Arsenal have staged a quite impressive comeback in the League and the Champions League ever since suffering a horrible dip in form during the early parts of the campaign. However, their impressive comeback is threatened by the amount of reliance they put upon the striker Robin van Persie and also the recent draw with Fulham. The 1-1 draw was extremely surprising, as Arsenal could have easily lost the match. In order to be competitive in the league, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has said that Arsenal should not be dropping any more points in the campaign.
This is quite a powerful statement considering that Arsenal to rely a lot upon the players like Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott. The return of Jack Wilshere in January should add some much-needed strength to the Arsenal line-up, although the Christmas fixtures could prove extremely costly should Arsenal suffer any more injuries. The sale of Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas has severely weakened the team, but the rise of Robin van Persie as a real quality strikers has compensated for it. Despite drawing against Fulham, Arsene Wenger may have a lot of positives to take away from the match given that they are on a nine match unbeaten run.
Thomas Vermaelen scored the goals at both ends in the match against Fulham. Speaking after the match, Arsene Wenger said, “Overall I must say that the spirit in the squad is so good that I’m confident we’ll improve even more. The spirit was exceptional [against Fulham] – you could see that when we were 1-0 down the team responded by giving absolutely everything to come back.”
Andrey Arshavin has been one player who has come under intense criticism this season, but Arsene Wenger was quick to defend the Russian for his lacklustre performances this season.