Arsenal Have Proven They Are the Best Attacking Force in the Premier League
It was the Friday before the start of the Premier League season and I was on a plane home. The two gentlemen next to me starting talking and the conversation soon moved to football. One of them was lamenting Southampton’s relegation into League One, he then said to his friend, “So it’s four years without a trophy now then?” The other gentleman was an Arsenal fan.
As an unabashed Arsenal fan myself, I thought it would be best to just sit back and see what he said about his team. “I really think we’re going to finish 5th behind Man City this season, I really do.” Upon hearing such blasphemy I jumped to my teams defence.
After listening to his opinion on Bendtner (“tosser”), I suggested that the Arsenal squad had the most attacking talent in the Premier League, a proposition he politely disagreed with. The next day Arsenal won 6-1 away at Everton.
Since that opening day master class, Arsenal have scored 54 goals in all competitions, a total that urges the jaw to drop. In individual matches they have scored 6 goals on two occasions, 4 goals on four occasions and 3 goals on four occasions. But the most surprising aspect of Arsenal’s goal-scoring prowess is how surprised football fans have been at Arsenal’s form.
It’s not like Arsenal’s goals have come out the blue, a basic analysis of the squad would tell you that the team is full of goals. As pundits and fans alike have realised it is Arsenal’s new formation that has finally devised a way to fully harness the attacking talent at Arsene Wenger’s disposal.
The 4-3-3 (or 4-1-2-3 if you really like your formation analysis) creates a fluidity that liberates players like Fabregas while allowing Alex Song to carry on his meteoric rise to a midfield rock and protect the back four. Because Van Persie, Arshavin, Eduardo and Bendtner can all play on the wings or as centre forwards the positions along the front line are constantly interchangeable, often leaving defenders perplexed as to just who they are supposed to be marking.
Last season, the inexperience of Song and Denilson meant that Fabregas was naturally tentative in going forward, knowing that his defensive cover was inadequate. The development of Song into a reliable, calm and collected defensive midfielder is priceless; look no further than his impact on the game against Wolves. Diaby went off with an injury and on came Song, gone was the under the kosh Arsenal soaking up waves of Wolves’ attacks and in it’s place a much more reassured and focused side.
The rapid progress of Song makes the African Cup of Nations on the horizon all the more alarming; one can only hope that Denilson, upon his return from injury can fills Song’s boots.
Arsenal’s goal glut also makes their defensive frailties (relative to the likes of Chelsea) much less of an issue. Look at Barcelona last season, they conceded 35 goals in La Liga, 11 more goals than Manchester United let in the Premier League. The clear difference being that Barcelona outscored Man United in their respective league by 37 goals.*
Arsenal are a team that are without a doubt more likely to concede than their title rivals, but they are also more likely to score more and as the Arsenal legend Herbert Chapman simply put it “The team that scores the most goals wins.” If people aren’t already taking Arsenal seriously this season, then now’s the time to sit up and pay attention.
*I am aware of the perils of comparing between leagues, but no one can argue that Barcelona weren’t a much more attacking force than Man United last season.
Topics: Arsenal, English Premier League
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Arsenal certainly look great when it’s working. But unlike Chelsea they don’t often win when they play poorly and it’s for that reason that Arsenal won’t win the league.
Arsenal are still a flimsy team crying out for some real steel in midfield. Despite claims of a ‘meteoric rise to midfield rock’ Song has not somehow morphed into Viera… or even Fletcher.
November 9th, 2009 @ 11:45Fizzle out by January, like they always do.
November 9th, 2009 @ 12:13As much as I agree with the first post, the team has a very good back four and as the article highlights a huge plethora of attacking talent, which compensates to an extent. Because of this I don’t really see us going long periods without winning, unless we get really unlucky with injuries.
However, while Song is a better player than he’s being given credit for I do agree that we won’t win anything as it stands for the reason stated, which will invariably cost us points in a few games. That said our foundatuins are better than Man U and Liverpools. If were there or thereabouts after January we’ll have a great chance because Wenger will most likely buy another midfielder and centre back in the window.
November 9th, 2009 @ 14:18come back to me when arsenal win against the other CL teams in the PL.
November 9th, 2009 @ 15:58an excellent start to the season for arsenal, unfortunately memories of the 2007/2008 season come to mind where after going like the clappers early on they fizzled out and only time will tell if this will happen again.
Confident attacking football for sure, but will it be enough to be in the fight in April/May the jury is still out.
November 9th, 2009 @ 17:10Wenger shift to the 4-3-3 formation was smart. I am usually over critical regarding how tempted the coaches in England are to import new Ideas just when it work once. History gives lot of unsuccessful samples.
Yet, I think the players Arsene has in his squad dictates the 4-3-3 . He has more quality in the CM department than midfield wings. In return, he has offense oriented full backs to stretch the field on the flanks. Putting wings in front of them will block their channels without improving the offense output.
Yet, The 4-3-3, or the 4-1-2-3 require a quality DM as a must. Or else it will collapse against teams having enough quality in generating counters. Even with Yaya serving Barcelona, they suffer lot of fragility in that department as Yaya is not a pure DM A.K.A Mascherano. It’s interesting to see how Arsene will deal with this Challenge.
November 9th, 2009 @ 17:49YAWN! Arsenal… same story… different year… EXCITING young prospects… best attacking football… unlucky with injuries… no end product! Yet authors like this go on about it as if they’ve been sweeping every competition under the sun for years!
I find it ridiculous that the author brings into the equation a comparison between Barcelona and Manchester United to make an argument… about as irrelevant as one can get. I bet if I asked him about the last season he’d mention the longest winning streak among the top4! And completely ignore the 18 point gap to the league winners… 18 POINTS! i repeat 18 points adrift last season (with the same number of goals scored) but the longest winning streak among the top 4 was somehow representative of their true prowess!
Tell you what… save this article, publish it again next year when you’ve played the bottom 10 clubs in the league and pulled off another record breaking winning streak!
PFFFFT!
November 9th, 2009 @ 21:07Arsenal have been outstanding going forward and look even better as some of their youngsters mature. I don’t think many wrote Arsenal off pre-season, it was more a case of they were hard to call.
Based on the last 2 seasons the questions remained about defensive frailty, especially defensive cover when injuries kicked-in.
This still remains a question and I wouldn’t quite agree about Song….yet. Luck, with injuries, may yet play a part and their ability to put away the big teams will be a factor.
When you look at where they’ve dropped points so far it’s all about defence and the ability to create against the top teams. At Old Trafford they looked the better team for long periods but ultimately only had 4 shots on target and committed defensive Hari Kari to lose the game. Against City they again looked the better team but leaked 4 goals, and at West Ham should have sewn up the game but cracked defensively when put under pressure.
That said, I believe you’re right in that if they keep scoring at the rate they have been, they can get away with conceding more. I’m not writing them off for a minute and think that they are real contenders.
If Wenger does it he will get huge credit….and deservedly so!
November 10th, 2009 @ 12:43Look at their schedule so far. They lost 2 of 3 tough games – United and City.
They will struggle when they have to play Liverpool and Chelsea. They will lose 6-8 games this season and I am not sure they can make it up.
November 10th, 2009 @ 19:20in the three past years that arsenal have had the best record against the top four sides but still didn’t win the league. it is with the sides that are bottom of the league they have struggled. in the past four years it was this inability to break the other than top four teams that cost them.they usually failed to penetrate the sides when they were playing away. the likes of west ham, stoke, everton, bolton, sunderland,and the like springs in my mind. the main problem is the defense. they leak too many goals from set pieces and tend not to hold on to slender leads. the cb pairing have been excellent now, but what if one gets injured. alex song has developed immensely (but not there yet) and that has helped their progress too. but with tough fixtures during the time he goes to African Nation’s Cup, there is no natural defensive midfielder in the team. and the record against the top four doesn’t matter too much. i would rather win against all the other sides and take draws in home with the big 4 and loss away. remember, man utd didn’t do particularly well against the top four sides last year but still finished as champions.
November 10th, 2009 @ 19:47Raihak, you revert to the past in an attempt to make your point about the now. It doesn’t work. The writer here is not claiming they will win the EPL, FA Cup or the CL. His point is that they are currently playing the best attacking soccer. You can read in to it what you want, and it’s just that, you going elsewhere instead of staying on topic. Like them or not (and it’s simple to no which way you lean), they are currently playing the best attacking soccer in the EPL, which is all the writer is proclaiming. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize silverware is not won in the month of Novemeber, so please go back and read the article with an open (soccer) mind. They may not always get the end results, but they play the game the way it was meant to be…………
November 11th, 2009 @ 00:18