Arsenal Beat Burnley To Stay Third

A win is a win and the three points Arsenal got at Burnley yesterday were very welcome. It was their fifth consecutive league win and it moved them within two points of the league leaders after City lost to Spurs. They have bounced back after losing their opening game and a return of 16 points from seven games so far this season is more than acceptable.

Arsene Wenger went with the expected team and the game went pretty much as expected too with Burnley proving hard to break down. For all intents and purposes the game was heading for a scoreless draw after a leggy Arsenal team never really managed to open Burnley up. The boss admitted afterwards that the players were a bit tired after their exertions against Chelsea and Basel in the last week. 

If the players were so tired maybe it might have made sense to have made a few changes to the team. He has gone with a more or less unchanged side during this recent run of wins which is no bad thing, but maybe some of the other players need a run out too. Luckily it just about managed to work out in the end, but it is a little dangerous not to rotate the squad on occasions.

It might have been good to see how Lucas Perez fitted in to a more or less full strength team or perhaps Mohammed Elneny or Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain could have played from the start rather than coming off the bench. If Aaron Ramsey and Francis Coquelin weren't injured they probably would have played I suppose. The game was probably suited to playing Olivier Giroud, but it looks like we'll have to wait a little longer before we get to see him play much this season.

Chances were few and far between and Burnley probably came as close to scoring as Arsenal during the game. The manner of Arsenal's winning goal must have been a bitter pill for Burnley to swallow, but it was so uplifting from an Arsenal one. Laurent Koscielny wasn't offside I think, but the ball most certainly hit his hand before going into the net. I don't think there was any intent on his part, but any referee would probably have disallowed the goal if he had seen the handball.

We go into the international break on the back of five consecutive league wins though and the importance of keeping that run going is hard to overstate. Arsenal have suffered from a lack of belief far too often, but the longer they can keep winning the better it has to be for their confidence. By the time they play again all that will be remembered is the five game winning streak and the manner of the win over Burnley will be a thing of the past.

It takes a lot of different things to win the league and one of them most certainly is luck. Arsenal most definitely used up a large slice of their luck for the season against Burnley and they might need to rely on other qualities if they're going to keep their challenge going. I'll gladly take the three points though and look forward to some much tougher challenges they have coming their way this season.

That's it for this week.

See you next week.