A sunny spring afternoon, half a dozen games remaining, Arsenal hitting top form, sounds familiar, right? Since exiting the FA Cup, the UEFA Champions League and faltering in the race for Premier League title, the Gunners have looked like a completely different side, full of confidence and swagger. But yet again it has the same old feeling for Arsenal fans, why couldn’t they do this when it really mattered? The last two performances, a 2-0 away win at Everton and the 4-0 demolition of Watford on Saturday, were arguably the two stand out performances this year. It seems to happen every season, the pressure is off and we see a different Arsenal.
The emergence of Alex Iwobi has been one of the highlights of the season for Arsenal, as his hunger and potential has been evidently proved by netting two goals in his first two Premier League starts. His link up play with Danny Welbeck has been exceptional at times, and the likes of Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Olivier Giroud have a real fight to get back into the team.
There is still the most outside chance that Arsenal can still win the title, but with Leicester’s lead being so big at the top, the Gunners would, in reality, need to win every game to stand any chance at all and hope Leicester stumble in the process. Though it would be typical Arsenal if they did go on another ‘end of the season’ run where they won the rest of their games and just fell short of the title.
Remaining games:
Sat 9th April – West Ham (A)
Sun 17th April – Crystal Palace (H)
Thurs 21st April – West Brom (H)
Sun 24th April – Sunderland (A)
Sat 30th April – Norwich (H)
Sat 7th May – Manchester City (A)
Sun 15th May – Aston Villa (H)
The Gunners could have their work cut out away against West Ham and Manchester City, but the rest of the games look fairly comfortable on paper. Though come May, if the Premier League title is elsewhere, then Arsenal will only have themselves to blame for probably blowing their best ever chance to win the league for the first time since 2004.
The midfield partnership of Francis Coquelin and Mohamed Elneny has been another cause for optimism at the Emirates. The Egyptian has been brilliant since signing from Basel in January. His work rate and distribution has been faultless and the Emirates faithful have warmed to him immediately. Arsenal look a lot more solid now in that area of the midfield with Coquelin and Elneny protecting the back four, leading to two clean sheets in the last two games.
There have been so many games over the past few months which have left us scratching our heads as to how we slipped up and missed another great opportunity. Before the Everton and Watford victories, Arsenal had only won three league games since the new year, which has gone on to cost them dearly as the season prevails into its final quarter. And as we see the real Arsenal in the past few weeks, it’s just another matter of too little, too late once again.
Comments.
Loading comments…