Arsenal have begun to drop off yet again in the Premier League following on from a disastrous week of football. A 2-1 defeat to Everton in midweek, followed by a loss against Manchester City by the same score line means that the Gunners are now nine points behind table leaders Chelsea. It means that Arsenal are once again in danger of dropping out of contention for the league title before Christmas.
One of the big factors of our decline in form during November and December, has been the poor form in defence. The Gunners defence has been an absolute shambles in recent weeks and it reminds you of a time six or seven years ago when you feared every opposition attack posing a real danger to our defenders. Now the defence we currently have holds far more quality than the defenders from previous seasons, but it is a real concern to see that Arsenal haven’t kept a Premier League clean sheet since our 0-0 draw with Middlesborough. It’s a run of eight Premier League games without a clean sheet and something the Gunners must improve on ahead of a busy schedule.
Arsenal made major steps towards making the defence stronger during the summer, with defence additions in Rob Holding and Shkodran Mustafi. It’s the latter player who has become a regular centre back to partner Laurent Koscielny, however currently the German international is ruled out with an injury.
Mustafi picked up a hamstring problem in our 3-1 win over Stoke at the Emirates and has subsequently been replaced by backup defender Gabriel. However in my opinion the Brazilian hasn’t impressed at all at centre back, instead he’s just adding to the calamity that already seems to be amongst the current defence strategies. As a result we cannot wait for Mustafi to get back into the line up and today he has revealed some good news for us.
Mustafi revealed to Arsenal fans today that he’s already back at the gym working on his fitness. The German said: “Nothing worth having comes easy. So let’s put in some extra hours at the gym.”
It was anticipated that Mustafi would miss the entire of the busy christmas period with his hamstring problem, however a quick return to gym work and soon training, may mean that the defender will be back on the pitch ahead of schedule. A return date was initially set for the New Year, but if Mustafi is ready to be back on the pitch for our fixtures against Crystal Palace or Bournemouth then it will definitely be a big boost for the Gunners.
In the mean time I guess we’ll just have to hope that our current crop of first teamers work on their defensive duties in training. Our next three Premier League fixtures are against West Brom, Palace and Bournemouth so on paper you’d expect at least two clean sheets out of the three games. However nothing comes easy at Arsenal and I’m sure the fans are all too familiar with that.
AH
Back to this? I can’t wait to have Mustafi back but Gabriel wasn’t at fault for either goal at Everton. He didn’t invite an hour of pressure at the Etihad. Sane’s goal was offside and Sterling scored from the left- Koscielny is the left sided CB. I actually think Holding reads the game and communicates on the pitch better than Gabriel but lets not make him a scapegoat like some shameful fans did with Iwobi after the Everton miss.
Our next 6 fixtures are winnable on paper with only WBA and B’mouth being top ten sides. Let’s focus on getting maximum (24) points form those and hope Chelsea who travel to Spurs, Leicester, and Liverpool in that period slip up. Liverpool host City and United and travel to Chelsea in that period while City play Liverpool, Everton, and Spurs.
We could be top at the end of January- that should be the target. Wenger’s selections and substitutions are key to this as much as all players putting a shift in.
6*3 is 18 points mate, don’t forget to do your math homework.
I think we can beat Chelsea at the Bridge, after that getting 21 consecutive points we will really challenge for the league I think. It’s gonna be tough, but very doable especially the upcoming 6 games should be 18 points.
Haha getting ahead of myself
Love the optimism, fellas. Just don’t forget that we are absolutely awful during February, January and late-Christmas.
Play holding end of. He’s far better Gabriel so that’s that. And Aw needs to stop playing the same system week in week out. Change it up and play some fresh blood. We have kids at arsenal start playing tbem give em a game. And LP go the love of god play the kids give tbem game time.
Just tell Wenger to start Perez and get him stock in. We need to be scoring more than 1 goal per game and keep our defense as tight as possible not to concede silly goals.
Wenger wants someone injured b4 he makes changes. Very stereotype in nature. We can play 3-4-3 formation and I know we will be better at it than Chelsea. Try something different Arsene
Knowing Arsenal,Mustafi can never future in those games,the earliest would be the new year game. Wenger said “he’s going to have a good christmas” are you expecting Wenger to admit he was wrong? Don’t give yourselves false hope
Wonder how the referees are going to be with us now that Wenger took a pop at the whole lot of them. Just as well he said lions though, some might take it as a compliment, king of jungle and all that. Id say he wanted to say the monkey’s, fling poo all over the place and no-one can say stop them.
If the linesman had called Monreal offside the same as Sanes, then it would have been fair. That was some finish by Iwobi.
I think a big problem is lack of quality defensively amongst the back up players. I am not convinced by Gabriel, Jenkinson and Eleny. Debuchy is always injured. And we can’t expect bellerin, koscielny, mustafi, monreal to play every match.
I think we should try Holding instead of Gabriel in CB. Play Gabs when bellerin can’t play instead of jenks. If koscielny and mustafi are injured God Help us. Also God help us if Coquelin gets injured
I will be happy when Per comes back. I know a lot of people don’t like him but his experience is very important. He and koscielny are very good together. With us now having Mustafi, Mert won’t play a lot of matches but the few he does play he will be a vital player and be better than Gabs.
I seriously think that Wenger should get a reliable defender who can play cb and rb or cb and DM. Our defence still needs strengthening