Make that 11 wins on the bounce! by Konstantin Mitov
Hello lovely Arsenal people! It’s difficult to argue against results. We’ve won 11 games on the bounce and the second half trend continues. I’ve honestly never seen a team draw every game at half time and turn the heat on in the second half to win. This says something about our fitness. Under Wenger we would’ve slumped in the second half.
This improvement has vastly helped us beat the smaller teams, and it’s great when we pull it off, but if we have to be honest it could’ve been very different in a few of our games. When we play Liverpool we will be severely punished if we start slowly again. Our game in Portugal was no exception.
We rotated a lot of players, but I really enjoyed the strong bench. The attitude of Emery towards every competition is exactly what we need. Wenger would’ve put the youngsters on, but this time we had Lacazette and the likes on the bench in case we need them and this brings confidence. We keep winning and the belief that we can win (especially away) is something we’ve been missing in a very long time.
The individual player improvements is massive and I thought Danny Welbeck was superb today. He was denied a clear goal, but later on he got his chance and put it off and he’s got a good amount of goals this season, especially considering he is a squad player.
You must remember that we’ve won 11 wins in a row, through breaks, Europa league away after Monday night football. Whatever the opposition is, it is a marvelous achievement and although I expect us to pay for our defensive fragilities one day, I am enjoying seeing us win games. There are smiles on players faces, no protesting fans, no division, the negativity has decreased.
I enjoyed the defensive performance, especially considering we had Xhaka at left back and Lichtsteiner who was a liability against Leicester. I feel like the defending will take a few transfer windows to be repaired. A new CB, perhaps a LB as well as natural wingers who help in defending will take time to buy and also adapt to the league and the team.
Right now people acknowledge that our attack is very strong, but also there’s always a sense that we can concede a sloppy goal and this is something Liverpool kind of had, and solved only once Van Dijk joined them. Hopefully Sven Mislintat and Raul Sanllehi will do their job and get Kroenke’s backing, because if we keep improving at that pace and we keep adding in the right areas, we could be a real force in a few seasons.
Finally, Unai Emery needs to get his fair share of the pie. His English is rapidly improving. It’s really difficult to pass on your ideas when you don’t speak the language fluently and that makes our winning run all the more impressive. Hopefully we can continue this against Palace.
The longer this run becomes, the more difficult every upcoming game becomes as the expectations rise, but we must remain humble and remember that this season is about improvements. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts and take it one game at a time.
Enjoy the rest of your week people and we move onto Palace.
Konstantin