Arsenal made very hard work of beating Sunderland yesterday and the relief of scoring the second goal to secure the points didn’t arrive until the 93rd minute due to another defensive error from the woeful Sunderland side that were beaten 8-0 in the preceding week.
Arsene Wenger must have been very relieved himself and was just happy to get the three points in the bag. After the game he was asked on Arsenal.com if he was pleased with Arsenal’s far-from-fluent performance: “Yeah of course.” he replied. “We had a different game on Wednesday. Sunderland had a big defeat last week and before the game what we wanted was the three points and we got them.
“I believe we were quite in control as long as we could score the second goal. Of course you can concede a goal and drop points but we didn’t do it today – we were focused, maybe we missed some opportunities in the final third and the final ball. Overall we are very happy to get the three points. We won at Anderlecht, we won here today, two and a half days later and that’s never easy.”
The Gunners may have won two games in a row, but they have been far from easy wins over inferior opponents, which is what the fans expected at the beginning of this week and questions are now being asked about the lack of commitment from everyone in the side except for newboy Alexis Sanchez. The Chilean pounced on both Sunderland errors to score our two goals, and Wenger was happy to praise his efforts. “He took advantage of the mistakes they made but he’s also got a super quality – he’s quickly on your feet which is why he wins many balls that normal players don’t. He’s very quick in transition from offence to defence and wins the ball back very quickly. We can take advantage of that.”
But without Sanchez’s poaching skills we have to wonder if we would have managed to score at all, but the fans can console themselves that we are in fifth place in the League with another winnable (??) home game against Burnley next week.
Surely the team will have to start playing well soon?