Before Arsenal’s resounding win over Hull City, the team had gone on a barren run of form that saw them slip further down in the title race. With the bad run of results, fans became frustrated and confidence was shattered. The nature of the losses to a weakened Manchester United and a struggling Swansea were very disappointing to say the least and with the Gunners currently eight points behind Leicester, it will take a miracle for the lads to make up ground in the title race.
Instead of remaining down casted and feeling sorry for themselves, the club’s stalwart, Theo Walcott has revealed that the players held a crunch meeting without Arsene Wenger,
“We are not going to lie—we know as a unit it has been tough and we all had a good chat amongst us behind closed doors, without even any of coaches or the manager knowing about anything. It is important that as a team [to know] we have got it in us.
We just have to produce it more often. You had a sense of the Tottenham game especially, when you go down to 10 men in a big game like that, the belief and the character was there. The never-give-up spirit was there as well. In the derby matches, they could be the matches that turn your season and we may have turned the corner.
We have quite a lot of experienced players in the dressing room. It came from [Petr] Cech, Mikel [Arteta], Per [Mertesacker] and Tomas [Rosicky]. We have four good old heads there. I’d like to keep what was said among ourselves but it was very important. We have had a reaction from it.
[The manager] probably knows about it anyway. The manager respects the players’ privacy and what is happening personally among us all. It was a meeting to express how everyone was feeling basically and it worked.”
Walcott himself, had a great game against Hull, by his fair standards but in my honest opinion, he hasn’t still done enough to warrant a starting berth in the run-in for the title. Arsene Wenger will need every fit player at his disposal to challenge effectively for the FA Cup and the Premier League (yes, I ignored adding the Champions League on purpose) but it’s down to whoever he selects to do the job required of them.
The win against Hull has set things up for a showdown with Watford this weekend and the fans will be hoping that the team goes to the FA Cup semifinals at Wembley without going through another replay. Despite the win against Hull, Arsenal lost Per Mertesacker, Gabriel Paulista and Aaron Ramsey to injury. Wenger can ill-afford anymore absentees to the squad.
The only prayer would be that this win sparks some kind of winning streak that could help the team in their bid to win their first league title in 12 years. It’s been a while since Arsenal fans had a gold barge on their jerseys in the next season.
We as fans would love that.
Sayonara.
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