One of the reasons why a lot of people in football were so hard on Arsenal for not winning the Premier League title last season, despite improving our finishing position again and finishing as runners up to the surprise champions Leicester City, was that it was seen as the perfect chance for us with Chelsea flopping and both of the Manchester clubs struggling.
The feeling was that the season coming up is going to be a whole lot more difficult with all of our big rivals bringing in new and highly rated managers. As well as Man City hiring Pep Guardiola, United getting Jose Mourinho and Chelsea putting Antonio Conte in charge, they are all spending big money in the transfer market too, so you can see why people think Arsenal missed a trick last year.
However, even though it is very early days and they have only just played the first of their pre-season games, the aura of renewed confidence at Chelsea is already looking deflated. Conte was clearly not happy after a fairly strong Chelsea side lost to Rapid Vienna at the weekend and as reported by Sky Sports the Italian admitted that there was a lot of work to be done.
Their second choice keeper Asmir Begovic, who played because Courtois is still on holiday after Euro 2016, also stated in an Evening Standard report that he thinks it will be some time before the new manager and the players are anything like a title winning team.
He said, “It’s going to take a bit of time, it’s a process, but so far so good and over time we’ll get better.
“A few things have changed. It’s just something we’re trying to buy into and it’s going to take a little bit of time.”
Just like with players coming from abroad it can often take a new manager some time to get used to the English Premier League and for things to settle down after a change, so can Arsenal at least relax a little about Chelsea being an obstacle to us winning the title this time?
Bob.
Why do you wright an article about Chelsea’s pre season result on this website? It has nothing to do with Arsenal lol
And of course they are rivals for the title. How deluded are you?
Of course they are
If Costa and Fabregas get back to their best and Conte can get the whole team to gel and they sign top players they can compete for the title
Leicester won the Title in their first PL season
I think Spurs will be tough too. Not only do they have Kane but now Janssen as well
I think City, United, Spurs and Chelsea will fight for number one. If we get a Top striker and CB then we can too but without them we could finish outside the top 4
the top 4?
still banging that drum. who cares lol
what does it get…better players…refer to man u
more money…refer to wengers cobwebbed wallet
champions league….refer to every year in the past 6
top 4 is the biggest pile of horse manure ive ever smelt
chelsea with no europe this year, a great squad who have added to it with a new striker and one of the epl best midfileders in kante an a new manager of real pedigree have to be seen as real contenders.
we had a flawless pre season was it 2 years back? when season began- we lost to villa opening day at home
i honestly aside from our transfer woes am excited about this season as theres so many great managers an teams, hard not to admire it
It’s going to be on like Donkey Kong muff!!
Don’t get your reference to pre-season though?
Chelsea is an overwhelming favourite for me, along with liverpool majorly because they don’t have to worry about UCL and they both have great managers and very good players…
Its gonna be so so tight this season,anything can happen!
Conte is hardly going to say that there is not much work to do. Chelsea are still strengthening, conte has only just finished at the euros. Pre season means nothing. Of course chelsea will be EPL rivals, especially for as as we could not beat them last year. OK costa was banned after one match but it still did not give us any points.
Why does the writer consider us to be title challengers? No league title in 12 years, and barely a challenge as well! In fact, we’re so bad under Wenger, that we can’t get any near winning the league, even when all of the big teams are removed from the title race.
Chelsea win league titles, they win in Europe, they always seem to put up a fight for trophies. They are title challengers, not us! The title for this article should be the exact opposite, something more appropriate would be – Chelsea given title boost with Arsenal keeping Wenger
Well when you see a team who comes closest to the one on top, that automatically means they were their nearest challenger. So either we are a rival, or else lei have no rivals if last season is anything to go by. You can’t F**K up a title shot, if you never had an opportunity.
@Trevor
Arsenal may have finished nearest to Leicester, but we’re not talking about last season. The article, and my point is regards to this season. Your last line also doesn’t make any sense, because Arsenal DO have opportunities to win the league, but we don’t, purely because of Wenger, hence my line – Chelsea given title boost with Arsenal keeping Wenger. Arsenal are a big club, with top class players, and lots money, so there is ALWAYS an opportunity for success. In recent times, Arsenal should have won the league in 2014, and last season, but we didn’t, and ask yourself why!
Exactly, we do have opportunities. Which means, we are a rival. I get your point, you believe the biggest f**k up, is done in the transfer window. Whereas, (I do acknowledge a hash of things) but I believe the players screwed us out of it more so. You can point to Arsene motivation, but that’s an excuse, a title was on the line. What more motivation would you need.
@Trevor
I have to strongly disagree with you about the players messing it up, and for two obvious reasons. Firstly the players aren’t given any direction by Wenger, it’s a manager’s job to get his players organised from tactical perspective, and to also use/sign players that can play in his system…Wenger doesn’t do this. A prime example of this point, is Mertesacker. Playing a CB that cannot actually run, in a system that uses a high defensive line is suicide! Mertesacker is a decent CB, but I’ve lost count of the amount of times we’ve been brutally exposed at the back because of our high line and his pace. I also question Wenger’s powers of motivation.
Secondly, a lot of our players are just not good enough to be playing at this level, and have proven so over such a long period. So one has to wonder, how on earth are these players still at Arsenal! Not only that, but why are they getting new contracts, and pay rises! This problem lies solely at the feet of the manager. Wenger is the one that keeps hanging onto these players, which means they’ll keep playing, and which means Arsenal will keep failing.
The only valid excuse you could use for the players, would be if top players had had a big dip in form, e.g. Alexis’s form really dipped last season. I am not having a go at him (as an off form Alexis is still better than most of our players), my point is merely that we know what to expect from the likes of Ramsey, Walcott, Ox, etc. These guys never have any form, so we shouldn’t ever expect anything from them, but we all expected more from Alexis because we know what he can do.
If Wenger keeps playing the likes of Ramsey, Walcott, Ox, Giroud, Mertesacker, then we will continue to struggle this season.
@ThirdMan JW..
Am afraid you are spot on!…
When you look at our team,one cannot be filled with confidence at all…it is very sad
We don’t have reliable wingers apart from Sanchez, no ruthless strikers and CB..
.
I depend on ozil’s and Sanchez refusal to extend their contracts to force Wenger to do the needful…God help us!
Spurs Leicester + Westham
won’t repeat again this season.
Jose is in panic mode.
Pep and Conte have work to do
but both are smart.
Everton could surprise if they keep Stones and Lukaku.
Liverpool under Klopp will be tough..
If Arsenal can get a top striker then Arsenal are favourite.
Arsenal Liverpool City Chelsea Spurs
Man U Westham Everton Leicester Stoke.
see that bi polar is playing up davy.
today arsenal with one signing will be favourites…yu huh lol
thats the way uh huh uh huh i like it!
ahhhhhh freak out!!
I agree, when we played big teams last season it was still basically what you’d expect. But when they played the big teams it was not business as usual.
Arsenal sort out exciting deal for wanted midfielder!!! .. Jon Toral joins Granada on loan.
Surprise surprise, striker on his way to Arsenal!!!!! …Sanogo drives to training in a 1.2 litre ford mondeo.
Brazillian forward finally makes Arsenal move!!!! …Wellington finally leaves Arsenal.
Arsenal finally get deal done for highly coveted player that they’ve tried to sign on a number of occasions!!!!! …Kelechi Nwakali finally puts pen to paper.
Trevor, very good, and your headlines are factually correct, which is more than can be said of most arsenal transfer stories in the media.
But has Kelechi really signed? I swear he’s been ‘signing’ for us for the past 6 months!
He doesn’t own a pen or what’s the hold up? Or maybe this is the new kind of hold up play by Wenger!
It is wenger refusing to buy the pen.
ofcourse we can forget chelsea as epl rival cause we are not going to be in the title fight while chelsea along with the manchester clubs will
According to Wenger’s diary:
Monday: sunbathing
Tuesday: sunbathing
Wednesday: sunbathing
Thursday: mani pedi am and spa pm
Friday: rest day
Saturday: drop car off for service and batch cooking
Sunday: catch up on sky+ for the week and laundry
Looks like no signings this week
Lots of comments on here about coming second last season and challenging for title.
1. Over the last three seasons our position has improved from 4 to 3 to 2. However our total number of point has consistently dropped over the last three seasons.
2. Last season we were 10 points behind the leaders which is nowhere near being close.
3. Last season in february we were two points behind leicester and favourites to win the PL. Two PL games later on 2 march we were out of the race.
4. Tottenham were in the title race much longer than us and only collapsed when they could not win the PL and coming second or third made no difference to them.
Basically what I am saying is that last season we were way off winning the PL and saying we were closest challengers by coming second etc is just kidding ourselves. Last season we missed a number of golden opportunities to get clear ahead at the top of the PL. Then after beating leicester at the emirates we totally failed to push on for the title. We bottled it and we can and have debated the reasons for this.
My personal theory is that top four is now so ingrained in to the club that they can only show the necessary fight and determination when this is threatened. Opportunities to win the PL are just missed. But we all have our own theories.
basically wenger have brought down our beloved club to such a level over the last decade that anything they do now seems to be an achievement for us fans
Chelsea were the previous champions, they had some bad luck, lost confidence and just could not get back to the top four.
So it would be ridiculous to think they are not contenders, a team packed with world class players, with now new additions and new coach.
As an arsenal fan the manager gives me a bleak outlook, but as a football fan it is going to be one of the most competitive and enjoyable season.
Please note all teams in this league are contenders for the title , just ask leicester