Arsenal: Amazing what happens with even the smallest purpose

Arsenal kept the heat up against Burnley in an away match, and it makes me think that all this team needs is an attainable purpose.

It was a heavily rotated Arsenal squad against a largely un-rotated Burnley squad. We had Stephan Lichtsteiner and Nacho Monreal at fullback, Shkodran Mustafi and Konstantinos Mavropanos at centerback, and Mohamed Elneny in the midfield.

Joe Willock was in the No. 10 role, flanked by the inconsistent duo of Alex Iwobi and Henikh Mkhitaryan. The only two reliable names on the team were the bookends – Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at one end, Bernd Leno at the other.

Going up against physical Burnley at Turf Moor was no easy ask, especially with relatively little to play for. And in the early stages, you could be forgiven for losing a bit of hope. It didn’t exactly look too good, did it?

But in away matches, the ability to create a turnaround is usually isolated to the Europa League and not to the Premier League at all.

Especially when no subs are involved.

Against Burnley though, it was much different. As the match played on, the Gunners attacked harder and harder and showed a driven determination in their desire to win this match and, not just that, score more goals.

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They didn’t just sit on their arse, they didn’t just pass the ball around, they attacked until the very last whistle.

What changed?

Honestly, I think they had an attainable goal, something palpable that they were fighting for – an Aubameyang hat trick/Golden Boot (mainly the former, as he had very little knowledge of the latter in the moment).

You could tell that Alex Iwobi and Matteo Guendouzi especially were feeding Aubameyang the ball, trying to get him that last goal to get him that match ball. It was like, since this objective was right in front of them, they couldn’t be stopped. Aubameyang could have had four, honestly. He was nearly perfect.

Something about finishing in the top four may just not have been as much of a palpable goal. It wasn’t right in front of them. But I haven’t seen Arsenal attack with such determination and so little premium attackers, in quite some time. It was lovely to see.

Maybe the mindset is there to be honed, if Unai Emery can just work some magic and hone it. There is clearly grit and desire in this squad, they wanted to get Aubameyang another goal. Now just make the title attainable and wa-la.