Not the performance we needed… For a team like Arsenal with lofty ambitions for the title, defeating Newcastle United at home is an absolutely necessity. Our injury woes aren’t really an issue seeing that we had pretty much the same team that impressively dispatched Manchester City 2-1, and had a week’s rest after a leisurely 2-0 win at home to Bournemouth.
I’ve seen people citing our mettle in “winning ugly”, but I don’t see it. Winning ugly is scrapping a 1-0 or a 2-1 away to Crystal Palace or Stoke City, not at home to an under confident Newcastle.
Most of the team weren’t at the races. If not for Laurent Koscielny, we’d be lamenting a lackluster and insipid performance, and rightly so. If we don’t comfortably put away one of the worse teams in the league despite having more than the talent to do it, we may not be serious enough.
We slacked and got away with it. Let’s be honest about that, at the very least.
Laurent Koscielny is so reliable… Not in scoring goals of course, but I don’t remember a defender at the club who has been so consistent since Bacary Sagna. The only genuine error I remember him making this season was when his forward foray left Kevin de Bruyne through on-goal. Even that forward foray was borne out of a genuine need to snap the ball higher up the pitch, and keep things ticking for us.
Aside from his consistently immaculate defending, it’s not hard to notice how often his goals arrive when we really seem to need it. He scored in most of the Totteringham Days, the FA Cup Final, and a header against Palace last opening day, when we weren’t looking up for it.
Koscielny has developed the terrific trait every manager loves – dependability.
The same cannot be said of Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey… The thing that makes good players great is a knack for reproducing their undoubted talent time and time again. It’s why Jack Wilshere has failed to convince everyone, it’s why Olivier Giroud divided opinions in his first season, and it’s why Petr Čech, Koscielny, Nacho Monreal, Mesut Özil and Giroud are our key lieutenants.
Lack of consistency is why Walcott and Ramsey have failed to grip the appreciations of all Gooners by the throat. Walcott was largely anonymous in the game even though he made some darting runs, and Ramsey killed a lot of moves by passing in the wrong areas, ruining chances after being positionally aware to be part of them.
There is no doubt Walcott and Ramsey are hugely talented individuals, but we haven’t really seen more than flashes from them. Around 2013 and 2014 we thought we saw the Britishers finally coming of age, but a year later that seems to be a mirage. If the both of them (and the Ox too, but he’s relatively newer) want to establish themselves as properties in this team, they better
Complacency is not an option… It is true that most of our competitors are flawed, but well – so are we. We’ve been offered the clearest possible path to victory, but there yet remain obstacles to overcome, enemies to dodge. Manchester’s City and United grinded out wins when results looked like swinging our way, but Leicester and Tottenham slipped further to narrow the number of competitors.
The fixtures to follow signal trouble. After a relatively straightforward FA Cup tie to Sunderland, we should have crocked players getting fit and helping out, but on the whole, it seems really difficult to get any substantial points from them. If we win XXX of the eight to follow and remain in contention, we could find ourselves a nice ledge to propel ourselves forward when the end segment arrives.
What we have to do from now on is winning ugly – not a scrappy home win against a starkly inferior side. We must brace ourselves for the deathrun that is to follow, because there are huge chances we will exit it looking like a broken team. However, if we convince ourselves that it’s part of the plan (or make a plan, for the next set of fixtures look monumental), we should spring back from the possible setback and finish the job everyone expects us to.
P.S. Apologies for the late post. Wi-Fi failed me.
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
Comentarios