Arsenal's title bid is already over

Posted Monday, November 10, 2014 by Goal.com

Arsene Wenger's team are left playing for one of the four Champions League places after defeat to Swansea again highlights their chronic and long-standing weaknesses

Arsenal will not win the Premier League title this season.

That sounds like a statement of the blatantly obvious after a second defensive horror show in four days came on the back of an already unconvincing start to the campaign.

But it is worth emphasising that the Gunners' title race is run before many of us have even turned on our central heating.

By being over-run by an impressive Swansea City team in the last half-hour after taking a deserved 1-0 lead, Arsene Wenger's team are a distant 12 points behind pacesetters Chelsea with just 11 matches played. It already feels like a chasm.

Arsenal's title bid is already over

Optimistic supporters might point out that Arsenal are above Liverpool, Manchester United, Everton and Tottenham, all of whom are rivals for the two Champions League places that will be left after the other two are inevitably hoarded by Chelsea and Manchester City.

Realistically, Arsenal will be playing for a Champions League place in their remaining 27 matches this season.

What a comedown this is after their nine-year trophy drought ended with May's FA Cup triumph and the summer signings of Alexis Sanchez and Danny Welbeck.

Nor is this what Wenger would have envisaged after extending his contract and committing his final managerial years to the club where he has spent the best part of two decades.

Speaking quietly and softly, the Frenchman cut a resigned figure as he addressed the media minutes after watching his powder puff defence sink without trace in monsoon conditions at the Liberty Stadium.

Asked if title favourites Chelsea had pulled too far ahead of his team, Wenger said: "We just lost a game that we should not have lost. We have to live in a realistic world, in football you have to win the games you can win and today was one. If you want to challenge for the Premier League, you have to be a bit more realistic than we were today."

What is especially galling for Arsenal and their followers is that they finished only three points behind Jose Mourinho's team last season. Given their FA Cup triumph, most would agree Wenger's team had the better season.

Chelsea's response was to identify their weak areas and quickly reinforce them in the transfer market. In came Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa to make an already strong team virtually unstoppable.

Yet Sanchez's impact has been every bit as lethal as the Chelsea duo, while Welbeck has also made a promising start to his Arsenal career.

However, the Gunners have been hamstrung by their two long-standing problem areas: transfer market dithering and abysmal injury prevention.

As every supporter of the red-and-white jersey knows, Arsenal badly needed a midfield enforcer and a third senior centre-back once Thomas Vermaelen signed for Barcelona. That a club of the Londoners' ample resources did not secure them before the window slammed shut was an act of negligence.

How they are paying the price now. With Laurent Koscielny sidelined with an achilles problem that was bothering him even before the summer window opened, Arsenal are wide open at the back.

Combined with their admirable but totally naive desire to throw numbers forward even when they are ahead and in control, it is inevitable they will succumb to pressure against teams who can exploit it.

To their credit, Arsenal generally have a strong track record in disposing of the mid and lower ranking teams. It is against the big guns that they get found out.

Yet it would not have been lost on those Arsenal fans watching former target Ashley Williams deliver a resilient display how much more effective the Welshman could be for their team than Nacho Monreal, a makeshift centre-back who has spent almost his entire career on the left side of the defence.

Bizarrely, Arsenal are barely making do while tens of millions sit unused in the bank. It is odd and preposterous.

Wenger does not appear to have any answers.

But when it comes to the question of Arsenal's title challenge, even he is providing a dose of realism.