Consistency and squad balance by KM
Hello guys. So after a month of going through interview hell in the job market, I’m finally back with some spare time to share a thought on how our beloved Arsenal is doing in this insane roller coaster season.
The idea here is that all top teams are as bad as I’ve ever seen them. No really, try to remember the last time Chelsea were so poor, they fought relegation at round 15? Man United, a side full of attacking players over the years, have 0:0 draws more often than not and Man City, who added another good bunch of quality players got wrecked by Stoke.
Astonishing really. Add that to the fact that Liverpool, who looked the real deal at City and Chelsea, fail to beat Palace at home and Newcastle fighting relegation away. All in all, we end up at Arsenal where the situation is similar but not unfamiliar at the same time.
Seasons after seasons we have a good spell where we look like contenders and then we slump. Or the other way around where we make a surprise comeback for the top 4. What worries me is the form that we are in. We scored first in our last three games and we always managed to concede an equalizer. Two of the three times it was an own goal…
The amount of own goals is just criminal. Against Sunderland we were again not good enough, yet again we did what the big clubs do. Punish you when you make a mistake – and we opened the scoring through Campbell. Just before half time we didn’t deal with a set piece and it cost us.
Truth to be told I missed the Norwich game, but what I have seen since the start of the season is that we are really nervous when we concede. We have an absurd amount of injuries and what is really hitting us now is the fact we miss Coquelen and Cazorla.
We are experimenting in midfield with Flamini, who’s doing a much better job with his multi-million business rather than what he does on the pitch, and Ramsey, who’s just back from injury and straight into the fire. Hector Bellerin has been really poor since coming back from his own injury.
I felt he was too offensive and sometimes seemed to forget he had to defend. That goes for Ramsey sometimes too when he plays as a CM. Truth to be told it’s the mentality of the entire team. We need to balance it out. We defended really well against Bayern, because we expect them to attack us and be sharp.
Truth is, there is no team that will come out and just lose. If we give a little more respect to teams we would’ve been in a much better league and CL position. Which brings us to an enormous game against Olympiacos. You know the biggest game is always the next one.
We have to go gung-ho on them, but with the performance of Saturday, we don’t stand much of a chance. Still two games of football are never the same and we can do it. This time we only need to win away by two.
They will no doubt try to sit back and hit us on the break like they did at the Emirates. And with our dodgy defense it might work, but with a bit of luck we can do it. Olympiacos didn’t deserve to beat Zagreb in either of the games they played, but we are at our own fault for where we are now.
English football needs to stand for it’s name in Europe and so does Arsenal. It’s not good for our stature among the elite not to pass a group like this. If we do it, it’ll be the great escape! A true lift for the whole team. I’m counting on Ozil. He’s been the best for us in recent times. We need everyone to step up. We’ll have Walcott too, although his fitness is not good enough yet. No excuses for me. We have the squad to do it.
Have a great week!
Konstantin