Arsenal: It’s all coming together rather nicely, and just in time

Arsenal’s win over Southampton showcased a strength that had been a weakness up until, and now we can see a clear path forward.

It’s been a merry-go-round thus far into 2019 for Arsenal. It’s always so important that, when one aspect of play falters, another is there to pick it up. For lapses this year, that hasn’t happened for the Gunners and, in the calendar year this far, it especially hasn’t happened.

At various points this year, defense has stepped up to hold down the club, the keeper has, the strikers have, the fullbacks have, and all the while, the one position that has been noticeably weakest and most unreliable of them all is the creative attacking midfielders – the guys responsible for creating chances.

Against both BATE Borisov and Southampton, we saw that turning around. They created plenty of chances in both matches, but other aspects let the club down – finishing, defending, etc. And yet, there was such an abundance in one area that it made up for the others.

It’s been awhile since we had all aspects clicking at once, and injuries have played a huge role in it. Granit Xhaka and Laurent Koscielny have both missed time recently, and they are required to fire on all cylinders.

Mesut Ozil has been out, Henrikh Mkhitaryan too, and as a result, the reliability of these parts of the team have been missing.

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But moving on from Southampton, it’s pretty clear that everything has come together all at once, and just in time for the pending weekend match against Tottenham, assuming we can get past Bournemouth first.

On defense, Laurent Koscielny is back and can pair with Sokratis to bring back the best defense we have on the squad. In the midfield, Granit Xhaka has reestablished control and has an abundance of movement around him in Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira.

In the creative midfield, Ozil is working his way back into the fold and Henrikh Mkhitaryan is truly getting back to his best.

And up front, well, there have never been any questions up there.

Everything is coming together. Chance creation has yet again become the focal point of the club, the defense has its best pairing back and the midfield can rediscover the unflinching reliability that they had earlier in the year.

There’s never a bad time to get our full compliment back at our disposal, but this might be one of the best times, with the final stretch of the season ahead of us.