Wenger still one game from chaos
AT THE Emirates, Arsenal played smooth, syrupy attacking football, oozing quality.
The home crowd applauded their players at the end and there were only a few boos for wantaway forward Alexis Sanchez when he came on in the 75th minute, though his side were already three ahead against Bournemouth by then. Arsenal are back.
Following a 4-0 defeat to Liverpool, a second Premier League loss in three, Arsene Wenger made the right decisions.
He recalled £53million man Alexandre Lacazette, who scored, and stuck with Danny Welbeck, who scored twice.
‘The performance was disciplined, serious and committed and going forward we created a lot through the flanks,’ Wenger said. ‘Yes, it is difficult to find a good performance at Liverpool, but it is difficult to find a bad performance today.’
True, only this was against a Bournemouth side who did not land a shot accurately on Petr Cech’s goal until five minutes from time.
Manager Eddie Howe described his side’s display as ‘up there’ with the worst he had witnessed in seven years at the club. His team remain on zero points and will be relegated if something does not drastically change.
Defeat for the home side would have meant Arsenal’s worst league start in 35 years. Even the ‘Wenger In’ camp have started to become the ‘Wenger Not So Sure’ camp.
This result was more like a cheap, smooth gloss slathered by Wenger over Arsenal’s flaws that will begin to dry and crack in the coming weeks.
Sanchez and Mesut Ozil are not suddenly going to pen new contracts on the back of a home victory against Bournemouth.
They are also in the Europa League, a competition whose punishing Thursday-Sunday schedule has been to the detriment of many teams.
‘It is a new experience for us,’ Wenger said. ‘We will take it seriously but the priority is to focus on the Premier League and combining the two and then in December we will see, but at least we want to qualify for the next round.
‘Thursday to Sunday morning is short, so yes, I have to think about that. But we have to win at home and you know how it is when you don’t win at home.’
Wenger was alluding to the propensity of Arsenal’s fans to turn on the team quickly at home, where they host FC Cologne on Thursday. The Germans lost 3-0 at Augsburg on Saturday.
Then they travel to Chelsea on the Sunday. ‘I don’t like it when you need to respond and you are always needing a good response to a bad result because you should not have bad results in the first place,’ said Cech, who kept his first clean sheet of the season. At the moment Arsenal feel like one bad result away from chaos every match.