6 Reasons Why Arsenal Can Still Win the League

Hey, I understand. You’re feeling a little down. It’s the middle of the week, and if you’re up by me, it’s cold and snowy. Arsenal got taken behind the woodshed by Manchester United on Sunday, and our title hopes are most definitely on life support. But cheer up and put down the Prozac, friend, because there are legitimate reasons to feel positive about Arsenal’s title chances.

We are NOT out of the title race. We’ve got our work cut out for us, to be sure, especially if we can’t figure out a way to get at least a point on Sunday, but it’s still plausible that Arsenal can win the league, and here’s why:

1. United and Chelsea are vulnerable.

For one thing, our main opposition are much more vulnerable than they’ve been in previous seasons. United are very reliant on Rooney to score goals, have injury problems in their backline, and have an extremely poor midfield for an elite club. And Hargreaves is apparently out for the year.

As for Chelsea, they’re definitely a strong team. But they’re generally older, and may wear down as the season goes on. And their midweek result against Hull kind of displayed their dirty little secret — they’re actually not very good away from home. Chelsea has lost away to Wigan, Aston Villa, and Manchester City, and drawn away to such titans as West Ham, Brum, and Hull. Out of their last 9 away league away matches, they’ve won just 3. They’ve got quite a few tough away fixtures over the next 3 months, including trips to Goodison Park, Old Trafford, Anfield, and White Hart Lane. I promise you that Chelsea is going to drop some points the rest of the season, it’s just a question of whether we can take advantage. And their players are probably all distracted by trying to figure out a way to put padlocks on their wives wheneven their distinguished captain is around.

2. Our Schedule after February is . . . favorable, to say the least.

And then there’s this — after our match with Liverpool next week, this is our remaining fixture list: Sunderland, at Stoke, Burnley, at Hull, West Ham, at Birmingham, Wolves, at Spurs, at Wigan, Manchester City, at Blackburn, Fulham. 12 matches, 8 of which are against teams currently in the bottom half of the table. And of the 4 matches against top-half teams, we’ve got home matches against 10th place Fulham (who’ve won only once away from Craven Cottage this season) and 6th place Manchester City (who’ve won just once from home since August — against Wolves). Aside from tough away fixtures against Birmingham and Spurs, you have to think we’re favored to win every game down the stretch. If we can take advantage of the soft schedule and take 3 points from these fixtures, we’ll really be able to put some pressure on United and Chelsea come April and May.

3. Many Happy Returns.

We’re finally getting something resembling a Premiership roster back. Alex Song, who’s been one of our top 3 players this season, has returned from the ACN. As has Eboue, which gives us another substitute option. Diaby, who’s turned into excellent midfielder seemingly overnight, returns on Sunday and spares us another vintage Denilson performance. Clichy’s finally back, and while he’s turned in a couple of embarassing performances in a row, you have to think that once he gets back in the swing of regular football he’ll at least be better than Traore. Bendtner’s back, and no matter what you think of him, he at least gives us some kind of physical and aerial threat up front, as well as a “shoot first” mindset that many of our converted midfielder/strikers haven’t shown lately. And Walcott is also back — like Clichy, he’s looked bad so far, but if he gets going, his pace can really pin teams back and open things up in midfield. Finally, recent reports have Robin van Persie possibly returning in March, not April. If we can somehow stay within 3 or 4 points of the top of the table, and Robbie came back for our last 6 or 7 games, knowing that United still had to play Chelsea, Spurs, and Manchester City (at Eastlands), and Chelsea had to play United (at Old Trafford), Spurs (at White Hart Lane), and Liverpool (at Anfield) over the last 6 weeks . . . well, wouldn’t you feel like we had a real shot at pipping them for the title?

4. We’ve got Cesc Fabregas.

Bears mentioning. And I know a lot of people would disagree with this, but I think that when healthy we’ve got the best midfield in England at the moment. Cesc has developed into one of the world’s premier playmakers, Song is turning into an elite holding midfielder before our eyes, and Diaby’s emergence as powerful, physical, box-to-box type means that we’ve got 3 excellent midfielders, all of whom offer something very different and complement each other well. When those 3 are on the field, we can win the ball in our own half, keep the ball as we move forward, and then look lethal in the final 3rd between Cesc’s pinpoint passes and scoring prowess (he leads the club with 11 league goals) and Diaby’s powerful runs.

5. This Team Tends to Play Its Best Football When People Count Us Out.

It’s maddening, but it’s true. After getting bashed 3-0 by Chelsea at home in November, we were 11 points below them in the table, and everyone gave up on our title chances. We responded by going out and going 7-2-0 in our next 9 matches, collectiong 23 points from a possible 27 and going top of the table. The storyline then changed to “Arsenal are in the title race.” We responded by collecting 1 point from our next 2 matches, falling well behind. At the moment, everyone is counting us out again. But honestly, maybe that’s for the best — maybe we want the media focus to be on Manchester United and Chelsea as the only two legitimate title contenders for the next couple of months. If we can just keep picking up wins, and then let them each drop some points in April, we may just be able to sneak up on everyone ninja-style.

6. There’s only one Arsene Wenger.

I know, I know. He’s come under criticism from a lot of people the past couple of seasons. He’s even come under (admittedly mild) criticism from yours truly about his transfer policy. But know this. He lives for football, and lives for winning. Losing obviously eats away at him inside, as does uninformed criticism of him and his policies. There is NO ONE in English football with more a desire to lift that trophy this season than Wenger. It would prove that (a) you can win with a policy centered around developing young players, not buying established players; (b) you can win by playing attractive attacking football; (c) Arsenal can win without the Henry/Vieira group; (d) Wenger can win without David Dein; and (e) Arsenal are still one of the world’s elite football clubs. Look — everyone wants to win, I’m not saying they don’t. But no one wants to win this as badly as Wenger, so rest assured that he will definitely be staying awake at night and spending every waking moment trying to bring that trophy home to London.

So cheer up, this could still be our year. Remember…

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Category: Arsenal News