What is The Ox's Best Position?

The hype around Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has slowly decreased over the past season. Arsenal first bought him from Southampton 2 years ago and after a couple of exciting performances, fans were insisting that he got more game time. The arrival of Podolski and inconsistent performances from The Ox has meant that he has been on the bench more than he would like. He started 12 times in the league last season (13 as a substitute), only completing the 90 minutes once.

He is still young and I’m glad Chamberlain doesn’t have the same pressure that Wilshere had a couple of seasons ago, but if we want him to develop he needs to play more. He’s been playing well for England and according to his dad he is more relaxed, “I can see that he is more relaxed playing for his country than he is playing for Arsenal.” Hopefully he can start relaxing when playing for Arsenal. He’s only 19, and still has a lot of time to fill his potential.

A Different Dilemma at Left-Back

Since the sale of Ashley Cole in 2006, Arsenal have not had a reliable left-back. Wenger put faith in the Englishman and many were hoping that he would be an Arsenal legend and possible future captain.



I'm quite annoyed that I couldn't find anything without Gervinho!

He departed for Chelsea on deadline day, leaving many fans annoyed. Clichy was a good enough replacement (I rated him quite highly), but his frailties soon shone through: his defensive ability wasn't great, often being caught out of position. The Frenchman’s attacking play didn't cover up for his lack of defensive qualities either; I remember numerous crosses that were kicked straight out or over everybody’s heads. Kieran Gibbs looked a good prospect when Clichy was injured and had his first international call-up at 20, big things were expected of him, but he had quite a few injuries and Gooners around the world cringed when Clichy and Gibbs were injured, resulting in the hapless Traore being deployed at left-back.

Match in Brief: Arsenal vs Norwich City

It was a very important and hard-fought victory by The Arsenal on Saturday afternoon.


Michael Turner opened the scoring in the 57th minute with a header from a Robert Snodgrass' free-kick after a number of first-half Arsenal chances. Mikel Arteta converted a suspect penalty late on to give Arsenal hope, and Olivier Giroud and second-half substitute Lukas Podolski finished the turnaround.

How the Table Could Look at the End of the Season: 3, 4 and 5

After a nail-biting last 20 minutes during the Arsenal game and an enjoyable 35 minutes when Spurs were trailing against Everton, it turned out to be a good weekend! We didn’t play as well as we did last week but we showed our toughness and ground out the 3 points. Spurs were not the same team without Bale and were fortunate to get a point against Everton.
 

But now we look to the future. Currently the race for the Champions League spots look like this: