Many pundits and journalists have constantly doubted us throughout the season. “Arsenal can’t win the league”, “its Man City’s to lose”, “Arsenal aren’t title contenders” are all phrases that have been used when talking about Arsenal this season. Yet here we are with 14 games remaining top of the league, as we have been more the majority of the season. There is still a long way to go with many tricky games, most of which will be contested within the next 2 months. Do I think we can do it? Absolutely, here’s how:
There are 2 major statements I have heard this season that contradict each other with regards to how to win the league. The 1st is that you need to beat all of the big teams to win the league. The 2nd is that it doesn’t matter about the big games as long as you beat the small teams because there are more of them. I personally feel that there has to be a middle ground, you can’t lose to 4 big teams twice for example but then beat most of the small teams. Then again you can’t beat most of the big teams and then drop lots of silly points against the smaller teams.
This makes me think Chelsea have the best chance of the league because they’ve beaten most of the big teams and done relatively well against the small teams, but by no means does this mean they will win it. They may have severely damaged Man City’s title challenge with that win at the Ethiad because teams will start going there with belief and actually make a game of it. Add that to generally (good recently) unconvincing away form with trips to Old Trafford, Goodison Park, Anfield & The Emirates still to come and you could argue that City’s fixture list is as hard as ours. Chelsea meanwhile, only have to go to Anfield with Spurs and ourselves visiting Stamford Bridge so you have to say they have the easiest run in with regards to big teams. To summarise quickly on our rivals, it seems as though the ‘Little Horse’ will be the rival that pushes the winner right until the end as I said before the season started.
Moving back on to Arsenal, the remaining big away trips for us are Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea & Everton but we also have United & City still to visit the Emirates. I really think that in order to win the league we will have to get some big results against these teams. To keep pace with Chelsea I think the key may be matching their results against the big teams we still have to play, stay consistent against the smaller teams and hope that they drop a few points before the end of the season. What I mean by this is that Chelsea beat City & United at home, so I feel we need to do the same then hope they don’t win against teams we have beaten. If we can win those 2 big home games, then the next major statement will be to go to Stamford Bridge and get a result. It will be an extremely difficult task to beat them there, so I think we have to get a draw. A draw away to Chelsea would be perfect because losing there could essentially decide the title in their favour. Assuming we’re very close on points, securing a draw would be a brilliant achievement and then we can go on another consistent run.
As for Liverpool, Tottenham & Everton away, based on current form the only game I could really struggling to win is Everton. As I said on Twitter, we have a great record against Liverpool recently but it has to end eventually and just because we’re challenging for the title doesn’t mean it won’t be his season. I think that game depends on Brendan Rodgers, if he goes for a 4-4-2 and/or plays Kolo Toure then I think we have every chance of winning it. This is the first year I have been confident about Tottenham away for a good few years (based on form & injuries), their defence is laughable and their strike force hardly scare opponents. As well as form, they have a manager who seems happy with just ‘having a go’ and seeing what happens. Playing Bentaleb over Capoue next to Dembele in a 4-4-2 against Man City & Arsenal suggests little tactical awareness. Everton will definitely be the hardest game based on for this season, mainly due to their talented manager but players like Barkley, Lukaku, Mirallas & now Traore can cause any defence problems as the 1-1 draw in the reverse fixture showed.
To summarise, my theory of how we can win the league is that we must maintain our efficiency against smaller teams as well as we can, and that we are going to have to earn the title by taking points off our rivals ourselves. Champions have to stand up to their hardest competitors and prove their worth, not leave it for someone else to do. We have done remarkably well this season so far, with Ramsey still to return it would be a great shame to not take advantage of it. It will be astoundingly hard with Liverpool & Bayern also coming to the Emirates in-between all of this madness and with smaller teams needing points more desperately they will be harder to beat. So it could in fact be an advantage that we have more big teams because the smaller teams will start scrapping desperately for results and may take points off of Chelsea & City too which would be very handy. We begin the last stretch of the marathon with Liverpool away in the league where I personally predict a very tough game but ultimately a win.
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Photo via Ronnie Macdonald – http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronmacphotos/