Why last season was a success and Wenger can lead us to the title again

Disappointment

What sense do we make of this crazy season? Were our expectations of winning the league at any stage ever fully justified? I for one fully believed it – especially when I was walking up Hornsey Road on Super Sunday madly chanting ‘Der der der der, Danny Welbeck’.

With the benefit of hindsight, and armed with a more considered and realistic view of both our situation and the context in which we found ourselves at that time, I believe the answer is no.

I believe that our expectations become over-inflated after the Leicester game because: 

1. We got carried away by the euphoria of the late win against Leicester and our position in the league – and this large sniff of possible title success accompanied by much media hype unleashed the full might of the massive, pent up hopes and frustrations of 12 years without a title.
2. We completely wrote off the chances of our nearest competitors Leicester and Sp*rs because we believed that Leicester were bound to crack at some point and history tells us that we always finish above Sp*rs!
3. We could see that the usual suspects were out of the title hunt and assumed that the path was clear for us to walk to the title. As the Guardian put it:

“In a season when Chelsea have imploded, Manchester United are in chaos, Liverpool are rebuilding (again), Tottenham Hotspur are a young and developing team and Manchester City have been distracted by the appointment of Pep Guardiola, then Arsenal have never had a better opportunity to win the league for the first time since 2003-04.”

It should be noted that although Leicester were 2 points clear of us and leading the race, they were never given a serious chance of winning the title by anyone – notice how the Guardian journalist doesn’t even mention them in the above review of Arsenals prospects for the title. Even Leicester fans wrote off their own chances with Izzy Musset posting:

 “We won't win it, Man City should win it, Sp*rs could win it, Arsenal will win it” 

In mid-February our title expectations went sky high, we were expected to win it and there could be no other outcome!

This level of expectation was based on a blinkered and flawed view of our chances. It was flawed because it failed to reflect the full reality of our situation and in particular it failed to take into account the following:

1. The number of years we have been in the top 4 without winning the league has no bearing on our chances of winning the title in any given season.
2. Leicester were in fact a very good team and should not have been written off solely because of prejudice or their history in the Premiership or the fact that we had beaten them twice.
3. Far from the path being clear for us to win the title, there were in fact many significant difficulties for us to overcome in the run in:

1. 1. We were competing in the most competitive Premier League ever – some say it’s the toughest league to win in the world. The level of competitive intensity throughout the whole season was unprecedented and the level of physical and mental pressure on the players was relentless. It is no coincidence that all the old order top 4 teams came up short in both the Premier League title race and the European Cup.
      
      
   2. We were competing on 3 fronts (League, FA Cup and Europe) — contrast with Leicester whose sole focus was the League. After our home victory against Leicester, Arsenal had an FA Cup game, a European Cup game against Barcelona and then a difficult game away to Man U. In contrast, Leicester had two weeks without a fixture so Ranieri rewarded his players with some time off. Vardy cited this post Arsenal defeat ‘rest and recovery’ period as being an important factor in helping them to win the League. 
      

      “We all ventured off, quite a few of us went to Dubai together as a team, and I think that moment, for him to even think about doing that, showed what he’d thought of us as a team and how much work we’d already put in. So to get those batteries recharged for that week and come back fighting stronger was a massive part [in winning the league]."

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