By Tom Finn
August 25, 2014
The season has only just kicked off and Arsenal is already coming under unfair criticism regarding the team’s title chances despite the fact they are still undefeated.
Last season they ended a nine year trophy drought by winning the FA Cup, with manager Arsene Wenger keen to follow on from that success by spending heavily in the transfer market this past summer.
Yet despite this people are begging to say that he has not strengthened the squad enough as we have seen with the last gap win over Crystal Palace and the struggle to come back against a determined and disciplined Everton.
Before the kick-off at Goodison Park Wenger said his side were no longer an easy mark for a strong physical striker referring to the way Romelu Lukaku man handled them back in April, and found him hard to handle once more despite Everton boss Roberto Martinez claiming the Belgium was not fully fit.
To be fair on the Gunners, Wenger is yet to play his first choice pairing of Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny with Monreal in the team due to the injury of Kieran Gibbs, and yet while still promising new boy Calum Chambers has a way to go as was evident in his display.
At the moment it looks as though Wenger is going to rely on Chambers using him to fill in where needed rather than go out and buy that defensive midfielder that the club needs.
It was bound to come up sooner or later and that is the question of where big money signing Alexis Sanchez fits into the Arsenal attack with BBC football pundit Alan Shearer saying that against Everton he looked lost.
“Arsenal had no presence up front,” said Shearer. “They had nobody to attack balls in the box. In the 45 minutes he played, Sanchez did not have one touch in the Everton area.
“That all changed, to be fair to Wenger, at half-time when he brought on Giroud. He did have a presence and Arsenal then had somebody who they could see in the box.” Added Shearer.
In each of their three games in the Premier League and Champions League so far this season, Arsenal have been unimpressive. Crucially, though, they have also been unbeaten.
“Very much like last week against Palace, Arsenal did not play well for the vast majority of the game against Everton, but they kept on going until the end and got the three points,” said Shearer.
Despite their lack of dominant play you must remember that Arsenal are yet to lose a game and to come back from being 2-0 down against Everton was not lost on Wenger.
“When we got beaten here 3-0 last season, it could have been many more,” Wenger explained. “Three was quite flattering on the day.
“For us to come back from 2-0 down this time against a team as good on the counter-attack shows the belief and the resilience was there.”
The truth however is not every top team will allow Arsenal to come back from a two goal deficit and that while the transfer window is still open Wenger would be wise to bring in a couple of more players to help paper over the cracks.
