Arsenal stars STILL believe in EPL title race

It could have been so much better for Arsenal at the weekend, but there are still plenty of Premier League points to play for and there are still good reasons for the Gunners to believe that the title race is not quite done and dusted yet this season.

Chelsea were lucky, after scoring two early goals they took their foot off the gas and Hull drew level before looking the most likely to win. But Chelsea survived and grabbed a fortunate late winner. The three points obviously increased their chances of securing the title. It was hardly an emphatic result though and the fact they lost Diego Costa to a muscle injury during the game suggests that Chelsea might just drop some more points after the international break.

Perhaps that is why the likes of Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud are now starting to sound a bit more hopeful that Arsenal could just cause a big upset. The big Frenchman has got plenty of reason to be feeling confident after another two goals on Saturday and he will surely have to keep that up if we are to challenge Chelsea, which a Daily Mail report shows him targeting.

Giroud said, “We need to win every game and that’s what we want to do — step by step. You never know if City or Chelsea will miss one of these steps. We’ve got to be here with great belief and faith.”

Another big player that Arsenal will need to have any chance is Aaron Ramsey. The Welshman has been superb since his return and rally gives the team a great balance as well as the goal threat and creativity we know he can bring. Ramsey sounded pretty positive after we held firm in Newcastle, as a report in The Mirror shows.

He said, ““We just have to focus on ourselves and believe other teams around us will be on the end of upsets. We just have to try and win every game until the end of the season.

“In this division teams can lose against anyone. We have just got to be switched on and make sure it doesn’t happen to us and maintain this run.”

Even Arsene Wenger did not completely rule out a title charge although he did suggest that Chelsea were too far ahead. But we have seen bigger leads eroded in recent years and it would not be the first time that an end of season threw up a few shocks.

As Ramsey said, “Stranger things have happened.”

One thing is for sure though, if we beat Liverpool in two weeks and Chelsea are without the injured Costa, there will be some real nerves when they play Stoke later that day. Do you still believe Gooners?

Tags Costa Giroud Ramsey Wenger

13 Comments

  1. title is over…..

    its time for them to talk less and start to play well…

    come summer its performance review time….

    those who dont perform have to go and make way for others…..

    1. Hey Hafiz, can we have your list on who should be released from the squad this summer again?

  2. I think both Le Coq and Ramsey will have to start against Liverpool. It will be interesting to see who gets the nod in the no.10 role, Cazorla or Ozil.

    Pretty good headache to have (Y) though both my heart and head are sold on Cazorla

    1. It won’t be interesting at all, unless there’s an injury, Ramsey needs to be coming off the bench. Ramsey has done nothing to warrant arsenal adjusting the coq, santi, Mesut combo that won us 9 of 10 games. Ramsey was average at best Saturday (and that’s being generous) and has been the same way all season. We haven’t the time to adjust the team to play him in games and hope that he shows glimpses of the player he was last season, instead of continually showing last year was an anomaly.

  3. Everyone is talking about ‘If Chelsea drop points in games x, y and z then we’re in.’ Aside from the point it’s highly unlikely Chelsea will drop that many points, it also assumes that we won’t drop any. We’re already on a 6 game winning streak, and we have 8 games left to play. So that’d make a 14 game winning streak? Don’t see those too often..

    The key thing for me is the fact that we’ve made progress this season. Looks like we’ll finish with roughly the same points total, exited the Champions League at the same stage, no run in the League Cup again and looking for a repeat of the FA Cuo win. Doesn’t seem like progress, it seems we’ve done pretty much the same as last season. But we have made progress, not a season of progress, but since the new year we’ve become a lot more solid at the back, more exciting going forward, less dependant on Alexis and we’ve had the revelation of Coquelin.

    We’ve haven’t caught Chelsea, but we were never going to, they were 18 points ahead of us at one stage. Now that’s down to 10 points, assuming they win their game in hand. Making up 8 points on Chelsea in 3-4 months is great progress – we can cope with title-setting pace, and exceed it. Not to mention how much ground we made up on Manchester City, they were level with points with Chelsea on New Year’s Day, now they’re just one point above us.

    It’s all well and good doing it for 3 or 4 months towards the end of the season, but now that we’ve proved we can do it, we have to be able to stretch that out to a whole season, then we could concievably win the title. Also, other than Manchester City, we haven’t really had a very tough fixture list recently either. Spurs away and Southampton away we dropped points, which on another day I think we should probably have got a result. But Chelsea, Liverpool and United are still to come.

    Wenger said to judge him in May, so let’s judge him in May. If we shouldn’t judge him in November, I see no reason we should judge him in March.

    1. I found your summation of our “progress” rather amusing, you listed the fact we’re likely to basically repeat last seasons achievements AT BEST yet still pretend progress. Brilliantly lacking in any logic whatsoever.

      Season review: Top 4, maybe FA cup, crash and burn in CL, booted out at home in Carling cup. Oh the progression is palpable. Treble is well and truly on the cards next term.

      We need some changes/improvements in the summer because this year has actually told us we haven’t improved in the areas WE as Arsenal FC struggle with. That’s consistency of good form, our record vs top 6 teams, tactically, squad rotation/injuries. So how about we don’t let a top 4 push end of season gloss over the fact we haven’t been in the title race and were embarrassed in the CL this year – the two competitions that effectively size up where you stand in European and English football.

  4. When things get like this I start to worry. Everyone else is talking about what they can d, titles and top 4 except the team that looks like they’re actually going to win the title. Everyone from Nasri, to Kompany to Wegner, Giroud, Ramsey, more City players, United players. Seems that Chelsea are the only team that realize that the talking is done on the pitch.

    Here are the facts:
    We have 8 games left, 24 points in all.
    Chelsea need 19 points of a possible 27 for them. i.e 6 wins and a draw
    This is assuming both Chelsea and Arsenal win their remaining fixtures which is impossible.
    As such while not in our hands a win at the Emirates will cut that deficit to 4 points. With 5 games to go.

    Assuming Chelsea win their next 3 fixtures they will have 9 of that 19 points. But I feel they will draw in one of those matches.

    So it is imperative that we focus on simply winning. If we beat them at the Emirates and they draw with United we will be 2 points behind them even though they have a game in hand.

    So 2 points left to overturn in 4 matches.

    It isn’t in our hands but winning is all we can do.

  5. I want us to beat Chelsea next month

    Not necessary for the title but it will mean thar we beat Chelsea, City and United

    Give us belief for next season AND Wenger finally beats Mourinho

    1. Beat Mourinho?

      if chelsea cant beat Arsenal… Mourinho will Park the planes and go for a draw

  6. Is it possible? Yes.

    Is it gonna happen? No.

    It’s still mathematically possible that United could win the PL. Will it happen? No.

    Everyone will drop some points between now and the end of the season. Let’s just make sure we play well and drop as few as possible. A 10 game winning streak would make me happy.

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