Up until half way through September, the joke doing the rounds was “What is the difference between Arsenal and a triangle?… A triangle has three points.” Since then, things have changed for Wenger’s side, with them lying fourth in the league, one point behind third place.
However, they are still a whopping fourteen points behind league leaders Manchester United, and are without their best player, Henry, until the New Year. Arsenal have been surprisingly good without their captain though, with Gilberto making a strong case to permanently hold on to the armband.
Still, whilst Wenger recognises it would look a bit pretentious to claim his side will win the title, he has not given up hope. “It looks far away, and that is why I believe at the moment it would look a bit pretentious to say that we will be champions this time – but on the other hand, I have not given up,” he said. “I feel there is potential in the team and we are not missing a lot. Perhaps we are lacking that bit of concentration and the games at home where we are always 1-0 down at set-pieces. I am confident we can get that out of the squad. Overall what makes me positive is this team can make a great comeback because they have a special character and special qualities.”
Do you agree? Is there still a chance for Arsenal this season? Please leave your comments below.
Provided Arsenal do not slip up in the remaining December games they will still have a reasonable chance to win the premiership. In January we should see long term absentees Lauren and Diaby back in the squad. Also the return of Henry, Gallas and Ljungberg will mean that we have a squad that is capable of winning any game. To claw back 14 points in 20 remaining games is certainly realistic, the problem is that we need both Man Utd and Chelsea to both drop enough points for us to take first place. The key for us is to turn our many draws into wins. That only requires us to become more clinical finishers. In my eyes Arsenal winning the title is still not that far fetched.
It aint going to happen this year, the team is simply not consistent enough. I think that our best place is maybe 3rd with a good run in Europe and maybe a domestic cup. We all have to understand that we still have a lot of players that are well off their peak – Cesc, big Phil, Robin, Eboue, Gael and Ade are very young and even players like Toure, Helb, Rosisky and the like are quite young. Maybe next season but i cannot see it happening this term.
think that we shall acheive the consistency we require- certainly enough to make a decent run in the cups and should be enough to consolidate our push for third. with titi back and the addtional returnee’s, this could well be the case. (i think that a back four of lauren, toure, gallas & clichy shall add that bit of defensive steel we have been missing) but it is still too similar to last year. and i really can’t see BOTH man u and chavs dropping enough points between them for us to claw ourselves back. but we can always have hope.