Another long season has come to an end and a consecutive FA Cup has been secured by the club. While the fantastic Wembley date should have most fans buzzing, there will always be an undertone of murmurers who think the club should be doing better than ‘just the FA Cup’. Arsenal were able to secure another season of Champion’s League football and earned themselves automatic berth into the group stages of the competition by finishing third, an improvement over last years finish.
Yet, the ‘nitpickers’ demand more and are unsatisfied with simply that, measuring it as underachievement regardless. After a season that saw the team make six additions including a world class signing in Alexis Sanchez, is there a case for the fans that truly believe Arsenal have made progress and improved?
From a league table perspective, the answer is highly debatable. Arsenal have improved positionally compared to last season, but they’ve amassed four less points this season in doing so. Title contending teams pushing for top 4 contention such as Manchester City, Spurs and Liverpool also failed to make much of an improvement on their previous season, offering a strong case for fans who view the season as a step forward. On the other hand, how Arsenal started last season should have been used as a stepping stone and in comparison to this season, the team failed to meet that standard, in addition to the fact that other top teams have regressed in the league, this season can be seen as a big opportunity wasted for the Gunners.
From the table again, we see where the addition of Sanchez, Francis Coquelin and David Ospina— the latter to some extent— has paid off, an improvement in goals scored and the team has conceded their least amount of goals since 2008, giving more strength to the argument that the team has shown significant improvement over last season. The team also managed to pick up points against big teams away from home and haven’t succumbed to thrashings witnessed last season away at Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City, and additionally were able to put together an eight game win streak —the longest since ‘The Invicibles’ —a clear indication of increased mental toughness and improved tactical know how.
Unfortunately for Arsenal, a season isn’t played between January and April but starts in August and ends in May and the north Londoner’s still haven’t been able to overcome certain hurdles. An injury plagued start to the new season, leaving the squad short of players in pivotal areas such as centre back and the defensive midfield positions as well as under-performing coupled with silly mistakes from both a tactical and on field perspective. Any perception that the team made progress can be easily questioned with how Arsenal handled the first half of the season, results the team had against Stoke, Leicester, Hull and Swansea all being points dropped in winnable games.
Arsenal’s Champion’s League performances have once again failed to impress as the team fluffed their lines against Anderlecht twice and could be considered lucky to beat the Belgian side in the away fixture. The poor performance against Borussia Dortmund in Germany also emphasised some of the tactical deficiencies the club displayed in the early season, causing Arsenal to once again finish 2nd in their group. Arsenal were given a favourable draw against Monaco unlike previous seasons, yet managed the same errors, allowing Monaco to win at the Emirates Stadium, taking three away goals back to France, meaning the task of recovery was too much for the Gunners to handle.
Returning back the Premier League, as mentioned, Arsenal put together a fantastic run throughout the second half of the season, and were able to amass the points and statistics that indicate clear improvements, once a fit and settled squad was available. This resulted in premature title hopes for a squad that remembered their own class a bit too late, with second becoming the realistic hope, but once again old habits caused the team to drop points, meaning they would eventually end the season third best, behind champions Chelsea and runners up Manchester City.
What can be taken from this season is that the team has made improvements in multiple departments with fitness and the additions of Alexis Sanchez and Francis Coquelin playing pivotal roles. With that being said, the club still somehow managed to make some of the same mistakes Arsenal fans have grown tired of, especially after the start the team managed to put together and maintain for the first half of last season. So this season can almost be viewed as a diagonal step rather than a great leap forward as Arsenal fans were unfortunately treated to the same old story with a familiar ending.
