To begin with, let's recall what our expectations for the league were. With van Persie sodding off to United and with no quality replacement, expectations were probably at their lowest for a while. For the second season running, the expectation was that this would be the season where we finished outside the top four. Even if Arsenal did finish fourth, it would only be seen as a bare minimum achievement.
Strangely enough, Arsenal were considered title challengers for about a month. We drew three and won two of our opening five games, scoring nine goals and conceding only twice. One of those wins came after an excellent performance at Anfield, while we came away from the home of the Champions with a well-deserved point. At that point, the feeling was that if Arsenal could keep up their much-improved defending and if their attack could click, they could perhaps mount a title challenge.
Podolski celebrates his and Arsenal's first goal of the season
That feeling quickly evaporated after a very disappointing home defeat to Chelsea. Despite bouncing back with a good 3-1 win at West Ham, Arsenal entered a troubling period of form after the first international break.
It started with a surprise 1-0 defeat at Carrow Road. Arsenal were expected to win fairly comfortably, but their performance was worryingly poor and something that you'd expect from a team who was at the bottom the league having lost their last three games, not one that had won it's last game and had only lost one game up to that point. We managed to win our next game at home against QPR, but did so with another poor performance and a scrappy offside goal.
Things continued to go downhill after a 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford. Although it is not unexpected for Arsenal to lose to United these days, that scoreline flattered us. We were downright awful on the day and played with little passion; so much so that the game was over as soon as van Persie netted after a minute of play.
It was a strange period where Arsenal were playing with no confidence for a reason I still can't work out.
After a 3-3 home draw against Fulham, Arsenal went into a vital North London derby with one win in four behind them and no semblance of form. Spurs took the lead early on, but Adebayor's red card swung the game back into Arsenal's favour and they went on to win 5-2 with some ruthless attacking. There was a strong feeling of de ja vu after that.
Mertesacker celebrates his equaliser against Spurs (Giroud seems to be enjoying touching him a bit too much)
Unlike last season, though, we failed to build on our derby day success. A poor draw against a struggling Villa side and a decent draw away at Everton followed before we were outplayed and outclassed by Laudrop's Swansea at the Emirates Stadium. The calls for “Wenger out” were everywhere and they were with some justification as not only were Arsenal not winning, they were playing very poorly and being deservedly beaten by sides they should be beating comfortably. The excellent defending at the start of the season had been replaced by calamitous errors, and the team struggled to break down teams and score goals.
Things began to look up with the return of Jack Wilshere at the start of December. Arsenal defeated West Brom 2-0 at the Emirates with, for the first time in a while, a good performance. Arsenal then turned on the style against a hapless Reading side, winning 5-2 at the Madejski Stadium thanks to a Cazorla hat-trick and goals from Podolski and Walcott. For the first time in the season, we strung three wins together with a hard-fought 1-0 win against Wigan. An unthinkable fourth straight league win came after a mental 7-3 victory over Newcastle, a game remembered for Walcott's excellent hat-trick whilst playing as the club's central striker.
Walcott put Newcastle to the sword with an excellent hat-trick
Back to winning ways and with players who were finally finding form, people felt reasonably confident that Arsenal could pick up a couple of vital results away to Chelsea and at home to Manchester City. Unfortunately, though, Arsenal would go on to establish an unwanted trend this season: they couldn't beat the top sides or their direct rivals.
Arsenal went on to lose both games, both with, again, disappointing performances. They responded well with a Podolski-inspired 5-1 thrashing of West Ham, but then drew 2-2 with Liverpool, having to come from 2-0 down to do so. Whenever Arsenal threatened to put a good run together, they would be halted after three or four games by one of the bigger sides.
So it proved again February and early March. Arsenal defeated Stoke, Sunderland and Aston Villa, all sides below them in the table, but lost 2-1 to Spurs at White Hart Lane. Arsenal had played without the usual big-game tension they had suffered with this season, but their hard work was undone by some woeful defending that allowed Spurs to score two quick and decisive goals. After that result, we were eight points behind Spurs with 10 games to go. Our defence was in tatters, we weren't scoring many goals and looked destined for the Europa League. The transfer window had also long closed and the decision to only sign Monreal, a left back, seemed to be a poor one.
What the hell happened?
This result and the nature of it prompted Arsenal to take a long, hard look at themselves. Tired of their constant errors, Wenger ruthlessly dropped Szczesny and Vermaelen from the line-up and replaced them with Fabiasnki and Koscielny. More emphasis was put on defending as a team and keeping leads intact as opposed to keeping possession and trying to score goals.
This change of attitude, coupled with a determination and desire not to finish outside the top, formed the basis of Arsenal's best run of form this season.
We immediately got back to winning ways with a good 2-0 away win at Swansea. This was followed by a 2-1 win at West Brom and a 3-1 win against Norwich, where we received a fair amount of good fortunate regarding referee decisions. We failed to beat another rival, Everton, where a win would have helped us greatly, but it turned out to be a minor blip as we defeated Fulham 1-0 the following weekend. Once again, we failed to beat a big team, Manchester United this time, but going into April we had put ourselves in pole position to secure fourth. Destiny was in our own hands.
April looked a tricky month with games against a struggling QPR side scrapping for every point, a struggling Wigan side scrapping for every point and a struggling Newcastle side scrapping for every point. However, we lucked out. By the time we played QPR, their relegation had been confirmed and although we were hardly inspiring, the 1-0 win was routine. The Wigan happened to be a mere three days after the FA Cup final. Although they were on a high after a great performance and victory, they were always going to be the more tired side and we exploited that with a ruthless 4-1 win. Finally, Newcastle were safe going into the final day and had little to play for but pride, and like the QPR game, we won fairly comfortably without being particularly great.
Arsenal celebrate winning the 4th placed trophy again
Ultimately, the season ended in something of an anti-climax. Unlike last season when we struggled over the line on the final day, we were in control right until the last game. We had some luck along the way, but to go the final 10 games without defeat, winning 8 of them, is quite an accomplishment for a side which had struggled for consistency all season. To end the season with the second best defence in the league and the best away defence is also remarkable and irrefutable proof that our defence, and our attitude towards defending, has improved. It makes you wonder what might have been had we been better against the bigger sides this year.
To be frank, 4th place is not where we want to be, but for various reasons, it's still an achievement to finish there this season. It could have been much, much worse.
