Reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Before the fateful final kicks had been delivered in our titanic 4-2 victory over Aston Villa, none other than BBC Sport had already released their ‘match review,’ which waxed lyrical about Villa’s deserving point.
The media were lapping up our slump.
Our FA Cup loss to City, despite the nature of the match – with Arsenal’s much-changed side going toe-to-toe with City for the majority of the game. This game though, was the ‘psychological blow’ that Pep’s side were looking for.
Even though Pep and Arteta both declared it meaningless in the run-in.
Our 1-0 loss to Everton, where the wheels very much wobbled as Sean Dyche’s presence had an immediate effect, with the Toffees warranting the three points.
Then the 1-1 draw with Brentford that most pundits called an injustice to Brentford, who were the better side for the majority, supposedly.
Our 3-1 loss to City was where the world and his wife came out to laugh at Arsenal, where out title charge was shown up for what it was – a temporary state of affairs where the natural order was once again resumed.
Until it wasn’t.
Let’s look at the facts.
Our match with City, take a look at the match stats.
On an even keel with passing, number of passes, opportunities, more corners.
Here’s our loss to Everton. Everton undoubtedly wanted it more and they deserved the win, but on the face of it, we were not as poor as reported…
Take a look at our match with the Bees. This match is where many pundits cited Toney’s glaring miss over the bar as the reason Brentford were the better side. Which means the amount of shots, possession, passes etc were overlooked. On facts, there was only one side who deserved to win.
It was widely reported that we had more possession and more passes than City – Jack Grealish even admitted in his post-match interview that we were the better side. Not according to some though.
Finally, we get to our win over Villa. The win that arrested our ‘slide.’ The victory that was scantly deserved apparently. We were poor in the first half and Villa should have held on for a point at least – if Ramsdale had not pulled off a fantastic reflex save late on, we would have lost – but we kept on pushing.
And on match facts, it was a just reward…
What do these facts show us?
They show us that we should look at the numbers and the FACTS before deciding what it real or not.
We should take every opinion from pundits with a generous pinch of salt, as agendas are taking priority above truth.
Watch the game yourself. Judge whether our team are performing well.
Don’t blindly listen to those who should know better.
Because our side are showing everyone we are on the up.
Up The Arsenal 