Arsene Wenger has had since Tuesday night to pick up his Arsenal players after they went a fourth Premier League match without a win and three in a row without scoring a goal, so I can understand why the manager would want to instill some confidence in his squad and try to regain some belief that the Gunners are still right in the title race.
And he did the same thing with the Arsenal fans and football media in the pre/match press conference today, reported by the Arsenal website. The Frenchman was very clam, despite admitting that we have been on a ver poor run of results. He pointed out that in the is topsy-turvy season there have already been quite a few twists and turns and so there is no reason to believe that there will not be any more between now and May.
With Arsenal just five points behind the league leaders and with Leicester facing us as well as Man City this month, Wenger insisted that a few good results would see Arsenal right back in the thick of things and he clearly expects the clubs around us to have slip ups of their own.
He said, “We are in a position where we have to come back first – to win games – which we haven’t been doing recently. We have to look at the facts as they are. We haven’t won in four games.
“We want to get back to winning and then look at the results of the others. Look at yourself and get back to what you want to do, and to do that you have to win your next game.
“You look at the table and you can say as many as five or six [can win it]. It makes it interesting – even if we would love it to be a bit less interesting but it is the case and we have to deal with that.
“Every season is special and we have gone through a bad patch but to fight for the Premier League, you have to be capable of dealing with that.”
Is he right to suggest that Arsenal getting back to winning ways will be enough? If you look back over the season you will see that Man City have already faltered a few times after looking favourites. They won their first five EPL games and looked unstoppable before losing two of the next three. And the months of November and December were pretty poor with four points from nine and then seven from 15.
Our other main rivals Leicester and Tottenham have also dropped points they should not have and it is fair to say that no side has really taken control of the title race for long, so is Wenger right to brush off the growing concern of the Arsenal faithful?