Arsenal: Lets Not Get Too Carried Away, It Was Middlesbrough

Arsenal beat Middlesbrough 2-1 on Monday night. While they should be praised for their victory, let’s not too carried away given their opposition.

Arsenal have won a game. Yes, I know that may seem unbelievable, a figment of one’s imagination. But no, it is indeed true. Arsenal have won a game. And it came in rather extraordinary circumstances.

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While the game itself was rather ordinary, the team selection beforehand was far from the normal. Arsene Wenger has played three-at-the-back just once in his 21-year tenure in North London. That came in 1997. Now, 20 years later, he’s added another to his collection.

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The change in system was an utter surprise. Wenger is notoriously stiff and unyielding in his tactics, rarely changing things midway through a season. Here, though, he was more than willing to do so and reaped the rewards. The win gives the Gunners a chance of hauling their way back into the top four and ending the season on a relative high. And Wenger and many of his players have been praised for their resilience and their performance on Monday night. But Gary Neville, working as a pundit for Sky Sports, was quick to pour water on everyone’s hopes:

"“Tonight was all about preparation for Sunday. If they lose Sunday, I think you can forget about that victory because it will just return back to difficult moments and I think that’s where Arsenal are at the moment, they’re so finely tuned in terms of one win isn’t going to help them.”Lose Sunday and I still think those questions will be at the forefront of every single person’s mind."

While they may seem like harsh comments after a confidence-boosting and criticism-stemming win, ultimately, they are fair. The 2-1 victory over Middlesbrough was Arsenal’s fourth since February 11th, just their second in their last six league games, ending a run of four successive league away defeats, where they’ve conceded three in all of them, and still leaves them seven points off of the top four.

As Neville rightly points out, lose on Sunday against Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-final, and their last hope of a trophy ends. This was an undoubtedly important win for the Gunners, one that they should be praised for, within reason.

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But in the context of the season and the opposition – Middlesbrough currently languish in 19th position, without a full-time manager, having not won a league game in their last 15 Premier League games – let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Good, yes, but there’s still a long way for this team to go.