One look at the Premier League table at the moment is enough to send most Arsenal fans reaching for a strong drink, as the Gunners are not only in the bottom half of it but we are way down in 16th place and are only kept off the bottom by Brighton, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and West Ham United.
At least our next game after the international break is at home against one of the sides below us and you would expect the Gunners to take all three points. After that, however, Arsenal go to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea after the opening Europa League match at home to the German side Cologne, so it would have been good for us to get more from the opening three games than just three points as we are now under serious pressure to not lose touch with the teams at the top before the season has really got going.
That is why a lot of Arsenal fans are so upset right now and why we wanted some serious transfer action after the shaky start, but Granit Xhaka has offered a different take on the early stages of the new season, reports Metro, suggesting that apart from the below par showing against Liverpool at Anfield, the Gunners have not been as bad as painted.
He said, ‘The start against Chelsea was good.
‘Leicester it was a crazy game.
‘Against Stoke we were unhappy we lost, although we were clearly the better team.’
‘The Liverpool game we have to analyse critically… it was a bitter defeat.
‘It is not the start we wanted. But there are still 35 games ahead of us.
‘Against Liverpool, we didn’t show up on the pitch.
‘We did a lot of wrong and could not keep up with Liverpool. There are days like that, I’d prefer they didn’t happen. But If we do lose, I’d rather lose a 4-0 one than suffer four 1-0 defeats.’
I reckon he does have a point to be fair. If the players come back and put that poor performance behind them and Arsenal improve and start moving back up the table then perhaps we will soon forget the Anfield disaster. Arsenal were very unlucky against Stoke as well but we have also been very slack at the back, with Xhaka himself to blame for goals in all three EPL games.
Is Xhaka right to be a bit more positive than most Arsenal fans about the start to our season?
Bob.