Arsenal trying to win the league in reverse!
Gunners imploded last season... now they’re roaring to finish line
IT was Gary Neville who said recently that Arsenal could win the Premier League by finding a way to produce last season in reverse.
Nobody thought it possible. Surely Manchester City and Liverpool were just a little bit too good. But an astonishing run of seven consecutive domestic wins with an extraordinary tally of 31 goals scored has changed all that.
Neville’s point, made on his Stick to Football podcast, was that Arsenal had shown during the first half of last season just how devastating they can be when they get on a roll. In the 2022-23 campaign, the Gunners only lost one league game before the start of February.
Nerves — and Pep Guardiola’s City — got them in the end but, Neville asked, how far could they go this time round if a more modest set of results in autumn and winter could be bolstered by something better once the clocks went forwards?
And now, suddenly, here we are. As City and Liverpool prepare to meet and take points off each other at Anfield on Sunday, Arsenal’s recent uptick in form and confidence means they will go top of the table, temporarily at least, if they beat Brentford at home a day earlier. They already have a superior goal difference.
Monday’s 6-0 demolition of Sheffield United at Bramall Lane was beautiful in its sheer heartlessness. We have asked before if Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal are too weak and too soft. We have asked if, like their Spanish coach, they can become too emotional.
Well, that’s not happening. Not now. Not here. Arsenal were magnificent. They scored three goals in 15 minutes, four in 25 minutes and five by half-time. By the time we got to full time it was six and they had stopped trying.
This, though, is a new Arsenal. They are a development of the prototype. They had to change and grow if they were to win things. Last season taught us that and the progress in this regard is writ large in their recent results: 5-0, 2-1, 3-1, 6-0, 5-0, 4-1, 6-0.
A couple of those could be tennis scores and that is how it feels watching Arsenal right now. Certainly, they had too much pace, power, imagination and craft for Sheffield United.
Having rebooted during a winter break that was handed to them when they were knocked out of the FA Cup by Liverpool, Arsenal now face a spell that could decide their season.
They will face Brentford on Saturday without first-choice goalkeeper David Raya, who is not allowed to play against his parent club. They also have doubts over Gabriel Martinelli, who hurt his foot on Monday, and Bukayo Saka who left the pitch at half-time feeling unwell.
Then, on Tuesday they have a 1-0 deficit to overturn in their Champions League last-16 second leg at home to Porto.
After that, though, comes the promise of a 19-day break — due to their lack of involvement in the FA Cup — before an enormous game at City on March 31. Arteta has ruled out the prospect of taking his squad abroad again, which is a shame given how well their January sojourn to Dubai seemed to work. They left having lost at home to Liverpool and returned ready to sweep all before them.
Instead, Arsenal will be driven on now partly by their own momentum — they simply don’t look like they can lose right now. But there are also the memories of last season’s late collapse.
‘It was so very painful,’ said Martin Odegaard, one of five different Arsenal scorers at Bramall Lane. ‘I think now is the time to show we have learned.’
Words are easy to say. It feels as though Arsenal must beat City on Easter Sunday if they are to have a genuine say in this title race.
That apart, their hardest other game until the end of the season is the north London derby at Tottenham on the final weekend of April. With that in mind, it does look as though there is a path for Arteta and his players to navigate if they feel ready to be involved until the death this time. Last season was too much for them. There is no shame in being run over by the City juggernaut. This time, opportunity knocks again. Their key players are in form and the presence of Jorginho and the fit-again Thomas Partey may release Declan Rice into the forward positions in which he has shown he can be so effective and dangerous.
We laughed at Odegaard and his gang when they celebrated like champions after beating Liverpool on their own turf in the league a month ago. None of it looks quite so frivolous now.