Arsenal Need To Focus On The Premier League

Let’s be honest. Arsenal didn’t lose there chances at qualifying from the group stage of the Champions League on Wednesday night in Germany. We dug ourselves into this hole by losing to Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiacos in disastrous fashion. End of story.

Maybe we should have played Petr Cech instead of David Ospina. That’s a fair assessment. But hindsight is always 20/20. What we need to do now is take what we can from this experience. Out of four games in Europe this season Arsenal have lost three, won one and given up an embarrassing ten goals. However the one game we did leave victorious was a tactical masterclass. Arsenal’s 2-0 victory over Bayern Munich shows that this team can play with anyone in the world.

There are a few caveats, however. Arsenal need to be healthy and switched on in order to gain the best results. That is an obvious statement. But it is one that needs to be hammered home. Against Zagreb and Olympiacos, Arsenal sleepwalked through the game. There was no sense of urgency or desperation. It was as though the team expected to show up and be awarded six points for their trouble.

That is absolutely unacceptable.

Anything can happen in football. It’s imperative to be locked in from the opening kick-off to the final seconds of extra time. In order for Arsenal to maintain this title push we need to remain focused and treat every opponent with the respect they deserve. In the premier league there are no easy games. We have upcoming fixtures against bottom feeders Sunderland and Aston Villa, as well as matches against the less than impressive Baggies and Canaries.

We should go into these matches with the same intensity as a fixture against City or Liverpool. These are the games that champions must have. These are the games you can’t lose or draw. Winning is the only option. That needs to be felt throughout the dressing room, and defeats against Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiacos should help drive that point home. Last season, draws to Leicester and Hull, along with a very bad loss to Stoke, left us with two points from a possible nine.

Season after season Arsenal are ravaged by injuries. I won’t go into the laundry list of players who are hurt but you can read about that in another one of our articles. This is a reality that we just can not seem to escape. Something is wrong here. I believe that it comes down to the sheer workload that our players are put through. Perhaps they shouldn’t be so frail if they are so expensive right? Well we can’t fault them for real physical maladies. They give everything they have and for players like Wilshere, Ramsey, Walcott and the Ox, I genuinely feel terrible for them.

These guys want to play at the highest level in their sport but they are continually curtailed. Arsene Wenger chose not to bring in any outfield players in the summer, and that seemed like madness. However, now it does appear that Arsenal possess a chemistry that City, United, Liverpool and certainly Chelsea, can not emulate at the moment. Yet this lack of fresh players has left the squad essentially threadbare with all of these injuries. We need to get a few players in January just to help lighten the workload.

I know Danny Welbeck and Jack Wilshere should be back by the New Year, but as an Arsenal fan do you really trust that these injuries will just vanish in 2016? Of course not.

Furthermore what is the point of playing our best teams against Zagreb and Olympiacos? The only way we can qualify from the group stage is by beating these teams handily. We all know they are just going to set up to defend against us any way. Why risk the health of Giroud, Ozil, and Alexis? If one of those players gets an injury that sidelines him for an extended period, we could see our hold on the top of the table slip away.

This may be unpopular to say, but to hell with the Champions League. For at least this season. Let’s learn from our mistakes and never drop a point to another sub par opponent. Furthermore let’s keep the few healthy stars we have left on the pitch in England where we can actually win something this season.