Title race

25th October 2015: Thoughts on our title challenge + Ox’s flummoxing form

Posted on by TremendArse

Sunday salutations fellow top-of-the-leaguers. Yes, I know we’re now ‘officially second’, after Manchester United and Manchester City today played out the most mundane, nil-nil draw featuring two ‘big’ teams you could ever be unfortunate enough to sit through, but we’re level on points with City at the summit, and at this stage of the season, goal difference can go swivel. We’re joint top in my eyes.

As I subtly suggest above, the Manc derby this afternoon was manky, so much so, that it will have left researchers into the theory of nominative determinism very excited indeed. For all the billions spent building their squad, City without Sergio Aguero and David Silva are a bit sh*t, and United, well, let’s just say Anthony Martial is the only outfield player I’m slightly jealous they can call their own.

With Chelsea doing their best to break the record for the worst title defence in history, and their special manager Jose Mourinho seemingly incapable of arresting their decline, plus the fact City and United look far from frightening at the moment, it’s really hard not to start wondering whether this could finally, at long, long last, after years of shedding star players and suffering through the Marouane Chamakh years, be the season we’re crowned champions of England once again.

As always, time will tell but after losing our opening league game of the season at home to West Ham and then dropping another two points in our next game at Emirates stadium against Liverpool, we really couldn’t have done much better than we have in the first quarter of the league campaign. In fact, after taking just four points from the first nine available, we’ve won six of our last seven Premier League games now, with a Mike Dean-inspired win for Chelsea at Stamford Bridge the only blot on our copybook.

And looking ahead at our next six fixtures in the league; Swansea (a), Tottenham (h), West Brom (a), Norwich (a), Sunderland (h) and Aston Villa (a), it’s not inconceivable we take maximum points before we host title rivals City four days before Christmas.

A lot will depend on keeping our core of regular starters fit between now and then but if we can do that, and then welcome back the likes of Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere and Tomas Rosicky just after the festive period, perhaps even strengthening the squad with a Gabriel-like quality signing in the winter window, we’d be superbly positioned for the last five months of the season.

If you were to ask Arsene right now about such a scenario unfolding, he’d no doubt politely inform you he was only looking as far ahead as Wednesday’s game against Wednesday, but deep down, I bet he’s slowly getting reacquainted with that magical old feeling of being genuine competitors for the crown.

But to break from the day-dream for a minute, one player I feel who really has to improve on his performances so far this season if we’re to keep our current run of wins going, is the bewilderingly bereft-of-form Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, especially now that Aaron Ramsey has been ruled out for a number of weeks with a hamstring tear.

On the eve of the season, if I had to pick one player to have a good season based purely on pre-season performances, it would have been the Ox and he duly spanked home our winner against Chelsea at Wembley to win us our second Community Shield in succession.

Yet, barring a lively first half on the opening weekend against the Hammers and some decent moments at White Hart Lane in the Capital One Cup, he’s been very, very poor in my opinion.

His lack of form is obviously playing on his mind too, because Arsene recently spoke about the Ox needing to trust in his own ability more and not be too self-critical, yet when he was subbed off against Everton yesterday after another pretty ineffectual display, he was shaking his head and his disappointment at his personal display was obvious for all to see.

My hope is that an extended run in the starting-line-up with Ramsey injured will help him to rediscover his mojo, and I think the boss may offer him the same advice Ramsey revealed he’d received during his own struggles for form in previous seasons – simplify your game, take the easy option more often and stop trying to force things.

Perhaps then we’ll start to see the Oxlade-Chamberlain who looked so impressive during the close season and Ramsey will return from injury facing a real battle on his hands to win back his place.

See you next week.

7th August 2015: Fighting talk from Wenger on Premier League eve

Posted on by TremendArse

Here we are then. On the starting grid again and the lights are amber. Engines are revving, clutches are biting and one racer, our racer, says he’s ready for the battles that beckon on what will inevitably be a treacherous track to the Premier League title.

The season begins in earnest tomorrow and although we’ll have to wait until Sunday to see Arsenal in action when we entertain West Ham United, we did get some words from a bullish Arsene Wenger to help keep us occupied following his pre match press conference today:

I’m ready for a fight and of course motivated to start well. One of our targets is to start strong. We had a good preparation and that should give us the needed confidence. The Premier League is a fight in every single game so we have to prepare ourselves mentally for that and come out of the blocks straight away against West Ham.

From an Arsenal perspective, it’s the season of great expectations. The squad appears, on paper at least, our best equipped to become domestic champions in a number of years, and also talented and deep enough to provide a realistic challenge to the continent’s best, for what would be the club’s first-ever Champions League crown.

But rather than being intimidated by such a a huge wave of optimistic anticipation, Arsene says he much prefers the current challenge of being declared genuine contenders, to being dismissed as potential champions before a ball has even been kicked, as his side so often were in pre-seasons past:

Yes of course [there is expectation], but we enjoy that. Before we suffered sometimes from the fact that at the start of the season, nobody considered us at all because we lost our best players. That period is over now so we are happy to be under this kind of pressure.

Having ended last season in third place in the table and as FA Cup winners, to many, progress and success would no doubt be winning one of the big two trophies. Yet we won’t be the only club with those lofty ambitions and the reality is a maximum of two teams can win them. So what does the manager think would constitute a ‘successful’ campaign in his opinion?

For me, success is to get the maximum out of the potential of the team. That is the real success. We also want to do better than last season because we always want to move forward. That means that the target is quite high. We won the FA Cup last year and we finished third in the Premier League so our target is very high. Our ambition is to win the Premier League but we have to sustain that by performance and fighting spirit in every single game.

Besides getting his players to perform at the peak of their powers, we’ll also require a little more luck on the injury front and avoid the kind of long-term absences we suffered to the likes of Mesut Ozil, Laurent Koscielny and Olivier Giroud in the first half of last season.

Which is a point the manager made himself today, highlighting the fact that we were actually the league’s best performing side, points-wise, over the last 26 league fixtures of the previous campaign.

The boss then reiterated the need for a flying start and expressed his belief that his current set of players are good enough to win the league without further signings, saying:

Let’s start strong this season… I believe we have the needed ingredients. But we have a tricky start as well because we have two derbies and Liverpool in the first three games, so we have a difficult schedule from the start. We need to maintain our game. hat’s important as well – that we develop what we do well and do not stand still. That means we develop our cohesion, our passing game. If we are capable to keep the cohesion and the solidarity we have at the moment through the 38 games, we have a good chance.

Yet in typical Arsene fashion, he didn’t rule out new arrivals if the right opportunities arise:

But we do not rule it out if something exceptional comes up to do it. I’m very happy with the squad I have but we always look to strengthen and if that turns up, we will still strengthen.

He also kind of dismissed the Karim Benzema stories by labeling them ‘just media talk’, but I wouldn’t expect anything else from the boss really. All that tells us is no deal has been reached but doesn’t rule out the possibility of negotiations behind the scenes. That’s what I’m clinging to anyway.

There was also more from the boss on various other, stuff from rule changes to Alexis Sanchez and team news too but I’ll look at some of that tomorrow and also pick what I think will be our starting eleven on Sunday.

But finally for today, the club have confirmed Serge Gnabry has signed a season-long loan deal at West Brom, so best of luck to the young German at The Hawthorns. Hopefully he can earn a regular starting spot and help the Baggies take points from all our title rivals this term.

And by my estimation, with several loan deals now tied up for an array of our young stars, only Joel Campbell and Wellington Silva remain as peripheral players in the first-team squad.

Whilst the former has been strongly linked with Palermo in recent days and is still on extended holidays after playing for Costa Rica over the summer, the Brazilian is reportedly on a specially designed fitness regime at London Colney and I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see him stay with the club having spent the last 14 seasons on loan in Spain securing a passport. Another loan would just be cruel Arsene…

Til Saturday.