Arsenal won their fourth game in a row against Stoke yesterday, and to be honest with the amount of chances the Gunners created it could just as easily have been 6-0 instead of 3-0. Many pundits said that Arsenal were ‘flattered’ by the scoreline, considering it was still 0-0 with 15 minutes to go, but the fact is that we always had the upper hand, and if i hadn’t been for Jack Butland and a few lucky blocks we could easily have won by a cricket score.
Okay Stoke had a few chances in the first half but they were few and far between. Even Arsene Wenger felt that we had a bad first half. “First of all, Stoke played well.” the Boss said. “Secondly, we didn’t play well in the first half at all. We lacked urgency, pace, drive. In the second half, we rectified that. As much as I felt that in the first half we could lose this game, in the second half I always felt we would win this game. That’s the difference in attitude of the team. Overall that explains why it was 0-0 at half-time and 3-0 after the game.”
I personally never felt that Arsenal were in danger and were always going to win the game comfortably, and the stats also bear that out. We had a massive 70% possession and had 24 shots on the Stoke goal, with 11 of them on target, whereas Stoke had only 2 on target out of their 8 attempts. Those figures don’t make it look like Arsenal were flattered at all!
I really don’t understand why so many Arsenal fans always try to look at things negatively. We won 3-0 against one of our most hated enemies with complete dominance, and our confidence is growing with 4 wins in a row, and a 5th to come on Thursday against CSKA Moscow.
Let’s be happy with a good win for a change!
Sam P