Arsenal are mired in a dogfight for second place right now, but it could have all turned out so different if we had only been fresh and ready at the beginning of the season. Too many players came back tired from the World Cup and perhaps their weakness led to our glut of injuries, and Arsene Wenger thinks that the early games were where we lost the advantage to Chelsea.
“There are many turning points, one of them was that we had some players back and defensively we were much stronger in the second part of the season than the first part,” Le Prof said. “We still have room for improvement there. Maybe we have more stability and more balance in the team.
“We were not consistent enough. After eight games we were 11 points behind Chelsea.
“If we win our game in hand (against Sunderland on May 20) we are 10 points behind Chelsea.
“That means in the first eight games we lost our championship and that’s what we have to address next season and start strong.
“We feel we have made progress in our consistency, our quality and our stability.
“That is what we want to continue and I believe it is important to finish as close as possible to Chelsea and come out of the season and think we are ready to challenge next season.”
This summer we have no World Cup, but perhaps our South American players may be tired after the Copa America. To be honest though these hot-blooded Latino types (like Samchez!) seem to have unlimited amounts of energy. I personally can’t see any reason why we can’t come flying out of the blocks next season, and go all the way to the top. And stay there!
Onwards and Upwards!