So Arsenal dropped two points at home against Birmingham City.
And to almost compound the misery, later that afternoon Manchester United convincingly crushed Newcastle United 6-0 to go level on points with us and to nick top spot by virtue of goal difference.
It seems in the last few weeks Arsenal have stuttered slightly, and haven’t really reached the level of performance we saw earlier in the season. But of course, all teams have bad patches throughout the campaign and it seems ours is happening now. The big question is when we can get out of it and start performing at our peak again.
But if we look at the season more closely things aren’t as bad as they seem. Arsenal lose points mainly because they draw matches they play badly in, while United tend to nick a win when things aren’t going their way. Although saying that, they have lost more games than we have this season.
The Birmingham game was a match we should have won, and even though they played well there really wasn’t any reason we didn’t get all 3 points. None of the big names played in the Carling Cup midweek and we should played much better instead of ticking along.
Many people have pointed out that after 22 games if you said we were on the same number points as the league leaders then we would take that all day long. Unfortunately maybe we’ve been bringing this point up far too much. Arsene keeps bringing it up, and it’s almost as if we feel privileged to be there, when in reality we could be several points clear at the top.
But on the other hand, maybe Arsene is making a valid point.
I mean just look at Liverpool.
It could be said we’ve been struggling recently but Liverpool are still an amazing 12 points behind with over 16 games to go. They haven’t won the league in over 17 years and this season doesn’t look like being the year that will change the history books.
The fact is Arsenal have 16 cup-ties left in the Premier League and it’s as simple as that.
It’s hard to imagine Arsenal would have drawn at the weekend if Kolo Toure was playing, and Senderos has a lot to prove over the next few weeks.
If Arsenal are within 3/4 points of Manchester United by the time Kolo and Eboue return I’ll be more than happy.
What would Kolo have done?
Of all the players that played, why did you pick on Senderos? Explain your reasoning that if Toure would have played then Arsenal would have won the game. I really don’t follow your argument. In my eyes no one played well. We failed as a team, we became complacent; we thought at 1-0 we had already won the match.
We just didn’t do enough during the whole match. End of story – stop picking on Senderos
I thought this article was looking quite good………and then……you had to go and say this:-
“It’s hard to imagine Arsenal would have drawn at the weekend if Kolo Toure was playing, and Senderos has a lot to prove over the next few weeks.”
This has to be the dumbest thing ever.
Toure has given away two penalties in the last handful of games and at times is all over the place. Fortunately, he usually makes up for it by his speed of recovery.
On Saturday, Senderos had a very good game – he made a couple of minor mistakes that weren’t costly, just like Toure often does. It’s like a cliche – just slag off Senderos if we don’t get the result we want. Like we did with Alex Song and many others before him.
Yes, Senderos makes you nervous but don’t slag him off when he was not responsible for any of the problems.
i will have to agree with all the posts, Senderos for me was Arsenal man of the match. 110%, and some crunching tackles. We could have had Maldini of old and still we would have drawn. A good article untill that note!!!!!!
The draw shows arsenal have not yet been ruthless as yet when dealing with such opposition.Unlike mu who in my opinion take the fastest and shortest route to goal,Arsenal are taking a laboured approach.This no doubt put opposition defenders under pressure but at the same time stamina sapping for the Arsenal layers.
Rest assured I aint advocating a change in style.Why change when it has worked for all the games bf the draw.Point is when such teams eg fulham play they are unlikely to allow the gunners acres of space to pass thru endless rounds.
Mr AW the name of the game is winning and not playing pretty soccer with intricate circles.
Most people can remember Giggs 1999 sf goal But can anyone Henry struck a wonder goal against MU.
Which would you prefer?
the first three posts are idiotic, plz read the article again
What Kolo might have done that others didn’t is get hold of the ball and drive forward from the back when the midfield was not working well. We’ve seen this before e.g. Fulham on the opening day, which won us a penalty to get back into that game. However, in terms of defence, Senderos had a good day overall and made a couple of important tackles when Birmingham broke away late on when we were laying seige to their goal.
crackbrained: insanely irresponsible, absurd: incongruous
The first three points are none of these, so aren’t idiotic.
Senderos played well, I saw him. Criticize him when he is poor (and even then remember he is an Arsenal player who gives 100%, so deserves support), otherwise you weaken your arguments and turn your readers off.
Yeah, I agree with some other posters about Senderos. I kept a close watch on him throughout the game given his recent form, and I have to say he played really well. He was composed at the back, and the real weakness for me was in the midfield and up front. We need Van Persie back and fit because he is the type of player that can get three points when the rest of the team is not performing well…kind of like Ronaldo for Man U. I cannot count the number of times Ronaldo bailed out Manure to gain some points. If I were a defender in the Premiership I would send a message to that diving POS and put in a nice hard tackle on him at the beginning of a game to make sure he knows what’s up.
You guys are blind!!!!
Im a bluenose, and its so obvious Senderos is the problem!!!
hes a Titus Bramble, everytime the African nations come knocking, he plays, you stutter!
hes slow and judgmental (not in the good, tony adams defensive way!)
You need a center back, as well as a striker.
We drew because, you couldn’t score, and you couldn’t defend, senderos was supposed to be marking O’Connor!!!!!!!
Mexes and Benzema, get them, win the league.
PS. Thanks for MUAMBA!
Your rejects are our legends!!! 🙂
Also this team showed its immaturity by not knowing when to grab the points, and kill of the game. They were not focused and were generally lazy. But Wenger has to take some of the blame for not firing up the players for these so called ‘easy’ matches. We seen this type of display before. Come on Wenger give these kids a kick up the arse.
I wasn’t having a go at Senderos because of the Birmingham game, I know he had a good game defensively. But with Kolo in the side, he gives us that extra bit of energy and urgency we need to steal late winners. Like Gallas, Kolo is good at things like pushing the team forward and causing problems.
A point about Senderos though, apart from the Birmingham game he’s been poor – so in that respect he has got something to prove while Kolo is away. Against Spurs and Sevilla in particular he looked lost, but hopefully knowing he’ll be in the 1st eleven for the next month will give him the confidence to keep performing.
And remember, he was only against Birmingham at the weekend. There are going to be much tougher tests in the upcoming games.