Both of these two Arsenal stars have played their part in getting the Gunners back on track after a disappointing start to the season, in terms of the Premier League at least as we lost to Liverpool at home before drawing away to Leicester City.
They may be operating at different ends of the pitch but the England forward Theo Walcott and the Germany defender Shkodran Mustafi have been arguably just as important to the Gunners being able to win all six EPL games since that slow start, so both are entitled to their opinion about Arsenal and the current season.
Just like their different roles in the team, Mustafi and Walcott have very different approaches to our title challenge, or at least how it should be looked at. The striker is reported by Sky Sports talking up our chances of being able to win the Premier League this time because of the ability to grind out results shown in the last two wins over Burnley and Swansea.
He said, “The Burnley game, they were very well organised and we found it very difficult.
“But we all stuck in, showed patience and, in time we got the win, which was really important.
“Again against Swansea, we had to be diligent, be patient at times, but we still got the win even if it would have been nice to take the ball home on a personal note.
“The Burnley match was a game where we had to grind it out. This game, when we went down to 10 men, we tend to lose, to be honest. There’s some things that are slowly getting better.”
Arsenal’s next two Premier League matches are against Middlesbrough and Sunderland but Walcott is not getting carried away.
“I don’t look at the table. I genuinely don’t.
“I feel all we can do is control ourselves and not really hope that other teams get results on our behalf. If we play well we win games and that’s all we can do.
“We’ve been in this situation [contending at the top of the table] before. There’s always some sort of blip but hopefully we’re not going to have that this year.
“With the squad we have, if we keep players fit, with players coming back, then who knows?
“You can’t really call the Premier League this year. It’s so unpredictable.”
I know that Theo is not saying that Arsenal are going to win it but he is talking up our chances, whereas the centre back instantly shut down any talk of the title at this early stage of the season when he was asked about it this weekend, as shown in an Arsenal.com report.
Mustafi said, “I think there’s no point in thinking to far ahead. We just need to think day after day and game after game. We’re going to have a tough game on Wednesday as well, so we have to be prepared for that game. Sometimes when you think too far in the future, you forget about the present and then you lose points. That’s what we don’t want to do.”
Personally I think the German has thr right attitude and the players should not even be thinking so far ahead but just getting on with one game at a time. Do you agree?
Bob.