We are all very happy Arsenal chappies at the moment after seeing the Gunners win our sixth straight game in the Premier League, but we all know in our hearts that we have been riding our luck and dicing with misfortune. After totally dominating Swansea we let them back in and were struggling to keep our lead after being reduced to ten men in the last 20 minutes.
And of course in the previous game at Burnley we couldn’t break down the defensive set up and got a very fortunate goal in the dying minutes from Laurent Koscielny’s handball. If we are really going to challenge for the title we are going to have to learn to carry on dominating for the whole 90 minutes, and Arsene Wenger agrees.
“I think that we [need to] keep our rigorous attitude,” Le Prof said. “We are a playing side, and you see that when we are 2-0 up.
“Suddenly the playing takes over, but the rigorous attitude is always to do what the game demands. I believe that today maybe we were a bit too easy at 2-0, thinking ‘OK, we’ll win the game today’.
“In the Premier League, we have to be conscious in every single game.
“But after the first game against Liverpool, you could not predict that we would be where we are today. That means what is at stake for us is to show that we can maintain that run over a longer distance.
“We are all conscious that we still have some things to improve and that we have to go a step higher up.”
We have had a reasonably easy run of games to take us up to joint top, but once the more difficult games come along we are definitely going to need to step up or risk being exposed as wannabees without the killer streak.
How can Wenger stop the players from being complacent when we take the lead?
Darren N