Are Arsenal going to bottle it? The next four games will decide their season
Arsenal have a crucial four games coming up, ever since I made it clear just how important their last four games would be.
Two weeks ago I looked ahead at Arsenal’s fixtures against Everton, Bayer Leverkusen, Manchester City, and Southampton.
Now we know the Gunners’ record from those four matches – two wins, against Everton and Leverkusen, followed by two defeats to City and Southampton.
So, the Carabao Cup and FA Cup are gone now, but Arsenal actually extended their lead at the top of the Premier League table by beating Everton while Manchester City could only draw at West Ham.
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What next for Arsenal?
7th April – Sporting Lisbon vs Arsenal
While it may only be the first or two legs, so unlikely to be decisive, if Arsenal play as badly as they have in their last two games then it will surely be another defeat. Losing by a single goal wouldn’t be the end of the tie, but Arsenal on current form probably wouldn’t have it in them to come back from a two-goal deficit, and this is a quality Sporting side who shouldn’t be taken for granted.
11th April – Arsenal vs Bournemouth
Arsenal’s first league fixture since the win over Everton, and it looks on paper like a fairly generous one. Even if this Bournemouth side have looked very decent at times this season, they’re currently without a win in their last five games and down in 13th in the table. If Arsenal can’t pick up three points at home in this context then that doesn’t bode at all well for them holding on to their current lead at the top of the table.
15th April – Arsenal vs Sporting Lisbon
After this game, Arsenal will either be out of a third competition in the space of just a few weeks and facing a full-blown crisis, or they’ll be heading for the Champions League semi-finals and keeping their double hopes alive. Given the fixture coming up after this one, they’ll want to avoid extra time and avoid feeling like their entire season rests on how they do in the league.
19th April – Manchester City vs Arsenal
The big one. Arsenal were really poor in the Carabao Cup final defeat, and it’s unclear at this stage how that game will affect this one. Before their recent meeting at Wembley, Mikel Arteta boasted a good recent record against Pep Guardiola, albeit not so much at the Etihad Stadium. So, will Arteta learn lessons from that cup final defeat and coax a response from his players, or will that result wreck the team’s confidence and lead to another damaging result?
Arsenal’s season can still be a success
It’s been nervy for Arsenal at times, and the football hasn’t always been pretty, but this is a team that knows how to grind out results, and they could still scrap their way to a successful season.
You’d imagine that once they finally get their hands on a big trophy like the Premier League or the Champions League, there’ll be a new-found confidence flowing at the Emirates Stadium, but for now they just need to do whatever it takes to get points on the board.
And, let’s be clear about this, because there’s been a lot of nonsense of this nature written on social media – even if Arsenal only manage to win the Premier League title this season, that’s still a huge success.
Arsenal were never realistically in the race for a quadruple, which even Pep’s best Man City teams never managed. To measure any success the club has against a fantasy outcome like that is absurd, and the reality will be a first title in 22 years against a City side with far more in the way of resources, and an expensively-assembled Liverpool side everyone was expecting to stroll to the defence of their title.
What do you expect from Arsenal in their next four games and do you still see this as a potentially great season for the club? Let us know in the comments!
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