I am not sure that I understand why the Arsenal players would have been a bit jaded for the big Premier League match at Manchester United this weekend, even though a fair few of them had been involved for their national teams over the international break.
Some like Francis Coquelin and Mesut Ozil were not involved at all and the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Granit Xhaka and Mohamed Elneny only had one international game to cope with. Even the players like Koscielny, Monreal, Mustafi, Giroud and Walcott whose countries had two games did not play the whole of both of them.
So considering that the Gunners often have two games a week to cope with you would think that the international break would have actually been good for their fitness and energy levels, but it did not look that way and Arsene Wenger admitted that we looked a bit off the pace.
He did, however, seem confident that the problem would not last and as reported by Sky Sports he was quick to assure the concerned Arsenal fans that his team would be back to normal for the midweek visit of PSG in the Champions League.
The Frenchman said, “We had a good response and once again the players that came on made a massive difference.
“Chamberlain and Giroud were involved in the goal and it was great goal, just before the end.
“When you are 1-0 down and you come back to 1-1 it feels like a victory, you are happy. We lacked a bit of sharpness, what it is down to, I don’t know.
“Last year we would have lost this game, maybe, and today we didn’t so we have improved on that front.
“Hopefully we can move on with some wins, we have a big game on Wednesday against Paris Saint-Germain and that will be the same intensity.
“I am convinced that we will be better on Wednesday.”
We had better be Arsenal. Do you buy this lack of sharpness comment from him? The fact that Ozil was arguably the player most off his usual pace does suggest that he is probably better off playing two games a week for Arsenal, so will the German be on the ball again from now on? Do you expect a better Arsenal against PSG?
Bob.