It wasn’t the best of weekends for Arsenal after they succumbed to an ignominious defeat at the hands of their London neighbours West Ham. After a bright pre-season and success in the Community Shield, it was expected that the Gunners would make light work of the Hammers on Sunday afternoon, so the result came as quite a shock and a shock not only to Arsenal fans. In the aftermath of the game, social media reaction, of course, saw a lot of disgruntled Arsenal fans vent their frustration at Arsene Wenger’s lack of aggressiveness in the summer transfer market. Ironically enough, the only first team player added over the summer, Petr Cech, found his Arsenal debut marred by two uncharacteristic mistakes, that on the face of it cost the Gunners the match. All the talk after Cech’s arrival was that he would guarantee Arsenal at least an extra 10-15 points this season, well as it stands, it could be said that the figure is now at minus 3 points.
An important point to remember is that last season Arsenal only lost one game due to serious goalkeeper error, the defeat on New Year’s Day to Southampton, so in my opinion, Cech was never going to be the final piece in the jigsaw that saw Arsenal win the title. Olivier Giroud, as he always seems to be when Arsenal falter, was another that came in for criticism, with many questioning Wenger’s decision to leave Theo Walcott on the bench. The question needs to be asked, do these people actually watch the game? Walcott would have been totally useless up top against such a deep sitting, physically robust defence. But Sunday’s game does add more weight to the growing need and want of Karim Benzema or someone of the same ilk to provide serious competition and support for Giroud.
Looking at the match statistics, and if you had not watched the game and did not know the score, you would have thought that it was just another run of the mill game at the Emirates. 62% of the ball and 22 attempts on goal, and despite only having 6 attempts on goal, you would be hard pressed to find someone who would have gone against an Arsenal win. But of course, statistics only tell half the story. The facts are West Ham defended stoically and Wenger got his tactics wrong. Arsenal were far too narrow and Wenger should have really remedied this at half time, not after West Ham had secured the cushion of a second goal. The introduction of Walcott and Alexis Sanchez did bring some much-needed width but as already pointed out, the damage was done.
On another day, those six attempts on target would have been enough, Adrian in the West Ham goal was on his ‘A’ game on Sunday, it would have taken an almighty strike to get the ball past the Spanish ‘keeper. The West Ham defenders were defiantly resolute, making a number of game-saving blocks. The point I’m making is if this game was played another 10 times, Arsenal win them all, despite Wenger failing to get the tactics right, Giroud is the hero and we are all signing we are going win the title. Roy Keane’s old adage about certain sections of so-called football supporters being part of ‘’the prawn sandwich brigade’’ has never been more prevalent in Arsenal’s history unfortunately.
The majority of the players themselves also need to take some portion of blame, there was some evidently complacent performances and Wenger himself was quick to point this out in his post-match press interview stating: ‘’I can’t see many convincing individual performances. It’s difficult to see beyond that’’. It would have been nice to hear Wenger though hold his hand up as well, much in the same vein that Tony Pulis did immediately after his side were steamrolled by Manchester City on Monday and take some of the blame. But as we all know, this course of action is just not in Wenger’s remit.
Looking at the bigger picture, this defeat could very well be a blessing in disguise for Arsenal’s season. With two incredibly tough games coming up and what the season promises for Arsenal football club, the defeat has all the basis needed for the players to sharpen and refocus their minds on the job in hand. Like the majority of Arsenal fans, the players were riding on the crest of a wave after an easy FA Cup win, followed by a pre-season that resembled a walk in the park to finally getting one over the ‘’Special One’’. We all thought, fans and players alike that we were ‘invincible’, well evidently and of course realistically, we’re not. This is the wake up call that was needed, the summer holidays are well and truly over, the FA Cup success now means nothing, no one will remember in five years time that Arsenal put six past Lyon in pre-season, and despite breaking the Jose Mourinho hoodoo, the Community Shield means squat, the hard works starts now and in the grand scheme of things it was better that this has happened now and not later on in the season.
Recent history dictates that opening day fixtures haven’t been kind to Arsenal anyway, only once in the last six years have they managed to win a game and at that it was only in the last-minute that the Gunners scrambled past Crystal Palace last season at the Emirates. Well, Palace are up next Sunday afternoon, last season the squad were lucky to come away from Selhurst Park with the win and with the strides that Palace have made as a club in the interim, Sunday’s game is going to be a stern examination of our title credentials.
