Post-boxing day analysis of Arsenal’s performances by KM
Hello again. So after barely sleeping through a simply unacceptable defeat to a bad Chelsea side, I decided to take a look at what we’ve done after Christmas so far. Our results feature a hammering at Southampton followed by two wins, two draws and a defeat.
Does something look familiar here? Post New year collapse? You got it. Even if we ignore the fact that has happened before, what’s worse is that our performances have not been good. Back in 207, 2008, 2009, 2010 even, we were dominating teams. We used to hammer the smaller teams.
Southampton’s first visit to the Emirates ended up a 6:0 defeat. I cannot remember the last time we destroyed a bad team, except when we beat United 3:0. Personally I wouldn’t have that much of an issue if we had won some easy games we threw away, but truth is when you are playing well results may not go your way, but sooner or later they will.
In our case, we’ve been trying to nick games by one goal and it’s not worked too well. When we concede we become fragile. We crumble under the pressure, because with everyone being so bad, the pressure is on us. No matter what anybody says, the players feel it. It might be their only chance to get to the title and that’s disrupting our game.
We sleep through the first twenty minutes of most games. Sometimes we survive and end up winning but sooner or later this will cost you as it did on Sunday. Liverpool destroyed us in the first 20 minutes, but thanks to the fact they are also terrible we turned up in front at the start of the second half.
Immediately after that we stopped playing. Hoping the clock will roll over and it did with a draw. We have only won once at Stoke since they’ve been in the premier league and that was six years ago. We haven’t won against Chelsea since 2011 and we’ve given them 2 of their incredible 7 wins this season. Teams like Bournemouth beat them at the bridge!
And Southampton managed to thrash us 4:0. How does that happen? City have their away issues, but I don’t remember them losing 4:0. And those are mid tabled sides. People get deluded by the fact we are behind City only on goal difference but the style of play and our goal difference is the worst of all the teams in the top 4 right now, and we are yet to go away to Tottenham, City and Everton.
Apart from our 2:0 win at the Etihad, our away results to those sides hasn’t really been that good lately, just like our game play. You cannot say it is a coincidence when it keeps repeating over and over again. True that we are missing Cazorla and Coquelin badly and Alexis was out for a long time, but if you can’t win at West Brom and Norwich without one key player it’s sad.
Finally the fixture list doesn’t get any easier, with Southampton who’re in good shape coming up with confidence from thrashing us and winning at OT. Then it’s Bournemouth with Afobe out to prove Wenger a point, Leicester, Barcelona, United, Swansea and Spurs away. The team needs to sit down and rethink, how it will approach these games, or we’ll be seeing more of the same.
We missed out on Ancelotti and Klopp, and when Pep arrives at City next Season, with United, Pool and Chelsea coming back strong, Arsene will be even more exposed. I’m hoping for a reaction, will we see one from Arsene? Not sure.
Have a nice week.