I don’t think it is too harsh on Arsenal and Arsene Wenger to say that the win away to Sunderland was a bit on the lucky side. The Gunners did score twice and keep a rare clean sheet, but that was mostly down to the poor performance of the home side rather than any real quality on our part.
Wenger’s team selection and tactics were, for me, a little negative and suggested that the manager and the players are fairly low on confidence. With Sunderland having been handed a proper pasting at Southampton, a confident Gunners team would have ripped into them straight away and would probably have put the game to bed by halftime.
As it was, Arsenal had plenty of possession but very little penetration and we were only ahead at the break thanks to a shocking mistake by Wes Brown. Alexis Sanchez took full advantage and finished well, giving former Gunner Vito Mannone no chance, but even then we failed to really capitalise and push on.
The referee was fussy and I thought that we coul;d finish the game with 10 men and we also gave Sunderland plenty of encouragement to push for an equaliser, especially as the Arsenal players, with Cazorla most culpable, spurning good chances to finish the game off.
Alexis finally did grab a second but it was another defensive error from Mannone rather than quality play from us that gave the Cilean the chance. But at the end of the day it is two wins in a row and the confidence and performances should grow accordingly.