Ahead of the FA Cup final, the Arsenal star Theo Walcott has fired a warning towards the Gunners’ opponents for the big game at Wembley, Aston Villa. The speedy winger claimed that his side are impossible to play against whilst playing free-flowing football and has firmly set his sights on a win on Saturday night to cap off a good season and to provide an ideal platform for battling for bigger honours next season.
As reported by the Daily Star, the English international said: “There’s a good sense of belief in this team. We can take that into the weekend and hopefully get another trophy. When it is free-flowing football like that, we’re impossible to play against.”
“We’ve had a great run. We’ve finished third and if we win the FA Cup next week, that’s a good season. But I think that next season, we need to be challenging for the title, with the team we’ve got.”
Theo is right, the Gunners are indeed impossible to play against whilst playing free-flowing football like we saw in the final Premier League game against West Brom, but the crucial factor is whether Theo and the rest of the boys will be allowed to play like that against Villa. The Baggies , especially in the first-half, weren’t really much into the game. Don’t get me wrong, I am taking nothing away from Arsenal’s performance, but it did help our cause that Tony Pulis’ team were already well into their holidays.
I am one of those people that are of the opinion that third place and the FA Cup will be a significant improvement on the last campaign, not only in terms of our position in the table but also in our defensive record and the appearance of a Plan B in Arsene Wenger’s playbook. Needless to mention, we’ve signed great players like Sanchez, Ospina and Gabriel and have witnessed the emergence of young stars like Coquelin and Bellerin.
Having said that, I completely agree with Theo, a victory in the FA Cup final against Aston Villa would be a perfect way to end what has been a good season for the club. Let’s hope that the team can do the job at Wembley on Saturday and build a good platform for scaling greater heights next season.
Anurag
Arsenal should be targeting 29 wins next season, the other nine we can afford afford to lose, games like mu, mc, Chelsea we shouldn’t prioritize anything other than a loss is a bonus. Arsenal are good enough to win the rest of the games, just got to treat it like a champions league elimination one step at a time time. Should be looking at points or place in the league but wins. That’s the secret but it’s easier to type this than accomplish in the league.
We’re evidently useless at Champions League elimination games, so I wouldn’t get in that mindset. But anyways I’d rather we targetted 38 wins. Minimum 35 wins. The only places where a draw can be considered an ok result is away to United, City and Chelsea. I expect us to play for a win against those teams in the home games. Other than that, every game is winnable and I’d be disappointed with anything other than 3 points. Does that mean we get 35 wins? No, but approaching any game with the mindset of it being ok not to win is dangerous.
Don’t forget how difficult this league is, whilst i like the idea of us targeting 35 wins a season, Before we can do that we need to learn how to win Ugly. I don’t mean beating a team 7-0, I mean against the occasional ‘Jose Bus Teams’ scrapping the 1-0 victories the gritty games where we sit there chanting “boring boring”, we need to become that boring team.
Spot on theo! We must be focus and not underestimate villa! They too will be with their tails up for this fa cup final,so we must be at our very best at wembley on saturday there is no room for complacency! Victory is crucial “gooners”! Coyg!
The way I see it.
13/14 season – Strong 1st half – Slow 2nd half finished EPL 4th (injuries) FA Cup winners 🙂
14/15 season – Slow start 1st half – Strong finish 2nd half EPL 3rd (World Cup Hangover and Injuries) FA Cup Winners 2nd year in a row (optimistic)
+ a couple of decent signings (WC DM, ST maybe)
15/16 season EPL Champions/FA Cup Champions/UCL Champions
COYG
Mongolian Gooner