Arsenal: The difference between Valencia and other away matches

Arsenal’s awful away form is not a secret, so what made Valencia so much different than Leicester City and Wolverhampton? Just one thing.

A mid-table team away from home. That’s been the story of Arsenal‘s year, and the story of many years past. When they step outside of the Emirates they look timid, frail, pathetic. At home, they are robust, confident and dominant.

So, needless to say, traveling to Valencia to protect a two-goal lead wasn’t exactly an easy match to anticipate. Especially not with all the upsets happening in the Champions League the two days prior and especially still knowing that no Aaron Ramsey meant no first-choice XI.

But this team looked robust and confident, just like a home match. They played it like any other away match, but they won this one 4-2 rather than losing 3-0 or 3-1. So what was the difference? Was it the added stakes? Maybe that contributed to it. But the main difference was simple – they took their chances.

Valencia had twice as many shots as Arsenal did. But Arsenal scored twice as many goals as their hosts. They took their chances.

You can’t even say that any of those goals were particularly easy. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang‘s first had to be inch perfect, as did Alexandre Lacazette for the second, and Aubameyang’s simplest of flicks for the third was much of the same. And the fourth? Ditto.

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It’s not just a matter of outscoring an opponent. When those goals go in, the sting is taken out of the match. The opposition gets jilted, they lose a bit of confidence, and in that void, the match can calm down.

That never happened against Leicester City, who also outshot Arsenal. But in that match, we obviously didn’t take our chances.

Even against Wolverhampton, we see a different theme – even on shots, but Wolverhampton took their chances and we didn’t.

Knowing what our strength as a club is – the forwards – makes it easy to see what has to go right for things to go all the way right. We have to have our strikers finishing their chances. It happened against Valencia in a big way and never looked to be in doubt. There was fight and determination and all manner of lovely things.

It’s just a matter of building back form there. Finding the suddenly missing midfield solidity, finding options out wide. Because with forwards like these, there’s no excuse to get outscored. Like… ever.