Will Arsenal’s away form hamper the season?

Arsenal secured the three points yesterday with a 5-2 win over Everton, lifting our side back into fifth place in the Premier League table.

Our league position is flattering considering the victory at Goodison Park was only our first away win of the campaign after five attempts, and that kind of record will stop us from earning a place in the top four should we fail to put it to bed.

We had only mustered up one goal in our previous four Premier League away days this term, and you would hope that the hoodoo was now over, although with the Etihad next on our schedule it will be tough to immediately build on that win.

Aaron Ramsey has called for our side to strengthen the home form this season, but he couldn’t help but highlight the importance of the win over the Merseyside club yesterday.

‘We need to make the Emirates a fortress,’ Wales international Ramsey said.

‘We’ve won every game there so far this season.

‘Hopefully we can continue that and pick up more away wins as well and I’m sure we will go right to the end.’

On Arsenal’s fine performance on Merseyside, Ramsey added: ‘We needed that, like you said it was our first away win of the season, we scored a few goals as well.

‘Even though they’re not on the best run at the moment, it was always going to be quite a dangerous game because they needed a performance as well.

‘It was important for us to match them from the beginning and we did that – full credit to the guys, we deserved that in the end.’

 

Does our away form look like it could be a long-term problem? Do we need to go to the Etihad with confidence?

Pat J

8 Comments

  1. Definitely. Unlike last season, the 3-4-2-1 formation does not help the away performance.

    But yesterday Arsenal played differently. The players tried hard to keep passing the ball to the front and did not afraid to lose the ball at all.

    They have to be brave like this if they want to press Manchester City in Etihad, otherwise Manchester City would have more time to build their attack up. Manchester City players are braver in playing forward passes and through balls (premierleague.com/stats/top/players, the Through Balls list) than Arsenal players, so Arsenal should threaten them in their own area before they could bombard us.

    1. We’ll need to make it a scrappy game, if we try to play ball up there they will love that. Our counters will need to be good, like when we won with Cazorla that time. Or in the cup last season. Stop the main threat and win as many 50/50s as we can, and don’t be afraid to kill the games rhythm like what we done at the bridge. We’ve been holding our own against city lately so I might be doing us an injustice, but this looks a different city, they look hungry and super confident. Lets hope we can knock the wind out of their sails.

  2. We got Ozil and Sanchez comeback, that’s big different in this away game. Playing as contract rebel, both scored goals for change. A bit confuse to me, this 3-4-2-1 formation make us looked sharper and fragile at the same time. I like more of the old fashion stable one with back four. Arsene should make variation of formation depend on the opponent. We’ve seen Liverpool exposed this formation before. Beside Kolasinac and Bellerin, I don’t think we’ve equal sub quality at the bench. The defensive stability of this formation depend on the tracking back flankers, because it seems so difficult to control and keep possession in the middle.

  3. It will hamper us all season. We’re already 9 points off the top, and we’ve only played 9 games! If City beat us, then it’s 12 after only 10 games!! In terms of who is available each game, we’re almost into November, and Wenger STILL hasn’t picked his strongest starting XI! Xhaka, and Ramsey, need to be replaced by Elneny, Coquelin, or Wilshere.

    1. Well , certainly Xhaka should be replaced and permanently at the club too. But we have no real proper mobile, tough CDM at the club and have not since Gilberto left, which is a disgrace by Wenger. This alone if ever (as if !) properly replaced by Wenger -or preferably his successor and very soon – would make a huge difference to our side. It has , disgracefully, been a massive hole for best part of a decade now. But on current form, Ramsey deserves to stay in the side.

  4. Ive seen Alexis give out to Ramsey and Ive seen Ramsey doing the same thing back to him. Xhaka, how is he not getting a rollicking from his teammates. If we hadn’t of gotten that equalizer before half time it could have been a costly mistake. He is killing us this season, he’s almost single handedly making things twice the difficulty for us. Even in a match when it doesn’t amount to a goal against, it instills the jitters and gets the other teams tail up if they can smell blood.

    1. Well said and if I can take your correct argument to it’s logical extension, then its a new club for Xhaka. He has been simply a rank bad buy, too slow, one paced, slow to sense danger, careless in possession, which a hard shot alone does not compensate for. Frankly we need better. Much better in his position !

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