What a difference a week makes.

In the space of 5 days, there were 3 games which turned Arsene Wenger from a pariah to a genius.

Arsenal’s season was on the verge of completely collapsing, and Saturday afternoon was billed as the biggest in Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal career. Win, and things looked up but lose, and it looked like curtains for Arsene.

So what happened? Well for 82 minutes, Arsene was on the brink of facing the biggest shit storm as Arsenal manager as Wigan were leading and looked to have booked their place in the FA Cup semi final. But Arsene’s luck was in and with less than 10 minutes of normal time remaining, Arsenal scored an equaliser.

It really was Arsene’s lucky day as Per Mertesacker’s chance only came from a completely miscued shot from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. The ball fortunately bounced into the path of the BFG and he headed in from close range.

Then, if Arsenal fans hadn’t suffered enough we barely made it through on penalties against what is essentially a Championship side.

So the first task was complete. Arsenal were in the FA Cup Final, albeit it with a lot of luck.

Then onto Tuesday. West Ham United were the opposition in a game we had to win to keep in the race for fourth place. West Ham scored the opening goal but again the Gods shined down for Arsene. Lukas Podolski scored a massively important goal just before half time, the timing of which could not have been better. Olivier Giroud scored a phenomenal goal, one which 9 times out of 10 he would have mis-controlled and never made the opportunity to score.

So a bit of luck against West Ham.

Then last night, Everton surprisingly slipped up against Crystal Palace in a result no-one saw coming (unless you’re Iain Moody I suppose).

That left us one point clear in the race for fourth and put Arsenal firmly back in the driving seat for Champions League football next season.

What this leaves us with is the notion that Arsenal’s season is more successful than Manchester City’s. There is suddenly a huge amount of optimism around the club – we can finish with a major trophy and Champions League football – better than Manchester City, better than Everton, better than Manchester United and depending on how the results go, better than either Chelsea or Liverpool come May the 17th.

Suddenly, a disastrous season has the potential to be a “successful one”.

But it all comes down to the fortunate equaliser and penalty shootout against Wigan (which we all know is somewhat like a lottery), the decisive moments in the West Ham game and the surprising Everton result against Crystal Palace.

So let me ask you this, is Arsene Wenger a genius or just lucky?

Cast you vote here:

And you can leave your opinions in the comments section below.

Mali – We Need 4 More Players

Well I’m not sure whats going on with Arsenal’s recent form. I watch the games, and I think theres a few of the present players not giving their all…They know who they are, and you know who they are.

We are way too slow going forward, and we play the ball square or back way too often, thus giving the opposition time to regroup and cover our next move. We are definitely lacking pace, and our build ups are too slow, and too predictable.
I think we need a new Goalkeeper, a new Defender, and two top class Strikers.

Arsene Wenger rewards failure. Players who consistently fail to win anything are given new deals over and over again, and others who have had enough of Arsene’s spin have left and won things at other clubs.

Mounting a serious title challenge with Olivier Giroud as your only real striking option is something only a stubborn and egotistical manager would do. Don’t disagree with recruiting a goalkeeper, defender and two strikers – will it happen though?

Don’t count on it.

Donald – No Plan B / Sell Vermaelen, Giroud, Nacho & Arteta

Arsenal have no plan B and plan A which doesnt even work. They have no width or pace in attack and they have no movement or finishing ability upfront in Giroud who is a dire footballer. So inevitably plan A will fail. Wenger is tactically naive and illdisciplined away from home against decent opposition.

We over commit all over the park and our fullbacks play infront of our forwards and centrbacks pushed up to half way our midfield nowhere and suddenly when we lose posssion its a free run on goal. Happens every game yet Wenger never changes.Wenger needs to resign and take Giroud with him along with Nacho and Verm and Arteta.

With a top class striker like Thierry Henry or Robin van Persie, we can play with one striker with 3 creative midfielders. But Olivier Giroud is nowhere near good enough to play that system.

Which begs the question why doesn’t Arsene change the system? Why not play with two up front or play a system where Giroud is not constantly isolated? We only have Plan A which against the weaker sides is okay but has consistently failed against the top teams.

I will be happy to see the back of Giroud. Arteta has been unfairly criticised in my opinion, he’s a decent midfielder with limited attributes but hasn’t been helped by Arsene’s system which has exposed him badly. He’s lined up alongside midfielders who have no interest in tracking back or defending as a team. And his best position is further up the pitch but he’s being asked to play a deeper role.

How do you feel about how things are going on at Arsenal? I’ve added a new “Have Your Say” section which you can access by clicking here or clicking on the link above.

I will be publishing regular submissions from Arsenal fans to give you a place to air your views and give other Arsenal fans to comment and give their thoughts too.

So click here to leave a comment and I will be posting your views soon!

I asked the same question last week and got loads of abuse.

My point was that we travelled to Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and now Everton – all massive games in our season, and all season-defining games – yet we failed every single one spectacularly.

Against City, United, Liverpool and Chelsea we were “fighting” to cement our title challenge but failed, and today against Everton we were “fighting” to cement 4th place and yet again, failed.

Failed is in quotation marks because there was, ironically, none in those games.

So why the hell do we fail each test we’ve been given?

Those are exactly the games the players should be thriving to play in, the games big time players live for. Unfortunately apart from Ramsey, we have no big time players.

You can point to injuries to Mesut Özil, Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott, Kieran Gibbs and Laurent Koscielny during different times of the season, but there is still no excuse for getting thrashed time and time again.

Arsene Wenger is responsible for choosing the formation, setting the game plan and picking the eleven players that step onto the pitch and wear the Arsenal shirt. So if we are light in certain departments, in certain areas of the pitch, then he is the one responsible for setting the team up to get the best possible result.

Surely if we have some injuries then we don’t play a completely open game and play conservatively? The approach we’ve had in the big away games has been completely idiotic. The ironic thing is that if we drew all of these games (and didn’t get absolutely humiliated) then we’d still be right in the title race now.

A major complaint from Arsenal fans is that in those big games, the players haven’t turned up. So surely that comes from the manager? If we get thrashed once, then you can put it down to a bad day – but if it happens time and time again, and in exactly the same manner then it’s obvious that Arsene Wenger can’t get the players motivated and that comes from the dressing room before the game.

Has Arsene Wenger lost the dressing room? Well it doesn’t seem as if the players are playing for him does it?