With a top four finish this season our main target Arsenal sit in fifth place two points behind fourth placed Chelsea at the halfway stage. On the face of it we’re in a good position to push on and qualify for next season’s Champions League, but our form is very worrying at the moment. We go to league leaders Liverpool today looking to turn that form around and somehow do what no other team has managed so far this season.
We need a win to try to keep pace with those above us and keep ahead of a rejuvenated United who look a real threat now that they have disposed of Jose Mourinho. Liverpool have only conceded seven goals in their 19 games and only two of those goals have been at home. Of course a draw would be a very good result and far from a disaster, but I would be very surprised if both Chelsea and United didn’t win their games.
We started the season with two defeats, but then we couldn’t stop winning games even if the performances weren’t always the best. Since our winning streak needed we have only lost one league game, but we have drawn five out of 10 and those draws are killing us. We probably didn’t deserve to win most of those drawn games though and our current results are mirroring our performances while earlier ones didn’t.
How does the manager get more out of the players he has is the question and it’s hard to see where the answer lies. With Rob Holding our for the season and Hector Bellerin currently injured our defence has a very aged look to it. That isn’t helped by niggling injuries to Nacho Monreal and Sead Kolasinac while it’s difficult to believe Laurent Koscielny has recovered enough to be in the team and he could be a reoccurrence of his injury waiting to happen.
In midfield the situations with both Mesut Ozil and Aaron are very different, but it seems the manager doesn’t trust either of them. You can put Ozil’s almost continued absence down to injuries, but surely the smart money is on lack of faith in him from the manager. The Ramsey situation seems a lot clearer with the player free to sign a pre contract agreement with any continental club from Tuesday and it seems he will be gone at the end of the season. As a result he’s being left out of the team just like Ozil, but it seems our performances are suffering with both of them as good as unavailable.
Added to that we simply have no natural width in the team and we’re becoming too easy to predict and to stop. The solution could be bringing one or two of the younger players like Zech Medley and Bukayo Saka into the defence and out wide, but the manager seems more than reluctant to do so. He needs to find a solution quickly though because our season is on the edge of unraveling and we’ve all seen how the majority of these players have reacted to that scenario in the past.
It’s almost as if we’re watching Arsene Wenger’s tactics at the moment with the team sitting back when we go ahead, but unable to defend a lead. Our strength has to be in attack with the leading goal scorer in the league in Pierre-Emireck Aubameyang, but we just are not playing to our strengths. It’s been a long time since Arsenal had the best striker in the league, even if he does miss his fair share of chances, but we need to push forward and take advantage of having him in our team.
If he has the personnel today I think Unai Emery will play three central defenders and three central midfielders and it’s a system I fail to understand. For a team currently lacking creativity and width it looks like we will forego both of them in the hope of protecting our defence and it’s a tactic which just doesn’t work for me. I would like to see Ramsey given a chance to be the playmaker and it’s a role he’s capable of playing, but I doubt if we will see him there.
I suppose the problem for the manager is he raised expectations with that fantastic unbeaten run and it’s now impossible to lower those expectations. The fans believed a top four finish was obtainable and despite faltering the display against Spurs reinforced that belief, but performances like that have been few and far between in reality. There is still the Europa League and the possibility of Champions League qualification by winning it which cannot be discounted.
Our away form had held up well at the start of the season, but seven points dropped away to Palace, Southampton and Brighton when we were winning two of those games has an awfully familiar ring to it. It was our away results which saw us finish sixth last season with only City taking more points at home and it seems those away results are heading the same way at the moment. We travel to a team unbeaten at home today, who have only conceded two home goals while we haven’t kept a single clean sheet on our travels in the league.
It all makes for a very depressing scenario, but still we have had glimpses of what this team can do at times this season and we have to hope for a similar display today. If he can get his tactics right to frustrate Liverpool and somehow make the chances for Aubameyang then we can get something from the game. I’d be delighted with a draw, but the prospect of Arsenal being the team to insure “the Invincibles” record remains for another season is one I would love to see happen. It’s an unlikely scenario, but hope springs eternal and that’s what being a fan is all about.
That’s it for today.
See you tomorrow.
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