Arsenal’s loss to Sheffield United in the Premier League earlier in the season is one of the reasons why the club went on a poor run of form.
The Gunners were doing very well at the start of the season before Unai Emery took his team to Bramall Lane.
Arsenal was beaten by a solitary goal, but it seemed to have affected them greatly with the team embarking on a seven domestic-game winless run.
Both teams will meet again in the FA Cup when the season resumes and the stakes are high with both sides chasing a European spot and Mikel Arteta very keen to win something with Arsenal.
Sheffield United’s Oliver Norwood, however, fancies his side’s chances of beating the Gunners again.
He claimed that they did well in their first game against Arsenal at Bramall Lane, before adding that Arsenal might have a problem returning to their ground having been beaten by them there already this season.
“The season we are having, there is something achievable for us,” he said as quoted by Examiner Live.
“I fancy us, we have already beaten Arsenal at home this season, we played really well that night and deserved to win the game and maybe they won’t be looking forward to coming back up here having known what it was like the first time.
“You don’t know what teams and players are going to be like until it starts and what people’s mentalities are going to be, but from our point of view we have got to be ready to go and hit the ground running.
“It could be a special season, that’s the carrot that’s being dangled at the end of it.
“How much do you want to progress this season? Never in our wildest dreams did we expect to be up challenging for Europe, but we are and we deserve to be.
“We are not just going to let all the hard work from the past 10 months slip away now because we have had a break of 10 or 11 weeks.
“We will be raring to go once we restart.”
I hope that Arteta pins these comments to the dressing room wall as a form of motivation. Norwood is entitled to express his opinion, especially considering the Blades did beat us but sometimes arrogance has a way of biting you on the backside.
Let’s not forget that game was Emery was manager. And Sheff Utd were playing for free kicks and corners as they were not good enough to score against us even with THAT Defence.
Gave the game away at the Emirates against them but to be fair we were finding our feet under Arteta at the time.
Not only do I see a clear win up there, I also predict Sheffield Utd will be proven as one hit wonders and will struggle next season.
And another thing- who is Oliver Norwood