THINKING AHEAD
I never like to be late to the conversation party, but we had a little boy out here last night, so obviously, banging out a match report was not top of the priority list. A new Arsenal fan, welcomed into the world, a spectacular scene if ever I saw one.
So, this will be a brief post today so I can cover off a few talking points.
The three points against Ipswich were absolutely fine. It was total dominance. In fact, I think the first half was the most dominant display in Premier League history with 83% possession. They had a total of three shots all game. That's only happened 7 times in the Premier League this season and 3 of those times have happened this month for Arsenal.
We're disgustingly good at defending right now, which is magical.
Ipswich also played differently against Arsenal as a lot of teams seem to do these days. They had been hammered in their last game by Newcastle for being too open, so McKenna, a good coach, decided that the job was to totally shut down their play.
It is really hard to play against a team who are rocking the following strategy: Sit in deep, don't chase anything down, try and keep the score respectable, hope they panic in the last 20 and see if you can nick something.
Right at the death, that nearly happened.
This was the same strategy Everton enacted on us a few weeks ago. Nearly exactly the same statistics... the difference? We scored a goal. A lovely bit of work from Trossard to find Kai Havertz in a crowded box from 3 yards.
That was 1-0 to the Arsenal.
I've seen a lot of people complaining that we didn't win by 4 or 5 goals. Winning isn't enough now, we have to be beasting teams, like Liverpool have in their last two games.