It remains to be seen whether Arsenal can continue on from where we started in Barcelona and then today against Everton at Goodison Park, because we have had some false dawns already this season only for the Gunners to falter again. However, the improving injury situation and the fact that we only have Premier League games to worry about now should mean that Arsene Wenger can select his best team without worries about fitness or fatigue.
It will be very interesting to see what happens once we return from the international break and whether the boss continues with the players that have performed so well for us this week. After the win at Everton the Frenchman spoke about the great balance between the creative and technical side of things and the solid and organisational aspects that the Gunners had showed, as reported by the Arsenal website.
He said, “I believe we have a game based on movement and mobility at a technical level with attacking football. We have to balance that right and sometimes it is not always right. Let’s not forget that some players have been out for the whole season so players like Danny Welbeck are just coming back and has not played. Iwobi is just coming into the team. Mohamed Elneny [as well], we brought him in January and he has settled very quickly.
“They have given us a very good balance in the way we want to play football. In England, it is very hard to give a fair assessment of the performance because when you lose, you are disastrous. We have not been as bad as people have said, but I agree that you either win or lose in sport. Let’s go on and push forward until the end of the season. We are today with our backs to the walls and we responded well. I’m pleased that we responded under pressure [after] the character of my players was questioned. If we didn’t win today, we knew that we were out of it [the title race] so it was a mental test for the side.”
I do think that Wenger has found a great balance for the team now but I worry that he may have found it too late to save the season and beat Leicester to the title. Wenger himself is refusing to rule it out even though he admitted it would have been all over had we lost today.
He continued, “I would not consider us out. Mathematically, we have a chance. We also have a game in hand at home. We are not flavour of the week, but if we don’t believe, no one will do it for us. Even if the environment is sceptical, we have to do our best in every single game. We have to be humble and fight in every game like we did today. Then we never know. We need some performances on our side, so let’s focus on that, but some good results from other sides, we cannot help that.”
After the Foxes made it four 1-0 wins from the last five games, though, we are running out of time fast and if someone does not put the brakes on soon there will be nothing Arsenal can do. Next up for them are Southampton and they still have games against Sunderland, West Ham, Swansea, Man United, Everton and Chelsea to get through, so how much chance do you give the new balanced Arsenal team of catching them?