Arsenal gave up a three point gap over Tottenham on Saturday, and face an anxious fight to finish third. Supporter Steven Altman outlines his worries about the club’s final seven games.
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than seeing the Gunners take third place in the Premiership in a few weeks time, leading to an automatic qualification to the Champions League next season.
However, with seven games remaining, and Spurs, Chelsea and arguably Newcastle also on their heels, Arsenal have once again stumbled in the race for a Champions League place.
They tend to lose games that look winnable on paper, and even the manager could not come up with an excuse this time.
The Arsenal Captain is optimistic about ‘bouncing back’ against Manchester City on Sunday, and the Manager says that his side must “go back to basics” but I am not sure that I know what that means.
Despite some flashes of brilliance from Walcott and Van Persie, together with a less flash of brilliance from the usually excellent Vermaelen, the team gave a disjointed performance as a whole which, at this stage of the season, is incomprehensible.
The ‘basics’ that the manager speaks about should automatically already be there, and the team should, especially now with the winning post on the horizon, be playing like a well-oiled machine.
A newspaper said it best. ‘The quest for survival was stronger than the quest for advancement.’
And it’s all very well saying that there will be a resurgence, however the next game which is thankfully at the Emirates ( a real advantage when you see the stats), is against a team who has won an overall 71 per cent of their games, with home wins at 94 per cent and away wins at 47 per cent.
But it’s their goal difference of 50+ which is jaw-dropping, and it is a statistic that Arsenal must heed. With a staggering 75 goals scored, and therefore only 25 conceded, the Arsenal defense will have a busy afternoon and that is my problem: I just cannot see the City attack being kept out.
Arsenal has conceded 41 goals this season, having scored a respectable 62. This tells me that the problem is not in the scoring (although many of those goals have been scored by just one player) but in the defending.
This might be stating the obvious, but it is a fact. On the one hand, Arsenal needs to outstrip their opponents so the desire to go forward and score is always there, but on the other, the desire to defend has to be equally as strong.
Will they get the balance right on Sunday and in the remaining six games? I hope they will, but the little doubt at the back of my mind is back, and I just can’t seem to shake it…I hope the tank is not running dry.
image: © crystian cruz
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