Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Arsenal suffered a real hammer blow in terms of their title hopes on Sunday with a 3-2 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford. This defeat has seen them slip away from the bottom two and they now find themselves 5 points behind leaders Leicester.
It was the usual criticisms on Sunday – soft, mentally fragile, weak as they were bested by a near United reserve side. Marcus Rashford may have stolen the headlines with his brace of goals but instead of praise it was sheer anger leveled at the Arsenal players by their army of fans.
Very few players came away from that game with any credit with Theo Walcott getting the biggest barrage of criticism after his almost non eventful performance on Sunday. It’s as if Arsenal looked at the United line up and took it for granted. They almost just had to turn up and win but it was seemingly anything but.
United had nothing to lose with so many players out injured and Arsenal will have to do some soul searching as to why they failed at Old Trafford. They can’t dwell on the result for too long as Tonight they play host to relegation battling Swansea.
Swansea came away empty handed on Sunday at White Hart Lane even though they were in front until the 70th Minute. They had Lukasz Fabianski to thank for that as he saved a barrage of shots from Tottenham, it looked like it could be one of those days but Tottenham were resolute enough to go on and get all 3 points.
Thankfully for Swansea due to either defeat to their nearest rivals or inactivity the situation at the bottom remains unchanged after the Weekend and now they complete the 2nd leg of this North London double header.
Since Francesco Guidolin has been appointed as Manager the Swans certainly look more solid and on the basis of Sunday’s performance they look like they will just have enough to stay up this season. Alberto Paloschi was bought in to get goals and they will be hoping that he can add to his tally after putting Swansea in front on Sunday.
Swansea were eventually battered down by a relentless Tottenham side on Sunday after keeping them at bay for such a long period and you would imagine Arsenal to do the same kind of thing Tonight. If Swansea can get their noses in front then they could make life difficult for The Gunners.
Arsenal can’t afford to slip up here and in all fairness I don’t think they will. A win here and Sunday’s defeat to United is almost forgotten. Unfortunately for Swansea it looks like they will come away from North London empty handed from two attempts. A home win for me and Arsenal set themselves up nicely for Saturday’s North London Derby.
