Arsenal are back where they belong above Tottenham in the table and memories of the traumatic defeat at White Hart Lane are slowly starting to fade after Tuesday night’s win but it was a performance which should set serious alarm bells ringing.
Leicester City are bottom of the Premier League yet consistently caused Arsenal defensive problems and were unfortunate to come away without at least a point after managing a total of ten shots from inside the area.
Tuesday night was a good night to be an Arsenal fan after a disastrous weekend but the manner in which Leicester were able to consistently carve out good goalscoring opportunities throughout the match must be a massive cause for concern.
Switching Aaron Ramsey for Tomas Rosicky was a common sense tactical move against opponents who were always likely to try and sit deep and defend in numbers because the Welshman brings more to the table defensively but has not been as effective going forwards since his return from injury.
However this slightly more attacking formation left vast spaces for Leicester to exploit and they looked by far the more threatening team from the onset with Arsenal fortunate not to concede what would have been a confidence sapping early goal.
It became clear almost immediately from kick off that this was going to be a tense, nervous occasion rather than the one sided goal fest which Arsenal fans might have hoped for given the obvious disparity between the two teams.
Yet despite the warning sides there seemed to be a touch of complacency about Arsenal’s play as if the team were all so focused on finding ways to break the opposition down going forwards that they had lost sight of the need to keep things tight from a defensive perspective.
Chances to clear the ball were repeatedly squandered with the players preferring to try and build from the back and create counter attacks. In some respects this is an admirable attitude to have but on this occasion it very nearly cost Arsenal vital points.
It seemed the defeat to Tottenham might have affected the confidence of a few players because Arsenal were uncharacteristically sloppy in possession and an erratic and error strewn refereeing display from referee Mike Jones definitely didn’t help matters either.
But Arsenal also seemed to play with a certain sense of entitlement as if they believed it was going to be just a matter of how many goals they would score and that there was no need to defend with any determination or urgency.
In the end they got away with it and emerged with three points which could well prove precious but in truth the performance was probably worse than the one at White Hart Lane and Arsene Wenger needs to stop the rot with crucial matches coming up.
Had Leicester scored what would have been a well deserved equalizer the talk today would have been about where Arsenal’s season had gone wrong and who was to blame. Instead the players can go into a crucial spell of games in confident mood but they shouldn’t forget the fortuitous nature of this victory.
If Arsenal try and ride their luck like they did against Leicester then eventually it will run out. The players can’t afford to be complacent and hopefully Tuesday night’s let off will have helped to drive that lesson home.
