Three reasons Arsenal fans need to be cautious about our current position before claiming the title is ours
Merry Xmas to all our Arsenal family worldwide. It’s surely great to be Gunner right now, and actually who wouldn’t be over the moon with our current form, position and results, despite our annual injury crisis? We are trailing only Leicester City who are facing Liverpool and City in their next two games. We miraculously managed to get to UCL knockout stages only for us to draw the usual mighty Barcelona. Add to that the fact that our old nemesis Man United fell again to Thursday football after everyone had all but foreseen that fate upon us after losing our first two group games. Do I really have to mention that pundits for once are pouring all their praise to us from every corner? Don’t even get me started with the Mourinho saga and Chelsea’s trade of position with Leicester. Anyway the point is; everything and everywhere we look at, all we see are smiley and promising signs. But still I urge caution to avoid our usual heartbreaks as we fall short over and over again. So let’s go straight to my points shall we?
INJURIES
We may be coping very well without our first choice pair of midfielders Le Coq and Santi and getting the results right so far, and that might blind us to thinking that we will be alright. But for how long will we bury our heads in the sand? Sanchez is currently being covered for by the surprise form of Campbell, Theo and Olivier Giroud. We may just need a team that can defend deep and hit us on counter to notice what we are missing, like West Brom remember them? The importance of Sanchez and Santi to create or beat a man or two would be highly missed. How about the ever perfect tackles from Le Coq to stop the counters? I can’t blame anyone with all these amazing injuries but if we are to win the League it needs to stop.
FIXTURES
We are approaching the end of first round of the fixtures and we are heading to a second round that involves hosting only Chelsea at Emirates as the big team and our possible fellow contenders in Leicester are the only big games at home. A visit to Manchester (twice), Anfield, White Hart Lane and the ever tricky trips to Everton and Stoke City really leaves me a bit worried. I know we don’t need to win all of them but it’s still a huge mountain to climb.
ARSENE WENGER
Yes I know he has, on his days pulled some miracles but for every genius moment there is a shocking decision. First of his problems is his stubborn approach to transfers. Well I have a funny feeling that he may not “find the right players” in this window as usual and end up costing us very vital points on our way. We may just need two great players and we can surely give Barcelona a run for their money and maybe even do the impossible and knock them out, but that all depends on what our beloved stubborn manager will decide to do. Second is his man management, I mean can’t he just sometimes rest a player or two, keeping the balance right and giving other players the much needed game time? We have a great second stream squad but they seem bogus when called upon because they only lack match fitness, not quality. Players like Flamini, Gibbs, Paulista, and Chambo and as recently proved by Campbell, we have good players but we fail to adequately utilize them. This may lead to over playing important players such as Ozil and others.
So despite all that, everything is there for us to capitalize on, but prayers and a bit of good luck may go a long way.
Ankoanko from Kenya
Feliz Navidad to you all.
Over confidence. Anything bt a victory today will b like Monday’s victory meant nothing
Third reason is rubbish and unfair. Replace Wenger with Kompany.
Third reason isn’t well articulated and argued.
He is stubborn, but he wants to win. And he knows for sure that with all the top teams in disarray, he’s going to have to push for it. He’s 66 and knows he can’t get any younger.
I view it this way, sometimes he can be stubborn to a fault by playing the same XI week in week out. But Chelsea did it last season and no one moaned against Mou.
If he plays a slightly weakened XI and loses, then he’s blamed. If he plays his strongest XI, and injuries roll in, then he loses as well. The fact is you can’t have full-fledged starters on your bench unless you’re Barcelona or Real Madrid, so your bench will definitely be weaker. In any case, I see fringe players also getting a run, perhaps because of injuries all the time, but they haven’t proved themselves completely. It’s rumored that Ozil will be rested during one of the next few matches, so precautions are being taken.
Yes I also had some trouble with the third paragraph. Today I listened to Wenger speak about cohesion once again and the only way you can achieve this is when all players become fully aware of each other, a type of accommodation to one another. So dropping an in form player for someone who is match rusty will not improve the cohesion, and when it is one of the star players been dropped well that is doubly worse. Still there could be some games which you can call it a good time for experimentation ..however, every league game from here on out is hugely important so I’m not sure if there is much to be considered on this matter.