Arsenal fans are right to be upbeat by Sam P
There are always some in the English football media who will do anything to stop the Arsenal fans being happy about anything. Trophy drought, trophy drought, trophy drought was the most over-used phrase in football for years and with all the cliches used that is some going.
And after the Gunners spoiled their fun with a trophy last season, we hear all of a sudden that the FA cup is a second rate thing that no one really wants anyway. Arsenal are ridiculed for the so/called Wenger trophy but when any other club, as Chelsea, Liverpool and Man United have all done recently, drop out of Europe’s blue ribbon event then it is a disaster. Make your minds up!
So it is no surprise that somebody has found a stat intended to puncture our pride at the recent Arsenal performances and results that have seen us climb into second place above the big spenders Man City and Man United. As reported by The Mirror, the claim is that there has not actually been any improvement this season, because our records or points, wins and draws in the Premier League is exactly the same as last year’s after 31 games played.
This may be true but you only have to watch Arsenal play to see the improvement and we should not forget that we got off to a brilliant start last season. This time we have reached the same points despite a terrible start. We now have Alexis, Bellerin, Coquelin, Welbeck, Chambers, Gabriel and Ospina improving the squad and the first team. And we have now proved that we can compete in the big games.
So be happy Gooners because Arsenal are better this season and will be even more so next time.
Really is a pity we started off so badly. Or even if Per hadnt ducked and Szcz hadnt imploded v sou. Would have made huge difference.
Now its not the tiem to start singling out players. They have all had bad times. No need scape goating Per and Sczseney. From the first day of the season with the change in formation the injuries and worldcup hangover made the team to not respond well. We struggle even to qualify vs bisktash in the Champions league. I remeber just 2 players in the period playing well. And that is Sanchez and jack.
That was then. Now we have understood our system. having Coquelin as well its a big big plus as he is just a lot much better than Arteta and famlin combine. Coquelin has made Arsenal a better team.
Buying paulista also means that If per or Kosieny are not available there is no panic at Arsenal. paulista is that good he plays left and Right CB with maximum ease. Credit also need to go to the rest of the guys. Ozil rambo santi even those on the bench. The atmosphere at the club is cracking. Players even went paint balling together.
We should keep on believing as strange thigs have happen before. Even finishing 2nd and winning the cup will show great progress. We can clearly see that we are not too far away from the top top European teams. Next season will be better.
Im not denying that or anything of the sort, have a right to feel hard done by.
Or even if we had played Ospina in beginning, remember something like two shots two goals… three shots two goals… two shots one goal, cant remember exactly but do remember being pissed with our Pole.
you forget that ospina had a hamstring injury to begin the season. only martinez was available. he did well during his spell of games, mind you.
Cute article
but
We have stayed the same despite the quality of players slowly improving with the addition of Sanchez. The only difference is Man City and Liverpool have been poorer this season. And i’m not playing down the FA cup…its an esteemed cup to win but anyone here knows they would rather win the EPL or CL.
When and if we win the other members of the top 4 left, Chelsea and Manchester United, then can we say we have improved this season. Its been better with performances recently just like most recent seasons but its still the same glorious failure…we aren’t going to win the EPL and in the CL we make sure we lose heavily in the first leg so that in the other leg we play our hearts out and still lose so that we can get some sympathy and make it look like we tried. We didn’t. I call B.S! We have stayed the same.
You clearly haven’t watched arsenal play this year
Above all big spenders Man C, Man U, Pool and Spurs.
So if we have not progressed they have surely gone backwards.
Screw media and biased pundits, who the hell cares what these idiots say or think.
We’re not penny pinchers over here exactly. I’ll say this much, it’s interesting how fans use stats to bum up a player (coquelin, ospina) but then complete dismiss stats when they suggest we haven’t made great strides. Surely that’s also bias that you allude to…
And for the record I don’t think we’ve made them, its a top 4 finish and out the CL last 16 again which makes it 5/6 years straight.
“If we have not progressed then surely they have gone backwards” – well yea that’s how it works most years. Liverpool and City have regressed this season, United and Chelsea have imporved, and we’ve ‘been consistent’. Only trouble is that consistency means we don’t feature in the two biggest comps we play in (PL and CL).
We’ve spent less than every team in an around us. What makes you think we spend so much money seriously we’ve barely spent sh*t and when we do it’s money well spent.
We are consistently getting better every season since 2010. If you look at the stats we improve every year by at least 2 points, it’s not great and it’s slow but it’s improvement none the less.
The last few months some of the football I seen us play is some of the best I’ve seen us play in a few seasons plus when we’ve not been playing great we’ve been grinding out wins. Squad wise we’ve improved over the last couple of seasons we’ve got some real quality players. January saw the addition of Gabriel and Coquelin coming back which has given us much better defensive depth and improved the team massively. We seem to be getting some real consistency & hopefully our injury problems will start to improve which has been the main factor in us falling short over the last couple of seasons.
The best teams constantly move their squads forward at any opportunity I think two additions in the summer will give the squad a boost freshen things up and keep us moving in the right direction push us onto a higher level and make sure we have cover to still be a strong team if we do have injuries, then other teams really should start to fear us because we’ve got the potential to be one of the best in Europe not far off at all.
Your last sentence is cringeworthy, can we please even take part in a title challenge before you start spouting how others should fear us because we’re potentially one of the best in Europe!?? Let’s crawl before we walk here ffs…
We need three payers for that. This summer we will get two. Have faith in Wenger
Trophies dear boy trophies. Lots of them.
The second half of season has been very good (exceptions: loss to Southampton, loss to Spurs and 1st leg with Monaco)
But I Think our second half of the season is better than Chelsea and everyone else.
Now we even have Diaby, Debuchy, Wilshere, Arteta back so no excuses now. Lets keep the winning streak going Starting with Burnley
DO NOT misjudge Burnley. They are fighting for survival and beat and drew with City and drew with Chelsea. So we need to put out our best team and play hard.
I want to go to Wembley on the back of a win
It was Flamini who ruined our season. He made 3 defensive errors in 3 early games that we should have won. We have never fully recovered from that bad start. He only seems to make those errors when we are in a strong league position. Please Wenger don’t use him again.
It’s laughable when a team who has the best form of 2015 is said not to have progressed. Usually our good form has lasted during spells of playing weaker opposition but this has been a sustained effort throughout 2015 including an away win at City which is rare for ANY team. Yes, we have progressed, but it also shows we are highly vulnerable and still carrying some dead weight. Our biggest complaint for years has been defensive frailty – we’ve now sorted that for the most part SO yes there is progression. This can only be examined since we’ve had our current defence though – i.e. since Christmas.
I don’t think we’ve progressed hugely though. I think we’re still teetering on the edge in games and run a very fine line. We came out comfortable winners against City and Liverpool and United but in all games if the first goal had gone against us we’d have almost certainly lost the games trying to come out at the opposition. We are always 1 goal away from trouble so I still think we need to improve our ability to deal with counters and improve our control of the ball. We are not controlling possession enough in these big games.
That said we now have all the building blocks to progress in the new season. A finish in 2nd and an FA Cup should be enough to attract anyone Wenger wants and 2/3 signings of the ilk from the past 2 seasons while retaining the majority of our first team will be enough to push Arsenal into the upper echelons of English football and challenging for the premiership from day 1.