Against Man United last night, it was yet another of those games were Arsenal get loads of possession, but sloppy defensive lapses gift the whole three points to their opponents. Arsene Wenger, though, was pleased with the performance,if not the result.
“It’s a game that we dominated for 80 per cent of the time and we haven’t dominated a game like that against Manchester United for a long time.” Wenger said after the game on Arsenal.com.
“At the end of the day we were not efficient enough in the final third, defensively, and we made a mistake at the back which they took advantage of. That’s the story of the game. We had plenty of chances. Their keeper is man of the match. That tells you the story of the game.”
“We missed a few opportunities in the second half, even in the final 20 minutes. You have to be efficient in top-level games and we were not efficient enough in our good periods, but there were a lot of positives in the game today.
“Even if we are very, very disappointed, we have to keep that and rectify. At the moment defensively we are a bit naive.”
Wenger was then asked if there was a reason why this season Arsenal have simply failed to turn domination into easy points, Wenger said: “How you stop that is to be more efficient. That will be linked with confidence and the fact that we have to be a bit more calm and patient.
“At the moment we are after success and there’s a discordance with our possession, our chances we create and our result. It’s very difficult but we have to keep faith in what we do.”
So Arsenal have still only won once in the last 15 games against Man United. Yet again Wenger has failed to win against one of the Big Teams. United now move into the Top Four – and Arsenal slide down to 8th, albeit just two points behind Van Gaal’s but cananyone really see us getting our act together any time this season?