Blame game not healthy for Arsenal, unity required ahead of big week

Blame game not healthy for Arsenal, unity required ahead of big week

Arsenal’s Premier League campaign drew to a close yesterday with an impressive 3-1 victory over Everton, when the Gunners played the majority of the match with ten-men, but it wasn’t enough to put Arsene Wenger’s side into the top-four.

Liverpool’s comfortable win over Middlesbrough at Anfield ensured that Arsenal will spend next season playing on Thursday night’s in the Europa League, rather than going toe-to-toe with Europe’s giants in the Champions League.


Arsenal’s absence from Europe’s elite competition, the first season outside of the Champions League in two decades, has raised significant questions ahead of the summer and fingers have already started to be pointed as to who is to blame for the Gunners’ disappointing campaign.

The futures of key-players like Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil remain under scrutiny, whilst Arsene Wenger’s position at the club is still unclear and even the ownership of Stan Kroenke has been called into debate in recent days with the news of Alisher Usmanov’s takeover attempt.

With the Premier League season coming to a close, people have started to assess Arsenal’s campaign and are demanding a wealth of changes in the summer ahead from top to bottom- but now is not the time to have these discussions.

Arsenal face Chelsea in the FA Cup final next weekend and victory there would mean the Gunners’ campaign has been fairly successful, as they would have won the FA Cup for the third time in four years- as well as finishing with a higher Premier League points tally than they achieved a year ago.

Of course, that won’t erase the disappointment of playing outside of the Champions League next season but it’s been clear for a while that Arsenal are some way short of competing with Europe’s elite sides and a year in the Europa League could build confidence.

For now, Arsenal need to be focused on the challenge in hand next weekend- especially following a day where Laurent Koscielny’s red card means he’ll be suspended and injuries to Gabriel Paulista and Alexis Sanchez raise concerns as to whether they’ll be fit enough to feature against the Blues.

All the questions surrounding the squad certainly do need to be answered but Arsenal need to find unity in a crucial week and gather together for the greater good, which means fans need to put their frustrations to the sides for one more week and support the club.

Whilst winning the FA Cup won’t erase the disappointments from this season, it will at least end the campaign on a high- and that could be crucial ahead of a busy summer.