Even when Arsenal suffered a serious setback to our Premier League title hopes recently after back to back losses away to Everton and Man City, we did manage to score. We scored first in both games in fact, so keeping a clean sheet in both would have seen us six points better off right now and just three behind the league leaders Chelsea.
Of course we could also have claimed the points if Arsenal had added to those opening goals but you cannot always rely on that. What we do seem to be able to rely on is finding the back of the net at least once. In the last 14 matches in all competitions the only one in which Arsenal drew a blank was that awful EFL cup loss to Southampton and that was not the real Arsenal.
No doubt Sam Allardyce will have Crystal Palace well organised and hard to break down tomorrow but with all the creative and attacking talent at Arsene Wenger’s disposal we should be able to do it at least once. But as well as looking for the breakthrough, Arsenal must put a very high value on our own defensive discipline to keep another clean sheet.
That has not been happening enough. In those same 14 games I mentioned the only clean sheets were against Reading in the EFL cup and our last league game against West Brom. With Giroud bagging a late goal that clean sheet was massive and I think we have to be looking at the same outcome tomorrow.
Bob.