When Mesut Ozil fooled half of Bulgaria and concluded a complex piece of individual inspiration with a simple stroke of the ball, no one could have silenced the vociferous roars of the Arsenal faithful anytime soon. Most of those cheers were awe-inspired; this was probably Ozil’s best goal in an Arsenal shirt, and quite honestly, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. But in addition to that, it might also be fair play to suggest that some of those cheers – particularly the ones following the final whistle – were down to a sense of massively getting out of jail.
In many ways, Arsenal’s 3-2 victory over Ludogorets last Wednesday was symptomatic of the club’s recent result/performance compatibility. A hugely talented outfit with frequently overused players, ran out of gas and threatened to make a mountain of a molehill, before relying on a moment of magic to paper over the cracks and make the cake look pretty even though it was filled almost entirely with garbage. It sounds like too harsh an analysis but is a point worth debating, especially due to the familiarity of the shakiness of the situation, and indeed, the month of the year.
November. A month notorious for the time when Arsenal’s dreams take a stab in the gut. A month when hamstrings die, goals dry and form hits a vibranium wall. A month when fans lose faith and the “Is Arsene Wenger good enough for Arsenal anymore” debate is foreshadowed and dress-rehearsed for May.
We’ve seen it in the recent past with Arsenal. November was when Modou Barrow wrecked Calum Chambers in 2014. It was when Anderlecht gained something from the game despite being 3-0 down at one point. It was when one of the worst Manchester United sides in the Premier League era beat us 2-1 at the Emirates Stadium. Last season, we were thumped by Bayern, and dropped points to West Bromwich Albion, Norwich City and (déjà vu?) Tottenham.
This November hasn’t been quite as unforgiving to us yet. Other Arsenal teams would have given up the ghost after being 2-0 down, forget attain maximum points. Despite the obvious animosity at being unable to defeat them at home, a score draw against Tottenham Hotspur in absolute isolation is not the worst result in the world. However, the month of November provides context, not isolation, and that context has historically not been kind to us.
It appears the warning signs are there. Despite not losing a game since the 4-3 loss to Liverpool, performance levels have fallen past expectations. I get that it is unrealistic to demand Arsenal to traipse over every team like we did to Chelsea or Basel, but nor is it acceptable to fall 2-0 behind to Ludogorets, draw against Middlesbrough or count our lucky stars Spurs weren’t wearing their shooting boots on Sunday. None of that was part of the plan.
To make the resemblance to previous Novembers as similar as possible, it appears even injuries are rearing their ugly head at the wrong right time. The predictable price of overplaying Hector Bellerin has been paid, with the Spaniard reported to be four weeks out (two months in Arsenal language). Giving him company will be Santi Cazorla, out for “a couple of weeks”. Lucas Perez and Danny Welbeck won’t be fully fit until January, and if Alexis Sanchez doesn’t suffer any backlash from his quite successful exploits against Uruguay, we’ll probably be running Olivier Giroud into the ground for the sixth season running.
It’s not an Arsene Wenger habit we’re new to. The man has formed a trend of deciding what his best choice XI will be by mid-September, which is a fair enough lapse before judgment. However, the fact that he keeps picking them week-in-week-out apart from the odd EFL game cannot be a good sign. The end result, I theorize, is that the combination of training sessions and continuous football crocks players.
Credits: London24
Bellerin and Alexis have played an awful amount of games for Arsenal this season, and so have Ozil, Laurent Koscielny, Alex Iwobi and Theo Walcott. How long before one of them falls prey to the monster who thrives on tired legs?
Injuries distort the harmony a squad and its manager builds. Suddenly, new players need to be bedded in and new chemistries need to be birthed. That transit moment has to be a reasonably key causality to our annual mid-season dip. We run out of steam and naturally have a tough time getting back on the horse. It’s lather rinse repeat stuff – the storylines are all too familiar because the director never changes.
Based on this, I don’t necessarily believe Wenger can prepare Arsenal for an entire season. He appears to be very good at half-a-season management, which is why I think he wouldn’t be half bad at managing a national team. Regardless, November is a reminder of what a streaky team Arsenal actually are. It’s a time that signals the end of honeymoon periods for players like Shkodran Mustafi and Iwobi. It’s a time when the team struggles to do something harder than building a reputation – living up to it.
I understand that football is not mathematics and that many extraneous variables make certain patterns of events exclusive from others, yet the continuity of this curse cannot all be down to coincidence. Arsenal tend to have problems in November (even December, by extension) and they need to identify and stop them before they recur this year as well.
Most of November has pissed away in the international break, but it returns in full force with a clash away to Manchester United on Saturday, shortly before hosting Paris Saint-Germain. It’s the beginning of testing times in a testing month, and is probably the first massive hurdle the club has to pass with flying colours to convince a lot of doubters, including the pessimism in themselves. Let’s hope they do.
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
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