There has been a lot of talk about Arsenal and our tendency to not have a very good time during the month of November. So far that theory has been proved somewhat with two draws in a ro9w but it has not exactly been a disaster and both of those draws were against big Premier League clubs.
The Gunners still have key games to come in the Champions League and the EFL cup this month, against PSG and Southampton, but at least our league fixtures are looking a lot better for a while. So just by keeping in touch with the top of the table, with just three points separating Arsenal from the current leaders Chelsea, we are still well in the title race.
The feeling that this season is closer than ever is backed up by the stat reported by the Daily Mail that the last time things were closer at the top after 12 games was 18 years ago.
There have already been 10 clubs on top of the league this season, but we all know that any club can soon falter so Arsenal just need to get back to winning ways and hope that those around us slip up and the paper has been looking at the upcoming fixtures of the top six to see whose challenge is more likely to be looking strong at the end of the year.
It looks pretty promising for the Gunners to be honest, as we only have one really tough looking game away to Man City on December 18th. Our other five Premier League matches are against Bournemouth, West Ham, Stoke City, Everton and West Brom.
Man United and Liverpool also face just one of the top six but Jose Mourinho’s team are already six points behind us and Liverpool do have a Merseyside derby coming up. Both Chelsea and Tottenham have big clashes coming while Man City have the worst run coming with three.
The question is, can Arsenal make the most of the next few weeks and get ourselves into a great position to challenge after the new year?
Bob.
The problem is that Arsenal have always struggle against those teams. Whether they are mid table or bottom half. It’s time for us to show title credentials and finish off teams that are below us. I want to think “oh yea, 3 points in the bag because we are playing Stoke City”. I however can’t be that optimistic because those teams can take points from us on their day.
Lesson from Leicester last year, no fixtures can hold future champion for being champion. So fixtures are just schedules on paper. Treat every single EPL game as the same priorities nonetheless.
We urgently need new momentum for this November jinx phenomenon. The selection of midfielders and strikers will determine our position in December before we face City. From those fixtures, my opinion, only West Ham and Everton will “buy” our attacking “commodity” instead. Bournemouth, Stoke, and West Brom are tending to park the bus. So, the selection between Alexis or Giroud as CF will be important key.
Another crucial things, let the midfield axis to Coquelin and Xhaka only. This is our best combination when Santi out for injure.
One more suggestion point, I doubt Arsene will listen, keep Ramsey in his current best position : warming the bench.
I was really surprise to see Ramzy on the pitch on Saturday. the fact that he played the entire match is also baffling judging by his performance especially in the first halve. all our next matches are games we should be winning, but if Arsene continues to be sentimental as regard team selection well God help us!
Stoke away is one of our hardest fixtures. We never win hope things change this time round.
The Stoke City game is actually at home. People under estimate the importance of a favorable fixtures list to the eventual league position of a team. After the Chelsea game most people knew that Tottenham and Man United games were always going to be difficult. We could have done better by winning at least one of those, particularly the Tottenham game, had Ozil converted the open goal chance. Overall the team did well by not losing any of those two games, otherwise questions would be asked by the ever negative press and pundits.
Now is the time to put a solid run together until the Man City game. If we can bag maximum points in those four matches before man City, that will put us in a relatively strong position, at 37 points. What ever happens to the other teams in the top 5, we will be sure that at the worst by the 18th of December we will be 3 points off the top. If we can snatch a point from Man City on the 18th of December 2016, then we could easily finish the first half of the season with 44 points, and that will be massive in our title challenge.
The mix of fixtures in the second half of the season is not bad for us in my view, as long as we get maximum points from smaller teams. Any bad result against the bigger teams will have the potential to be quickly rectified in the next game. That is good for the confidence of the team.
I was really surprise to see Ramzy on the pitch on Saturday. the fact that he played the entire match is also baffling judging by his performance especially in the first halve. all our next matches are games we should be winning, but if Arsene continues to be sentimental as regard team selection well God help us!
Stoke are not very good recently. Its time for revenge!
Wenger’s stubbornness will cost us the title, i’m serious! right now sanchez is bandaged up and he gets the nod before giroud? what he do in the game exactly? nothing!! 2nd, he insists on playing Walcott even though you can tell Walcott needs a lot of rest right now, he’s a player who’s injury prone but instead he gets the nod over OX who’s fresh? The list goes on.
We have the players but it seems like we have a manger who’s just so set in his ways, even to the detriment of the team. I don’t want to see tired legs half assing it out there on the field, you need to shuffle your team because iwobi and Ox can start for this team and would very well, so would giroud. Especially with this run of games coming on we need to rest our best players.