When I think of the word “mercurial”, many things come to mind: Vladamir Putin, Radiohead, Kanye West, Louis van Gaal and my beloved Arsenal.
And this season in particular, the Gunners have been annoyingly unpredictable.
The Gunners have had a slow start to their season, losing to West Ham at home but since then, they have picked up and performed brilliantly: The team is on a good winning run (if you count out the Chelsea encounter where Diego Costa’s disgusting actions awarded Chelsea the unsportsmanlike win) after beating the likes of Newcastle United, Stoke City, Leicester City, and even in-form Manchester United.
It’s also worth mentioning that these victories were good wins. Arsenal thrashed Leicester, who have been solid this year and Alexis Sanchez scored a hat-trick, sending out a warning to all Premier League teams and delivered a 3-0 victory against Manchester United where Mesut Ozil proved to his haters that he’s a big game player and the Chilean continued his impressive form, scoring a brace against the Red Devils.
Meanwhile, UEFA Champions League Arsenal are utterly abysmal. The Gunners have drawn a relatively fair group: They are competing for a place in the round of 16 with the colossal Bayern Munich, the humble Olympiacos, and new boys Dinamo Zagreb.
Arsenal’s first two encounters were supposedly the “easy” ones, and Arsenal couldn’t have handled those matches any worse: They gathered zero points and arguably killed their chances of qualifying to the next round. After disappointment against Zagreb away from home, and a painful home loss against Olympiacos where a win was very much needed, the Gunners are readying for back-to-back encounters with the unstoppable Bayern Munich that are knocking out everything that’s coming in their way.
The Bavarian’s are probably the toughest opponent Arsenal will face this whole season and I personally don’t think Arsenal will do much against them. Especially not after those horrific first two performances.
Let’s face it. Arsenal’s lousy outings against Zagreb and Olympiacos more or less terminated their chance of qualifying to the next Champions League round.
However, they are doing extremely well in the league, and with other opponents not finding consistency, Arsenal finally look like they can win the Premier League title. Manchester City are showing signs of weakness and are not finding the stability they need, Liverpool just sacked Brendan Rodgers and it’s going to take Jurgen Klopp a little while to build the Liverpool of his vision, Chelsea are 10 points away from the top and it doesn’t look like they are going to improve anytime soon, and last Sunday Arsenal showcased what they can do to Manchester United (or any team really) when they are playing at their top.
Maybe Wenger was right after all. This Arsenal team is good enough to win the league.
