Arsenal: Foundations are useless without the house being built

Shkodran Mustafi has stated that Arsenal’s promising performance against Chelsea must now be developed upon. He is absolutely spot on. The foundations established are useless without the house being built.

Arsenal showed some extremely promising signs on Sunday. Before their daunting trip to Stamford Bridge, there was an overwhelming sense of trepidation and dread thanks to their historical issues away from home against the better sides in the Premier League.

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They have lost all of their last five away trips to Chelsea, were dismantled to the tune of four-goals by Liverpool just three weeks, and during the last five years, of the 75 points on offer in trips to the five other teams in the top six – Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and Spurs – the Gunners have earned just 13. No matter how you spin it, that is not good, not good at all.

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But Arsene Wenger and his players challenged the narrative at the weekend. They were resolute, industrious and disciplined, defending as a communicative and connected unit, closing down the Chelsea midfield when necessary and restricting the space in and around the final third. While it was an undoubtedly positive performance, however, one game does not vindicate the years of troubles away from home. And that is exactly the point of Shkodran Mustafi after the draw. Mustafi stated that he and his teammates must now build on this performance:

"“We are a team that are willing to learn. I think that we have to try and build from something and I think we can build form this performance today because we were really well organised when we didn’t have the ball. When we had the ball, we played some brilliant one-touch football. I think we can build from this. We played today against the champions of last season and if you play like this, I think you’ll get a lot of points. We can build from that.”"

And the German is absolutely spot on.

Sunday established the foundations for Arsenal to now go on the road and get a result against the top teams. But doing so once is not enough for the club to challenge throughout a long and arduous season. They must be able to perform like they did on Sunday with far more regularity and consistency. The house must now be built.

Whether Arsenal are genuine title challengers or not, I do not know. They may claim to be so, even if their actions throughout the summer and the performances on the pitch may suggest otherwise. But what was a key issue that repeatedly scuppered their Premier League hopes was their confidence-decimating losses to their rivals close to them.

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They stemmed that tide on Sunday. Now, they must turn it on its head. Only time will tell if they can do that or not.