You might not be surprised to learn Arsenal fans are pretty happy at the moment. I’m not afraid to say that I need to score more goals. Not, however, as obvious as you might think. “Overall, it will be tighter than a year ago”. “The championship will be decided between these four teams”, Usmanov said in an interview with CNN.
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Arsenal’s biggest problem over the last two campaigns has been its failure to perform consistently over the grueling 38-game season.
The AST survey asked the following: “This season has seen a debate about style of football played by teams and terms such as “boring” and “parking the bus” levied”.
Without question Arsenal have improved since the dog days of last December, when a loss at Stoke City prompted furious fans to verbally abuse Wenger as he boarded a train home, yet they still have to turn tantalising potential into tangible rewards.
The debt burden of the Emirates Stadium construction has been relieved, the club is no longer losing its star players to rivals and Wenger has brought in top-quality additions over the past two years. The Invincibles won the title with the likes of Thierry Henry, Robert Pires and Dennis Bergkamp.
But after beating Crystal Palace on the opening day last year, Arsenal quickly fell behind Chelsea and were unable to catch the runaway champions despite a successful end to the season. “Again, only one in 10 of fans expressed their dissatisfaction”. And what is interesting about all of this is that, subtlety and in a rather understated manner, Wenger has listened.
“We have had a great pre-season so far, and the peak was winning the Community Shield, but any significant predictions from the game are very hard”, Mertesacker said. Certainly, the way my team behaved during some periods in the game, it helped.
The Chilean and Ozil will be supported by an array of attacking talent in Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott, Santi Cazorla, Olivier Giroud, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Danny Welbeck.
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They talk more and study the opposition more. “They can’t fall off the leading pack which they did last season”. It paid off in the run-in past year. In 2013-14, the Gunners were involved in a four-way title challenge well into March before falling away, while last season was the complete opposite as their title hopes were over long before Christmas before they went on a superb run in the second half of the campaign.
