After our game against Leeds, Arteta talked about our failure to make up small margins which is really costing us points, here is what he said, “The position probably that I believe we should have been in and where we are at the moment, it’s two games [difference],” Arteta said on Sky.
“That’s four to six points and it makes the whole difference and the small margins where we lose the game or win the game, it’s incredibly narrow.
“But this is the reality of this league and where we are at the moment. We don’t have big margins at the moment, so we have to be really good at everything we do because at the moment, something is missing.
“We are on the edge of winning or losing a football match and we again are humble and conscious of that and at the moment we don’t have to steal those margins and any game is going to be really difficult.”
From the above statement, you would agree that even though we have difficulty creating chances, we would have been better off had we taken the few chances we create. Starting with our game atManchester City, I think we deserved to win the game based on the chances we created in the second half, at least I recall Saka and Aubameyang missing one chance apiece, not to mention the Pepe’s header.
Against Leicester, we scored a goal which was wrongly disallowed- it would have been a different game from then on. We were lucky at Old Trafford for once, else we would have lost or drawn the game too. Saka missed a free header, Auba missed a chance and Willian hit the bar.
Leeds deserved to win the game based on the number of their shots that hit the bar, but that was not our fault was it? We had the chance to win the game with Saka through on goal, but he missed. We certainly deserved to lose against Villa and Wolves though.
Based on the above:
City = 3 points
Leicester = 3 points
Aston Villa = 0
Leeds = 3 points
Wolves = 0
We would at least be 9 points better off had we taken our chances in those games which would bring our points total to 22 points taking us to the top the league. As it is now, we just need to win three games on the spin and our season is back on, easier said than done though as we have a massive mountain to climb on Sunday, win that and we may get the momentum to get our season back on track, lose…. and I don’t want to imagine what would happen…
You may remember, the same “small margin” cost us last season against the same opposition we are facing on Sunday, Kolasinac gave the ball away for their goal and Aubameyang missed a glorious chance to double our advantage when we were one nil up. In fact, Under Emery, Aubameyang again missed the penalty that would have seen us win the game in the final moments.
We won’t get many chances tomorrow of course, but being ruthless and clinical will help us to close these “small margins”,
Goonerboy
More than win or lose what we need to see is a positive attacking football. A performance worth calling an Arsenal Game regardless of the result. A performance stating players are worthy of the shirt they are wearing.
I hope Arteta can just relax and let the players express themselves more. He is absolutely suffocating them attacking-wise.