It's been a long time since I last wrote, but in the month I've been gone not a whole lot has changed. Every Arsenal player of all time suffered injuries... okay, that's an exaggeration but it feels that way for sure. Our form has still been up and down; we've lost some matches we may have have gotten more from and won some matches without performing all that well as a whole. As we enter November, there is some disappointment that we've failed to build on the early season form we enjoyed last year. Injuries have played the biggest part in that, but even with some very key additions we don't look like a team that will be challenging for the league, which we did look like for most last season.
That's not meant to sound too pessimistic, especially since it is still very early in the season. In the league, we've faced several early tests having played Man City, Spurs, Chelsea away and even Everton, despite the fact that they've struggled a lot thus far. Furthermore, we've rebounded somewhat in our Champions league group, though it has to be said that we were extremely lucky to get out of Anderlecht with a win. After falling behind 1-0 in the 71st minute to a goal from former DC United winger Andy Najar (who I'll love forever), scoring twice after the 89th minute to escape with the win made the scoreline misleading. It would've been pretty disastrous had we lost that match, especially since we were so listless through most of the game. In the end, all that really matters is the win and at least we pulled that off.
Last Saturday's win against a reeling Sunderland side wasn't our greatest possible performance, either. It did establish some important positives for us to build on. While both of Alexis' goals came off of hilarious errors by Sunderland, he was aware enough to capitalize on them and his chipped finish for the first one was sexy as hell. We also kept a clean sheet, which isn't all that impressive considering the opposition but for us almost anything is possible so we'll look to build on that, too. With all of the injuries to our defenders and our lack of backup options, we'll gladly take as many shutouts as we can get.
Our upcoming games in the league continue to present us with a chance to get a win streak going, which could boost our confidence and see us hopefully rise up the table a little more. Up next, we face Burnley and it would be very worrying if we don't have our most dominant performance of the year thus far against them. After that, we play Swansea away and then a somewhat revamped Manchester United at the Emirates. Their form has been up and down, similarly to ours, but they are definitely a better side than last year and we failed to beat them even then. Then we play West Brom (A), Southampton (H), Stoke (A), Newcastle (H), Liverpool (A), QPR (H), West Ham (A) and then Southampton (A) again on New Year's Day. So there are some good chances to get a run going, with some pretty tricky games mixed in there as well.
We also have the reverse fixtures for each of our Champions League matchups, so we have a lot to get sorted over the next several weeks. We should be getting Giroud, Debuchy and Özil back, among others, around New Year's. The hope is that by then, our forward combinations start to flourish and we can keep our makeshift backline intact long enough to buy more defenders. These are pretty big hypotheticals, but that's the situation we find ourselves in.
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