The loss against Sp*rs Sunday hurt. It hurt pride, hurt confidence, and severely hurt our chances of being in next season's Champions League. So where do we go from here? What needs to improve, and what are the chances they will?
Honestly, every aspect of our play needs to improve if we're to accomplish our goal of being in the Champions League next season. With that in mind, let's break it down area-by-area.
Goalkeeping
I'm a fan of Wojciech Szczesny. I love the spirit and the attitude he has, and I love that he's a self-proclaimed gooner. But he hasn't been fantastic this season. His reflexes are good, and positioning's not bad. Even his distribution is usually pretty good. But if there are faults, they are in two areas. First, he lacks authority in the box. He doesn't warn his defenders enough of danger, doesn't call for the ball enough, and at times only punches the ball wildly away.
That's part of the second problem. His horrendous parrying of the ball has led to several conceded goals this season. When he punches the ball away, more often than not they fall straight to opposition attackers. And when a shot comes in on goal, Szczesny so often parries the ball straight into the follow-up attacking runner's path you'd think it was on purpose.
The guy is young. A lot of these problems are due to lack of experience and that will improve in the coming years. I believe he'll go on to be one of our greatest keepers. But that doesn't help in the short-term, in the run-in. His improvement must be more rapid.
Defence
Contrary to popular media opinion, our defence is actually not bad. Arsenal have conceded fewer goals than Spurs, only one more than Manchester United, and just two more than Chelsea. From a statistical point of view we're in good shape. Why then is all the focus still on how terrible our defence is? Perhaps it's because, while we're actually not conceding that many goals, the ones we do concede are due to obvious, sometimes high-profile individual or collective errors.
There's no doubt at least one of the two goals conceded at the weekend to Tottenham could have been prevented with greater discipline and defensive shape. That's the real problem. Our defence doesn't need to be constantly abused by supporters, but instead they should be supported. Many of the errors they are committing is due to a lack of confidence. Support from fans in matches helps greatly in restoring that confidence.
If we already statistically have one of the best defences I the league, imagine what can be accomplished these final few weeks of the season if confidence is restored and individual errors are minimized.
Midfield
In general, the midfield has been the best part of our team this season. As far as attacking talents, there are few better in the league than Santi Cazorla and Jack Wilshere. Arteta and even Rosicky have been excellent as well. And once upon a time Diaby even got bored of the treatment table and put in a solid shift or two.
If there's room for improvement it's just in the area of defensive cover. Ramsey and Arteta can honestly do the job fairly well, and have on occasion this season. But both players like to attack instead of defend. And if they defend too deeply then they're unable to help launch attacks. We may or may not need a midfield enforcer in there, but since that's not going to happen before the end of the season, Arteta and Ramsey need to step up.
Attack
This is where the real problem lies. We have just not been prolific enough in front of goal this season. Giroud hasn't been scoring as much as should be expected of him, Podolski, while excellent, disappears from games, and oddly has also been disappearing from Arsene Wenger's team selections. Walcott is good but not great. While it would've been a real shame to see him leave, he's still a better right winger than striker. Santi Cazorla has contributed goals from midfield, but the rest of the midfield hasn't followed suit.
I could go on about our lack of attacking prowess and ways in which it can improve, but that's a post for another day. Suffice it to say, Arsenal are an attacking team, and if we're not scoring goals, we won't be winning matches, simple as. Our defence is okay and midfield is decent, so if we're to reach those Champions League spaces, our attack must improve. If it does in the coming weeks, we may just nick 4th spot after all.
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