An important three points for Arsenal as they moved back to the top of the table to put pressure on Manchester City and Chelsea who play in a crunch game tonight at the Etihad. A brace from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was enough to pick up all three points against a well-oiled Crystal Palace side who were determined to give their best against the Gunners.
So here are the three things we learned from the Arsenal game:
Arsenal Can Grind-out Results:
If am not wrong, Arsenal have failed to find the net in the first half of a Premier League game for well over a month now. The failure to find a decent striking option, coupled with Olivier Giroud’s capability to find the net week in, week out means that their midfielders has to finish off chances in addition to creating them.
While Aaron Ramsey was god like in front of goal during the first half of the season, his absence has certainly affected Arsenal’s momentum when teams stay back and defend. However with Santi Cazorla’s resurgence in front of goal and returning duo of Podolski and Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arsenal have a decent goal threat and it’s not all that bad when you have a defensive partnership as good as the Koscielny-Mertesacker behind you to stop the opposition.
The same Arsenal, a couple of seasons ago would have crumbled. They were not able to break through teams which stayed back and throwed everything they had to stop the shots. The same Arsenal used to give away cheap goals in the dying seconds of the game despite leading by two or three goals. The same Arsenal used to drop points from a winning position more than you can imagine.
This team, for so many reasons are not doing that. They can win in an ugly way, if they want to. They can hold on to the one goal leads and they can certainly score a late winner despite having a moderate attacking line-up. (Am only talking about the strikers, not the midfielders)
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