Bernd Leno insists Arsenal will be ready and waiting for their rivals to slip up when they resume Premier League action at the end of the month.
The Gunners ended a 10-week wait for a win on the road with a 2-1 victory against Huddersfield on Saturday which, coupled with Chelsea’s astonishing 6-0 capitulation at Manchester City, has seen us rise to fifth in the table.
Manchester United’s resurgence means they are fourth but with only one more point than Unai Emery’s men, the race for the final Champions League place is hotting up.
“It is a good competition between all the teams,” Leno told the Evening Standard.
“Chelsea played Manchester City and the gap to Manchester United is one point, so everything is possible.
“We wait for the other teams and if they make mistakes. We do our work to win every game and on Saturday we did the job.”
Arsenal turn their attention to a Europa League double-header with BATE Borisov, starting with Thursday’s trip to Belarus. Leno says that with Saturday’s away win under their belts they will travel with confidence.
“In two weeks, we have another League game and we want to work hard. Our last away win [in the League] was at Bournemouth in November. It was important for us to win and also to win away.
“In the first half, we played very well and had good control. We lost the control a bit but we defended very strong, we worked as a team.
“Everybody worked very hard and we were unlucky to concede the goal but overall it was a deserved win.”
I’m pretty sure this is what every team from 4th to 6th is saying right now. We just need to be better…. and than be better than them.
*then be better than them Also as far as this whole player criticism thing goes, I’ve always thought it’s part and parcel of online discussion to point out your hopes or misgivings about the club, players managers, owners the lot. But it’s become apparent that this has bled into everyday football culture and normalised abuse so from this day on I’m done with it. It’s not ok to tweet nonsense directly at players or boo your own fucking players at a game. I remember how furious I was to see us do this to Eboue and I will not be… Read more »
Well said.
I’m with you on that pledge.
I’m with you on that pledge
With you there mate
* “If rivals drop points, we’ll drop more”
Why don’t you support a team that is on the other side of the table? You might be able to complain and spread bad vibes even more.
Lol! I found that funny. Lighten up people, we only lost 3-1 to City not 6-0
Leno has a sense of humour, I’ll give him that
OT, sorry: yesterday we could see L. Suarez, L. Messi and P. Coutinho (3 out of the 10 best paid players in Europe) drawing in Sevilla. How high are their wages to not be able to win against Betis?
How often don’t they win against Sevilla or Betis?
Barcelona are top of laliga, I see your point though. A players wage isn’t a metric for how well they should play in any given game. That said, it’s on the club to ensure that there is some objective measure of correspondence between a players contribution and their wage, as with any well run business/organisation. This is as important to the players themselves as it it stakeholders/shareholders.
Considering Barca’s position in La Liga and regular CL knockout stage football, I think their fans are getting their money’s worth all the same. Plus, Sevilla are still a handy team.
Alex, do you really have to bring every single thing back to Ozil ? It’s so bloody boring. How about you discuss an article on it’s own merits just for once?
Think you’re the one who mentioned Ozil mate…
Are you seriously suggesting Alex’s comment wasn’t about Ozil ? If so, you clearly haven’t read his regular posts.
To be fair, I haven’t, so maybe I don’t have that context!
Though there is a good point there. Paying a lot for a player doesn’t guarantee goals or success, only increases the odds that they will do something good, and hopefully decisive, in a match. Of course to do that they have to actually play 😉
Fair enough. Alex never posts anything that isn’t Ozil related….and will drag him into every discussion, even if (as if this case) there is absolutely no reason to.
Useless b**t**ds. Messi Out! Coutinho Out! Suarez, the cheaty, bitey, racist scum… well, you can keep him Barka, you’re at the same level of scummery.
Chelsea leaking half a dozen goals in an away match against a top team…welcome to the club, guys!
On another note, Man City are playing like monsters right now…they’re a team of monsters! Its scary when one club gets so overpowered. Can’t wait for a little more equanimity to be restored…as long as it may take for that day to arrive. Coz frankly, this is simply demotivating for everyone else! 🙁
Ah, that brings up the old chestnut:
I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.
I felt the same. It makes the objective of becoming title challenger very difficult when a team of that high calibre sets the bar.
On another note, whether they win or lose the PL title, Liverpool should be applauded for an incredible season. They represent a ray of hope for teams like us, having been not so long ago been a mid-table side.
But of course I’ll be cheering City to win it. Don’t wanna lose the major source of banter that is Liverpool leagueless for 3 decades.
Err we have never been mid table not since Wenger at least.
Don’t want cult Liverpuddle to win. Much rather Schitty.
He never said we were mid table. Try to pay attention.
Liverpool tried their best to be a mid-table team and for the most part Arsenal have never been that and I guess that’s why the media hold us to such high standards. I still think we get more stick than Utd who considering the lofty heights they achieved throughout the centuries are far off where they want to be.
Never is a big word. Arsenal spent years seemingly averaging 7th place finishes, interspersed with the occasional bad year when I was younger. How young you must be to think that “never” goes all the way back to 1998 or so. 🙂
Sorry, no. I cannot hope for a Liverpool win. Never. Just reflect back on Leicester if you want to feel some hope for teams outside the top 1.
Demotivated? There are always winners and losers in sport that is the point of competition. How do you think Chelsea, Liverpool and even City felt in the early Wenger / Fergie years when Arsenal and United were head and shoulders above everyone else? When I first started supporting the Gunners it was us and Leeds with the Mancunian clubs nowhere in sight and Chelsea were like Stoke but from West London. Nottingham Forrest (who?) even managed to win in Europe! There will never be equality because the best players want to play for the best i.e. most successful teams and… Read more »
But I do not recall, even in Arsenal’s best years under Wenger, to have been so drastically ahead of the rest. Firstly, there was always Man U going toe to toe with us. And then, to beat the likes of Liverpool and even Tottenham those days by five six goals would have represented an aberration. To be so utterly dominant that even a team with the likes of Kante and Hazard looks so mediocre…have to give it to Pep. When this team is in flow, like the Barca team that won the treble a few years ago, or the Bayern… Read more »
Sorry, off topic but nobody else seems to have seen it or comment on Danny Rose’s falling to the ground looking for a penalty V Leicester yesterday. It looked like a dive to me and ref Mike Dean also waived no penalty gestured Rose to get back on his feet. Should he have been booked?, we will never know as Sky did not go back to the incident and BBC MoTD completely left it out of their highlights. Definitely should have been replayed as it was a good goal scoring opportunity before Rose went down.
I still see waaaay to many of those just let go. Seems to me I see 2-3 per the typical match where divers should be booked. And I’m certainly not from the school that says ‘footballers have gone soft’. I don’t think it will seriously change until retroactive punishment is taken both for that and for dangerous / violent fouls. Some of those fouls that are given yellows should really be reviewed for reds. For instance the stamping foul some Huddersfield scrub put on Kola this last match, and the Barkley foul vs Chelsea. We have one of the most… Read more »
Agreed! And as for diving, unless refs will have the balls to give a penalty, even if the attacker manages to stay on his feet, but was fouled, then we will always have diving. Laca is a good example of a forward who will do his best to stay on his feet in the box, and it’s such a damn shame when you see that kind of good attitude completely shit all over by the refs. One thing for sure that Wenger was right about is the standard of refereeing in the country is shocking. This is an organisation which… Read more »
I watched that match and was impressed with how easily Leicester’s wings were able to go past Trippier on Spurs’ right. This is a fullback who is good on free kicks, can pick out a pass when no one is pressing him, has difficulty on the ball when someone comes near, and–most important–cannot defend one v one. I certainly assume that if I have noticed it, so has Emery.
Too bad we don’t any good wingers who exploit that. And generally We lack dribblers of all kinds.
Actually, Iwobi is a decent dribbler, and Kolasinac’s attacking threat has been well documented by now. They both play on Trippier’s side.
Otherwise, I understand your point.
The real news is that Mike Dean got a decision right
… and in favour of the opposition in a sp*rs game too.
Must be time to invest in a “flush toilets for bears” business.
Off topic, planning to take my entire family from Canada to watch a game at the Emirates. Hope these players encourage us with a victory that day.
How do I get our tickets? Yeah, those tourist tickets that for some spoil the empty stadium message to Kroenke, lol. Can you paste links in reply for me? Thanks.
Become a red member via the website and then one month before the game, tickets are released via the website. You can only buy one ticket per membership and they are about 35 USD each per season, so depending on how many people are in your family it may cost quite a bit for just one game, even if you don’t get scalped tickets. Your best bet might be getting in touch with some supporters who have a season ticket and can’t make the game (via twitter or some forum) and they can lend you their card for the match… Read more »
Thanks a lot. It does not appear to be an easy endeavor. Thought about catching them somewhere in the US but pre-season games are not even watchable on TV. I want to see some of those rough Sokratis tackles or even some of the slide-and-miss Mustafi ones in real PL games.
You can get the Europa Leauge games on Viagogo.
I usually would get my leauge tickets from the ‘local’ Supporters Club (In Ireland) – not 100% sure if you’d have the same opportunity in Canada. Best of luck anyway.
Thanks.
Grab a cup of tea, this one is a bit lengthy. I’m trying to recall every step, but don’t come looking for me if my recall isn’t perfect! Just took my family over the new year to a match for the first time. Goo-nerd is right, you’ll need a red membership for EACH person needing a ticket. 1. If you go this route, start setting up those Red memberships NOW. I found it a confusing process. 2. You will also need to register an account with the box office for some reason (It’s a bit like the movie Brazil, through… Read more »
Thank you very much for taking the time to give us these very useful details.
By the way, is travelling with the team for PL games against smaller teams any easier?
Search ‘arsenal tickets’ on Facebook and request to join. Far easier, all face value and reliable. I regularly sell my season tickets on there and have never had a problem. Go for the biggest one- about 14k members when I last checked.
Great, thanks.
I haven’t a clue, but I’d like to know for future reference as well.
If the game you want to see is more than ten weeks in the future, join Arsenal Canada ($20 CAD) and request tickets. Everyone who’s going to the game needs to be a member. There’s an allocation of tickets for foreign supporters that comes between the gold and silver levels, and Arsenal Canada usually gets five to ten tickets for each match.
Thanks a lot ! This is much easier.
Top4 was always unlikely, unfortunately United now look to have the wind in their sails, and are playing some really good stuff.
I agree. At the start of the season although hoping no one realistically expected a top 4 finish. The 22 game unbeaten run has changed the expectation. However that contained many games, where we didn’t play well but won.
With the King of Ego no longer at ManUre, they have started getting the results. Also, the Tots haven’t been dropping points either, although Harry and Ali are injured.
Hope Emery finds that magic touch to win without playing well and we can continue to hope for a top 4 finish.
Funny back in the day, people used to groan at Wenger at the AGM. For saying top 4 was a trophy! Now it’s like the Holy Grail for everyone not just Arsenal.
Wenger always a visionary but the only prediction of his that did not materialize was that money couldn’t buy you the PL title. We saw it over and over and witnessed yesterday how devastating teams can be with big investments.
That prediction was buggered by the fact that FFP turned out to be a cruel lie.
Rivals: When Arsenal drop points, we will overtake them
And when we dropped points which we will as our defence is hopeless, our rivals will gain ground on us, what a pointless statement, we were lucky against Huddersfield, our defence went missing many times as we play too high up with aging defenders and midfielders who do not track back, there is a lot of work to do and first thing should be get rid of Steve Bould as he brings nothing to the team. I haven’t seen much progress since Wenger left and I know he left the club in a mess, and I am yet to be… Read more »
Mate, you’re confused. The ongoing factor buggering up the Club is Kroenke. Sadly he’s not going to go away until we are relegated. In fact I’m not even sure he understands the PL well enough to even know that you can get relegated.
Channeling his inner Richard Marx….
How many points are we going to pick up in the away matches against Spurs, Wolves, Everton, Leicester? Bearing in mind we can’t keep clean sheets on the road, 8 or 9 points would be a decent return. Less than 6 or 7 points, we likely won’t get top four.
Some people again confused that our defense is the only problem.
Midfield was entirely absent against the bottom team.
Don’t see why we cannot make top 4 problems granted. Some people have no bottle. Let’s just say had we got points off of BHA Soton and west Ham, we would be 8 points better now and at 58pts. Mustafi did not feature much in those matches. Midfield issues have plagued us as much as the defense. When you allow opponents to keep coming at you, something will give. Against those teams our midfield was poor and against Liverpool. Torreira went through a bad spell losing the ball 5 or 6 times through misplaced passes or getting robbed. Had he… Read more »
If we’re going to speculate about lost points… Let’s just say if we’d won all of our matches we’d be at the top of the league now. Its much easier than worrying about all these details.
This season for Arsenal is just “try and error”. I really hope they(The Players) give it their best shot… especially in The Europa League
Win all the remaining games will do, even if we still not in the top 4, i won’t mad at all.
“We wait for the other teams and if they make mistakes.”
So you see, that is clearly a misquote.
What he really said was “We wait for the other teams to drop points. We stand with the little nets that we have been given and we will catch those lost points and add them to our own total. We can still win this league.”