Hello, welcome back to the blog. In this article, I will be giving my thoughts on how we’ve done in the month of September and started the new season. Overall, I think it’s been a very positive start. We’ve won three out of our four games and looked impressive defensively having only conceded the one goal in the games in which we’ve emerged victorious. Our only defeat was away to the hands of the champions and I believe we gave a solid account of ourselves. The future looks bright under Arteta and the sky's the limit to what we can achieve under him.
Fulham 0-3 Arsenal
The season commenced with a trip to Craven Cottage where we got off to the perfect start. A clean sheet away from home and thoroughly convincing performance earned us all three points on the opening day. A player who particularly caught the eye was summer signing, Gabriel Magalhães. The young Centre-Back put in an impressive showing on his debut and scooped up the man of the match award. He looked comfortable on the ball and strong in the challenge, even got himself on the scoresheet to put the cherry on the top. Our system of 3-4-3 was yet again instrumental in allowing us to control the game and overload the left flank. Willian also contributed two assists on his debut with the Brazillian looking to justify his high wages. Personally, I think he’s a decent signing, better than what we have even if he isn’t a spring chicken anymore.
Arsenal 2-1 West Ham
We picked up another three points at home to West Ham the following week. However, this performance wasn’t as eye-catching. In truth, we were second best for a lot of the match and fortunate to come away with a win. Having said that, it's testament to our new mentality under Arteta that we can dig out results even when we’re not firing on all cylinders. We were bailed out of jail late on after Nketiah tapped home the winner. In all honesty, I’m still not convinced that Nketiah is ready to be our main man but it was good for him to get on the scoresheet here.
Leicester 0-2 Arsenal
We managed to keep another clean sheet away from home in the Carabao cup third round against Leicester. Both sides fielded weakened XI’s but we still managed to progress through to the next round. The system of 3-4-3 was yet again crucial to getting a result. It appears Arteta has significantly improved our defensive organisation since his arrival to the extent that he can change the whole defence and still keep a clean sheet. This is further credit to the work the coaches do on the training ground and the fact that all players finally understand their defensive role in this particular formation.
Liverpool 3-1 Arsenal
Our only defeat of the month came to the defending champions. To be honest, I was just satisfied that we didn’t get completely battered like we had done in recent visits to Anfield. We managed to stay in the game right up until the dying minutes. It could have been a different game had Lacazette managed to score his 1v1 midway through the second half. Liverpool looked very strong in all fairness and a year ago we probably would’ve conceded five or six. I think we can take the positives from this result and look to build. Liverpool is where we want to be in three years from now and under Arteta, given the right backing, can certainly get us there.
Impressive Performers:
Gabriel Magalhães
The young Brazillian has enjoyed an encouraging start to his Arsenal career. The former Lille man has been deployed in the middle of the back three and I see him as a long term replacement for David Luiz. As long as he doesn’t average a mistake leading to a goal every couple games then I’m sure he’ll be fine. In all seriousness, he’s looked very commanding at the back and hopefully he can carry this form on.
Mohammed Elneny
Not someone I expected to have mentioned but the forgotten Elneny has had a good start to the season. Like most, I expected him to be moved on but he must have done something right in training because he started three out of the four games we played this month. A very tidy player on the ball, he compliments our way of playing out from the back. Not the future, but at least a handy squad player.
It's been a promising start to the new season and with Arteta at the helm, who knows where we could be come the end of the season. The transfer window closes in a few days so fingers crossed we can get some real quality in before that shuts. The word on the grapevine is that Aouar is keen but only time will tell how that’ll play out.
JH
Brilliant summary all the way through.