Premier League week 35
Arsenal have lost three of their last five matches in the Premier League. The latest loss was at Wolverhampton 3-1 where Arsenal came out flat all game long being down 3-0 at one point.
At this rhythm the Gunners will not finish in the top 4 this season and likely not play in the Champions League next year unless they win the Europa League.
It has been a roller-coaster season in England this year with only the top two clubs – Manchester City and Liverpool – being consistent all year long. Arsenal did a fabulous run of unbeaten games in the heart of winter that enabled the club to be in this situation today. They also performed very well in Europe beating Napoli and have now a chance to reach the final should they pass Valencia CF.
Arsenal, coach Emery, on the last bad game:
“We have two competitions, one is the Premier League, the second is the Europa League. That’s two ways to get into the Champions League, our objective. We need to continue being strong in our mentality, strong with our confidence, strong in our capacity. We are going to analyse how we can be competitive, how we can be better as a team in the [next] matches.
The match was important with how teams can start winning and after I think we lost a little in the 20 minutes after the first goal. We lost our possibility to take passions in these minutes, to recover our possibilities and our chances in our game plan. The second goal was a set-piece and another transition killed us in this moment (for the third goal). But in the dressing room we were speaking that in the second half we need to first recover our game plan and be strong in our mind.
To score a goal was our first idea and after if we can take minutes of the 90 minutes we can continue our plan. The second half was different but it wasn’t enough to take some points. Generally we are now disappointed, but we need to also look at all the season and we are not in our own hands now because we lost this possibility today. We need to prepare the best as possible for Sunday’s match against Leicester. If we win, okay it’s going to be very difficult again, but another option that we can take on Sunday.”
On how to improve:
“I think we need to continue together and not look at one player or the defence or attacking players like a group. We need to think to recover our confidence and to recover our good moments for when we were in the worst moments. We can recover and take possibilities like we have now. Really, the last two matches we lost good options but the last three matches we are going to play in the Premier League we can and we are going to play our possibilities.
We are with the possibility to be in the top four and today we lost having it in our hands. [We need to] continue and I want to tell the players and the supporters to continue and take the opportunity on Sunday.”
