in the division.
Spurs slipped up at home to West Bromwich Albion earlier on today, leaving them only two points ahead of us, and a win tomorrow should see us move up into fourth place, and we simply must take advantage of our noisy neighbours blip in form.
Chelsea are also currently playing Liverpool, where the Blues are trailing by a goal, and should the result remain the same, a win for us would see us join both of those teams on 25 points.
Burnley are no pushovers, and have only conceded two goals at home in their seven outings this term, but we have to show our superiority tomorrow or we may as well give up any hopes of challenging for the top spots, and resign ourselves to battling for fourth spot once again.
We have snuck into that fourth and final Champions League spot a number of times in previous years, glazing over disappointing campaigns with a top four finish, but with Tottenham and Liverpool showing huge improvements in the last couple of seasons, you have to be worried that we won’t be able to settle for anything easily this year either.
We missed out on Champions League football for the first time in Wenger’s reign this term, and tomorrow’s result could well prove a turning point in our season, be it for good or bad…
Could Burnley prove the turning point in our campaign? Will our away form hold us back this term?
Pat J
I am afraid one game is not going to be a turning point in our season.
I seem to, understandably, be amongst the few who think we will have a comfortable victory tomorrow but I don’t expect a turning point.
Pool v Chelsea finished level but two of the best results today are our under 23s beating the hammers 3 nil and our under 18s beating spurs 6 nil.
If we win tomorrow, we will be in top 4 certainly. But we just know how to make small teams look like Barcelona.
I just hope I am proved wrong tomorrow.
Gunners EVER!!!!
Even in my tomb.
That is right, Burnley are no pushovers. They would not be a problem for Arsenal’s 3-4-2-1 if the first team attackers like Sanchez, Ozil and Lacazette are fully committed.
I hope everybody would fight as a team tomorrow, like when they faced Everton and Tottenham. Burnley are not Manchester City that excel technically, so Arsenal should be able to overcome their brute force, if they do not let Burnley’s speed demons wreak havoc in their defense.
When teams close to us drop points we never seem to capitalize. I know Turf Moor is a tough ground to go to but please Arsenal give it your all & come back with the points
We are so bad at taking advantage of such situations. I wish we win tomorrow.
Can we move up to 4th tomorrow?
Let’s be taking advantage rather than what was happening before.
But we fans are not the ones that would play.
Oh no, we fans are not doing well on fans’ table. Tomorrow you will see fans come here before the match and spread negative feelings. We are 5th from bottom on fans table.
It would be great to win and go 4th, especially against a hard working team that’s hard to beat at the moment.
We must make the most of the other results and win this one. Not going to be easy though..
I was choosing a striker for my fantasy league team and looking at the stats. Wenger has been under utilizing Lacazette. The other top strikers have had more minutes per match than Lacazette. Even Aguero who has missed half of City’s matches has a lot more 90 min matches. Lacazette has only played 1 90min match and only a handful of over 70 mim matches. There has been quite a few matches where he has played under 50 min or just above.
Vardy, Lukaku, Aguero, Jesus, Firminho, Morata and Kane have all on average played more minutes per game than Lacazette and all played more 90 min or near 90 min matches.
Maybe if Lacazette was out on the pitch more often he would score? Like when we benched him against City we lost and he played about 34 min.. Against Liverpool we lost 4-0 and he played 28 or 29 minutes. I’m not saying we would have won those matches but the score may have been closer and maybe it could have affected results of other matches if he played more. If I remember our goal against City was by Lacazette not long after he came on.
All I’m saying is that Lacazette should at least be used as often and the same way other top teams use their main strikers.
These little things can make a difference and it shows Wenger’s stubbornness. He sticks to his mistakes for long periods.
Arsenal has to take every point on offer to keep the pressure on those above us in the table. There is more chance of Spurs, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man U and even Man City dropping points if they are looking over their shoulders.
Its a must win game for us. We can’t afford to be sloppy.
We have to take advantage. If we don’t then we should kiss our top four hopes goodbye. We need to win and Arsene has to field an offensive team like 4-3-4. You have to batter Burnley to submission because they will hole up for the entire 90 and try to hit on the counter.
So fast players won’t really matter here, we need strong and skillful players to break down their defence.