The primary reason behind the excellent season, the Arsenal Football club has witnessed so far owes largely to the innovative and inspiring tactical reforms introduced by the Arsenal football club manager Mikel Arteta from the very point of inception in his first interview when he was given the huge task of being the club manager, he reiterated that he wants to dominate the opposition and play the ball in their own half, also instilling passion, constantly counter-pressing the opponent and always want to keep the ball, constantly attack and win.
His task to achieve success was faced with serious setbacks as the set of players he met in the club didn’t fit his philosophy and this resulted in a very poor run in the first season and instil discipline and his philosophy and way of playing football he knew a lot of the players had to be axed out of the squad, which meant he had to ruffle some feathers as some influential members in the squad such as the likes of Mesut Ozil, club captain Pierre Aubameyang, and Alexander Lacazette and some other older and influential members of the squad and of course this didn’t down well with the team, staffs and the fan based at large as loyalties were tested. Then turned to build around a younger squad fresh out of the club’s academy players such as Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith-Rowe, newly acquired defensive midfielder Thomas Partey, Midfield playmaker and now club captain Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Martinelli and No-nonsense centre defender Gabriel Magalhaes.
It has been a rough journey so far trying to stamp his identity on the team and their style of play finishing in an unconvincing 8th position in the league and 5th position the previous year bundling the opportunity to finish 4th position to compete in the prestigious European champions league losing their place to their fierce North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur, owing largely to a poor run in the second half of the season, and their inability to strengthen their squad as well as long term injuries to integral members of the team.
With this in mind, it isn’t strange as rivals and sports pundits constantly have criticized the arsenal football club over the course of the season, with various predictions going against them believing they will slip up as usual and drop down the table because that’s what the arsenal football club has been known for over the years, likening their top of the table performance to that of an elephant sitting on a branch of a tree that is facing imminent collapse, but week in and out the arsenal football club keeps proving critics and doubters wrong with amazing performances and you can just feel the buzz, the togetherness and winning mentality around the squad and the emirates Stadium at large.
So the question here Will the Elephant crash down the Tree? Or remain comfortable as they sit 5 points clear of second place Manchester City with 12 games left to play this season.
