Arsenal: Which Week Was Most Damaging To Title Hopes?

Arsenal’s defeat to Chelsea all but ended the title challenge, so it’s time to reflect where it went wrong. Was the past week most damaging or was the week before the festive period more destructive?

The performance and result against Chelsea was thoroughly disappointing. With a chance to reinvigorate our title challenge by making a big statement at the bridge. The Arsenal instead crumbled in the face of adversity and let Chelsea walk all over them.

Related: 5 Things We Learned Against Chelsea

This defeat was only made worse by the fact that it was preceded by a shocking defeat to Watford midweek. Watford entered the game in awful form while Arsenal were still riding on the wave of the brilliant performance against Southampton only days earlier.

In the space of 4 days, Arsenal saw their challenge for the biggest prize drift away. Yet there was a sense of déjà vu in how the week conspired. Not too long ago, we also suffered a similar horrific period with two defeats in the space of a week. That time against Everton and Man City.

Both weeks were pivotal in the context of our season. I can only imagine what the spirit around the Emirates would be like if we picked up 12 points instead of 0 in those 4 games. However, while reflecting on the Chelsea defeat, I asked myself: Which week was more damaging to our title hopes? There is a case to be made for both.

The week with defeats to Everton and Man City was very painful for Gooners. In both games, Arsenal took the lead and looked in a degree of control. But lack of ambition and heart saw us fall behind 2-1 in both matches dropping 6 points in the process.

The players just didn’t seem up for it after taking the lead in either game. A sense of complacency riddled the side and the fans were rightly disgusted. Ozil took the brunt of the blame that week with two poor showings. But the whole side was pretty awful over those 4 days to be honest.

While that particular week saw collapses after taking the lead. Our most recent duo of defeats has followed poor starts in many games beforehand. The Southampton game aside, in the last month the Gunners have had to fight their way back from embarrassment against PNE and Bournemouth to salvage a degree of respect. In a way you could say these defeats were coming.

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Yet what baffled me was the continued nature of our poor starts in games. Having a dreadful start a couple of games a year is plausible. But to continually suffer the same fate in successive matches is distressing. Surely that unprepared mental state partially stems from the manager?

Against Watford the players seemed mentally and physically disinterested in the first 20 minutes and were deservedly two goals down at the break. Yet this time an improved second half showing wasn’t enough to save us.

Against Chelsea, there seemed slightly more motivation within the group but the performance was again lacking. The day and possibly the season was summed up by dreadful mistakes by Koscielny and Cech for the second and third goals.

In the end, these two weeks are the periods in which our challenge faltered. We have been relatively consistent in the majority of the other games but have ultimately failed when it mattered most.

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There will be plenty of wound licking over the next few days after our recent defeat to Chelsea, mostly because it has ended our title challenge. The Gunners better comeback with one hell of a performance against Hull next weekend. It’s the least the loyal Gooners deserve.