Despite the howls of protest from Arsenal fans after the game, the fact remains that the Gunners actually played well away from home against a team that is on a perfect run of form at the moment. According to whoscored.com, we had 50% of the possession and closely matched Leicester on tackles, pass completion rates, dribbles and corners.
The minus points for us were, as usual, chances conceded and chances created, and failure to take our few chances. As Alexandre Lacazette said after the game: ‘We are very disappointed, we had chances in the first half. We couldn’t score and you need to take your chances in this type of game.
‘We have to work again and keep working everyday. But I think we didn’t play so bad, we just missed our chances in the first half.’
This opinion was echoed by Calum Chambers, who was Dan’s Man-of-the-Match in the JustArsenal Player Ratings, when he spoke to Arsenal.com after the match. He said: “I think we had a bit more control and defensively we were a bit more solid. We knew Leicester are a good team and they would create chances but I think we all put in 100 per-cent effort today and the difference was that they took their chances and they scored a good first goal. We’ve just got to keep believing and stay positive.”
So it was not such a bad result, we played well away against a team in second place in the Premier League, and we should actually gain a bit of confidence from the way we performed on the day.
I think the reason there was such a furore from the fans after the game was because it has come as the culmination of a run that has seen us fail to beat Sheffield United, Crystal Palace, Liverpool reserves, Wolves and Vitoria, and our last League win was before the last international break, when were on a great run. Perhaps this international break will have the opposite effect and we come back with all guns blazing!
We can but hope…
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