Well, its fair to say that Sunday could go a long way to deciding our season.
I see a lot of Arsenal fans on my Twitter saying we won’t win the league because we failed to beat a defensive United team at the Emirates 4 days after we got mauled 5-1 by Liverpool. Lets say we threw on Podolski & Bendtner and then went on to lose to a breakaway goal, what would you have said then? Yes that could well have won us the match, but losing 2 games in a row to big teams would have been disastrous. We need to realize that every thing is still in our hands having to still play Chelsea & Man City. If we win maybe 8 more games this season including wins against City & Chelsea then we may well see the Title come to the Emirates.
Before I discuss the importance of the FA Cup game against Liverpool, I want to discuss the team selection yesterday. Selecting 3 attacking mids doesn’t work in big games without Ramsey because Wilshere prefers running with the ball, which is exactly the same as our 3 attacking mids. Adding a player with the same qualities gives us more problems than benefits because the opposing team doesn’t have to move and we overcrowd the central area. All United had to do yesterday was hold their positions because nobody ran in behind to stretch them except for the odd occasion when Ozil sprinted through in the first half. It clearly wasn’t working and I have absolutely no idea why we didn’t take a risk amd just bring on Podolski, yes we were close to a goal but bringing him on will only add to that not hinder it. Without Walcott, Podolski is our best goal getter and that is the thing we seem to ignore. We try to control every single game but in the big games even when we control the ball it takes something special just to get a shot on target due to the lack of penetration. Podolski could win us the title with his goals and link up play with Giroud, that is if he gets more than 8 minutes a game. Surely there must be something to it like with Zaha & Moyes, maybe Podolski isn’t serious enough for Wenger.
Liverpool are flying the flag for playing the ‘we’ll just outscore you’ tactic and fair play to them because its working. Having 2 of the best strikers in the league has covered up their woeful defence, dramatic goalie and average midfield. We are the exact opposite, our struggling strike force is letting down our exceptional midfield, solid defence and outstanding goalkeeper so it will be interesting to see the outcome in our best of 3 decider against them. I am going to hold back on my prediction because twice this season I predicted 2 difficult games back to back and both sets of games ended in a big away defeat and 0-0 draw at home. The team that we lost to at Anfield was actually worse than the team we beat at the Emirates because there was no Lucas or Sakho, and the team we fielded in the 5-1 was better than the teams we won at Anfield with in the last 2 years so it just goes to show anything can happen.
I would absolutely love us to dispatch Liverpool and go on to win the FA Cup. The league is not out of question but as with every game against Chelsea, we’ll dominate but get caught on moments of bad luck/individual mistakes and lose the game or struggle to break down the Mourinho triple defensive midfield tactic. I would love to be wrong but I just fear we will fall a bit short in the league so we need to go all out in the FA Cup. Winning the league after an 8 year drought is a mammoth task, winning it next year after winning the FA Cup this year may be the best chance of reclaiming the league title. Its time we finally stand up and fight for what we want.