To really do well and have any real chance of success this season Arsenal or any side has to be well balanced. Sometimes you will see a club win things with an exceptional display in one of the three key areas of attack, midfield and defence, such as the defence oriented Arsenal under George Graham.
‘Boring, boring Arsenal’ and ‘1-0 to the Arsenal- were famous chants from rival fans in those days, while other successful spells from the likes of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona have been led primarily by the team’s creative and goal scoring prowess, but in general you need to do all parts of the game well to win a major trophy, especially the marathon that is a domestic league.
You could say that Arsenal have done well at both ends of the pitch so far this season, but at the same time we have shown weakness in both, but the visit of Chelsea to the Emirates stadium tomorrow is likely to provide the toughest test so far of our attack and our defence, but which will be called upon more and which will prove to be our undoing or our source of triumph?
With Hazard and Costa the Arsenal back four and the midfield protecting them are going to have to be on the ball and that means that Coquelin, assuming he plays, will be a major figure in how the game goes. I expect Koscielny and Mustafi to be our central defensive pairing and I think they may be perfectly suited to handling Costa but any mistake could be very costly.
Knowing our luck the Chelsea captain John Terry will be back and with Kante and Matic in front of them Chelsea will surely be a tough nut to crack. For me the performance of Ozil and his ability to feed the likes of Walcott and Alexis Sanchez will be crucial.
What do you think Gooners? Will this be our toughest game yet and which area of the team will let us down or bring us the result we need?
Bob.