So, we stay in second place in the Premier League after Man City got beaten 2-1 by Crystal Palace last night.
Pellegrini is so getting fired in the summer, and they’re an absolute shambles of a team right now. I didn’t see the game so can’t really comment on it other than to say it’s good for us as it keeps us above them, and with a Manchester derby coming up this weekend there’s the chance both of them could drop more points.
It’s interesting to note that headline suggest that City’s ‘title hopes’ took a hammer blow last night but anyone who mentions Arsenal would suggest – rightly in my opinion – that we’re not in the race for the title despite being in second.
A win for City would have put them within 6 points of Chelsea but having played a game more. We’re 7 points behind them and obviously if they win that game in hand it makes it 10 points. Does that extra point mean so much that City would be considered title contenders? I don’t think so. It would have been about as impossible for them to win it as it would be for us, but I suppose they’re defending champions so that might be the issue.
I know our recent form has been so good that people have begun to dream a little that if things go our way we might just be able to catch Chelsea, especially with a game against them in a few weeks time. There’s talk of Chelsea having a little stumble but I’m not sure you can classify 7 wins and 3 draws from their last 10 games as anything other a very good run.
The two draws against Burnley and Southampton came in games you would expect them to win, so the dropped points have seemed more damaging, and if there’s some suggestion the last two wins were fortuitous they’re also the kind of games probable champions tend to grind out at this stage of the season. In time nobody will look at how those games were won, just that they were.
In the same way, a number of our wins have come with a tight final scoreline. We don’t think any more how 2-1 victories over QPR, Leicester, West Ham, Crystal Palace and Newcastle were closer than we might like. We don’t think of them as any kind of dip in form, simply that these games provided us with the points we have on the board right now.
So, even though football shows us regularly that can’t be absolutely certain about anything – this is now known as The Coquelin Supposition – the idea that Chelsea are going to drop enough points between now and the end of the season, along with us not dropping a few somewhere along the way, is fanciful.
Nevertheless, it does feel like something’s happening with us that can only be viewed in a positive way. Yes, of course there are still frustrations about the first half of our season, and I don’t think anyone would suggest there isn’t room for improvement (something that’s true of any team ever, even in the Invincibles era there were calls for players to add more quality and depth), but it feels as if there’s a cohesiveness to the way we play, and the squad in general, that hasn’t been there for a while.
Perhaps it’s those ‘automatisms’ that Per Mertesacker referred to the other day. The instinctive on-pitch relationships between players that create the moments of danger. Even in the first minute of the game against Liverpool there was a passage of play that involved a series of one-touch passes between Ozil, Ramsey, an Ozil back-heel to Cazorla who touched it to Alexis to have a shot on goal.
That kind of interplay doesn’t happen just because these guys are great football players. It comes from work on the training ground and from playing together regularly, having an awareness of where a teammate is going to be and how you can find them.
Those relationships aren’t just about attacking though. A settled back four really helps, players know when to cover an area that has been left open, Coquelin, like Arteta does so well, dropping into areas that might be exposed; Mertesacker sweeping up when Koscielny has pushed on a bit (as he did regularly in the first half against Liverpool).
So, if the early part of this season was defined almost singularly by one man standing out – and this is to take nothing away from the form and performances of Alexis – the second part is now becoming notable by how much more of a team we are.
On yesterday’s Arsecast Extra it was almost impossible to pick out a man of the match against Liverpool. Not because there weren’t great performances, but because the overall level of the team was so high that it becomes difficult to pick out a single individual, and that’s a very encouraging sign.
And look, there will be those who say there’s a touch of good fortune to where we are. That the emergence of Coquelin, for example, was a happy accident, and there’s some truth to that. But football isn’t an exact science, and as Arsene Wenger said about the unexpected impact of Coquelin and Bellerin this season, “My job is to remain open-minded and make decisions when you have to.”
It seems churlish to complain about it, especially when we’ve put ourselves in a position from where it’s almost easy to see how we can build on this. The important thing is that we do just that; in the meantime, however, the squad we’ve got have to keep the momentum going and ensure that this is a season that can be considered one of real progress in the Premier League, not to mention there’s still a chance for silverware too.
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Some extra reading for you this morning: I liked this on A Cultured Left Foot about the blame culture in football. Some interesting thoughts.
And if you haven’t yet had a chance to listen to this week’s Arsecast Extra, you’ll find it here with discussion of the win over Liverpool, questions about players like Bellerin, Coquelin and loads more besides. Get it into ya.
Till tomorrow.
