Arsenal only won 1-0 against Swansea. You wouldn’t say Arsenal only got three points against Swansea though, would you?
‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’, that much is true, teams aren’t built over a two week period and a handful of training sessions either. That is what this Arsenal team is, it a new team with a modified style and approach – mentally, it is a new team too. Whilst it is obvious that a lot of creativity has been lost through departures this summer, and can never be directly replaced, that loss can be countered with a stronger mental approach, a slightly more physical and pacy style of play whilst still retaining the slick passing and movement with a very high level of technical ability that is the fulcrum of the modern Arsenal playing style.
Mikel Arteta brings superb close control to our midfield, a vast range of passing and a lot of hard work. He has quality, and more importantly qualities that fit into our midfield perfectly. This current team is far from being at full strength too, Alex Song is hardly the finest holding midfielder in the world but his presence is missed, as is Vermaelen’s.
It may just be worth being patient with this side, a different type of patience to what we have given over the previous six years, we weren’t rebuilding on this scale at that point in time, the circumstances are different and the club is probably in a worse place than it has been in well over a decade. 1-0 to Arsenal was a scoreline we sang songs about in the not to distant past – I don’t see anything wrong with a 1-0 victory; a win is a win. We haven’t seen many of them this year.
Don’t ask for too much too soon; those who expected us to spank Swansea obviously didn’t think of the previous game, the current situation and the fact that most of the team hadn’t even trained together as a group until the tail end of last week. The team will get better, the results will follow and Arsenal will be a force once again.
Arsenal have taken the first steps to recovery, the road will be a bumpy one – of that there is no doubt – the next test is in Germany against Dortmund, a massive test but one we can come through. Another win will do us the world of good.
Come on Arsenal.
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Agreed.
Results are the most important thing when confidence needs to be recovered. We are not playing at our fluent best, the result is absolutely key.
How many times have we left the ground wondering how we didn’t win the game having squandered opportunities and posession galore?
I personally love the feeling of 3 points more than anything and long may it continue.
We are at least beginning to build a side that has hard work and desire as well as the skill and flair. Too often in past years we just haven’t forced a result like we did saturday and stuck it out to get the points.
No side is going to limit the opposition to zero chances on goal so we have to be on our game defensively and also take our fair share of luck.
There are fine lines to winning and losing. The game at home to Liverpool typifies this. Even with 10 men it looked like a draw until a moment of bad luck and an OG gave them a goal we were never going to equal.
We are almost accepting that we can not win the league, and that is a realistic notion. However I would be surprised if we fell from the top 4. The domestic cups are a lottery but like last year I’d prefer to see strong sides in them to give us another trophy to chase and more realistically win compared to the others.
At last a genuine Arsenal site….Just wait until we get all our squad back and Arsene adds 2/3 stars in Januray ( Cahill, Hazard & Goetze ) with them I expect us to (*A) win the lot and (B) Us win the lot. Job done.