Point of Reflection.

Traditionally preseason is the time given to a squad and manager to examine and restructure the team, it’s strategy and its players. Unai Emery however is in a unique situation. Given the length of tenure Arsene Wenger had and the low expectations the current crop of players have humbled themselves to, people were willing to give him even this season as a trial basis.

However, that may not be necessary. 9 Premier League games in and after a run of 11 successive wins including 7 straight in the league there was a renewed sense of belief in this team. With a seemingly easy game against Crystal Palace it seemed Emery’s men were on course to hit 24/24 points against a team which haven’t scored at home for the season. With Liverpool on the horizon and only 2 points adrift of top spot, players and supporters alike were beginning to believe again. Maybe, just maybe, this group can achieve things again.

It all came crashing down against Crystal Palace, and rightfully so. You’d be hard press to find an Arsenal fan who could argue a solid case that they deserved more than a point at Selhurst Park on Sunday. There was a plethora of excuses as to why this performance was as poor as it was. Mustafi, a player whose career in North London has been plagued by individual errors struck up another moment of brilliance as he hurled himself into a palace player in his own box to offer them a chance to go into Half time with the lead. Mustafi’s ability coupled with the fact that there were no Left Back’s available always spelled a difficult away trip. The lack of a true Left back was further compounded by Xhaka who was filling in at LB (and to this point a decent job at that) gave away another dubious penalty to the tricky Zaha. Add in wayward finishing and Bellerin coming off at the break meant it was truly an uphill battle for the Emery Army.

Now, there is doubt going into the Liverpool game of any sort of a positive result for the gunners. With Salah and company picking up form and our defense continue to offer up chances to whomever might be the opposition, it’s understandable any sort of concern. However, I think that the result at Palace could be a small blessing in disguise. Dropping points is never a good thing but I think given that our next league opponent is arguably our hardest game left in the calendar year, we could have really used a wakeup call.

First of all, only in spurts have we seen our attack really click this season. Our 4 most inform attackers have been played together on Sunday but still seem disjoint. A counter argument to this is that we are joint second with Chelsea for goals scored this season. But this statistic is due to more individuals than us a team. Aubameyang’s numbers at the moment are ridiculous so maybe he should play him at center forward at the weekend. But isn’t that harsh to Lacazette? A question Emery has to answer. Another problem we have at the end of our run of supposedly easy fixtures is that we still are not sure what’s our best center half pairing. It’s easy for fans to call for Sokratis and Holding to play together but there has to be a reason that Emery persist with Mustafi even if we don’t see it. I do sympathize with Emery given that Mustafi actually has had a decent-ish run of games and does seem to have all the physical attributes to be a modern defender; strong in the air, Good on the ball and strong (if not too strong) in the tackle. Nevertheless, playing with the experience of a freshly plucked youth academy product is something that cannot be ignored especially as we prepare to go against one of the best attacks in Europe.

Lastly, full back. Arsenal fans globally should be praying to their respective deities that Hector Bellerin should be for fit for the weekend. As “Emeryball” continues to develop, we see that full backs are almost as essential to our attack as our forwards. They provide not just width to help stretch the opposition but also there is better link up with the forwards directly ahead of them to create quality chances for others to finish, an area which has been disjoint for some time. Monreal, Kolasinac and Ainsley Maitland-Niles all face a race against time to be fit. Ironically one of our positions with supposed depth is the one we are having the greatest problem. Ironic. All in all, with all due respect to the sides we have played before, we have tougher fixtures ahead. Not just Liverpool but a Wolves team with a good start to life in the top flight with a European tie in the middle of those games mean that harder fixtures are about to come thick and fast, whether we are ready or not. Can we continue to underperform and win? Unlikely. Something that we need to realize in this year’s race for the top four which intertwined with the title race is the big teams are not dropping points easily. Each team has had minimum slip ups against the rest of the league bar United which means we have to be up to standard when we face them.

Hopefully we can look back at this crystal palace game as a point of reflection. Where it showed a turning point for some players and the team. You see, the reason I am saying this is when we are winning it is easy to brush aside the negatives. Now that we have hit a bump in the road, we are forced as fans, players and coaches to reflect on what we are doing wrong, and its obvious there are a few things. In my opinion it could not of come at a better moment. Once we sorted those things out then we can go on a stellar run and meet the minimum requirement of winning the treble in Unai’s first season. I kid, heavily.

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