Woevember

So we come off a brilliant October with a 100% record in the League, hitting an average of 2.27ppg, which is where we will need to be to challenge for the Premier League, Wenger being voted as Manager of the month and it all seems to be going well. This however is a month where we have traditionally had poor results, so the real question was if this would be a good November or a "Woe"vember and "Woe"vember it was. We finished with 2 points out of 9 and lost ground in the title race and the injuries piled up. Here's my take

Munched

Champions League

Bayern Munchies away - There is no other way to put it but we were spanked by the Munchies and are almost out of Europe. They controlled the game, bossed the possession and played us off the park. The problem with playing against the big teams in Europe is that you have to be at your absolute best and play as close to perfect in order to beat them. While we were almost flawless at home, we made too many team and individual mistakes at Munich to really trouble them. Off course the result against Bayern is not the reason we are out of Europe, that happened when we lost to Zagreb on the road and to Olympiakos at home. 
The home game against Zagreb - We came out of the block strong, Dinamo sat back and the 1st time they went forward with any real intent, we caught them on the break and Ozil capped off a brilliant counter attack with his 3rd goal of the season. 3 goals, 3 points, Olympiakos lost to the Munchies and so we go to Greece having it all to do. I fear that we may have left it too late and we know that Olympiakos will set their stall out to defend, so we will probably pay the price for our sloppy performance in the 1st 2 rounds. 

Premier League

I will carry you

We were shit for the 1st 45 minutes at home to the Spuds, Cazorla had a stinker and sure enough, was substituted at half time. We came back into the game in the 2nd half and drew the game thanks to yet another Ozil assist. We were poor and still managed to get a point against a supposedly in form Spuds team. Need I say more? 

Away to West Brom - When you have Campbell miss a sitter at the end, have the ball come off the post and have your best penalty taker, slip and miss a late late penalty, its not your day. While we were not great, we did not play as poorly as some pundits seemed to suggest and its not the end of the world. However injuries to the Coq and Arteta in the same game seemed to make the result worse than it actually was.
Away to Norwich - Our injuries seem to come in pairs, Walcott and the ox in the same game, Arteta and the Coq and now Alexis and Kos in the same game. We also had a scare when Santi went down, holding his knee and once that happened, I started praying. Fortunately he seemed to shake off the knock and could continue, but once that happened, we were no longer aggressive in the tackle and the entire team seemed to be scared regarding more injuries. While Norwich challenged us well and Gabriel got turned too quickly by Grabban, we should have put the game out of sight. 

State of the squad

Strong a an Ox

Ozil has scored 4 games so far, mostly in big games (ManUre, Munchies and now Dinamo), he has assisted in 7 straight games and has 10 for the season. What more can he do? The injury situation has considerably worsened. with injuries to Coq, Arteta, Kos and Sanchez (maybe even to Santi) is now putting further pressure on an already stretched squad. While Ramsey has made a return from injury and the Ox returned with a small cameo, unfortunately the situation remains grim especially in the DM position. I feel going forward we will need Ozil to carry us in December.

Why "Woe"vember

Why does it seem that we play poorly in November and our results don't add up with our performance over the rest of the season. My theory is that continuous football since August, having played more than one 3rd of Premier League matches catches up with the squad and the injuries start to pile up. In addition, the Champions League group stages is drawing to a conclusion and the strain of the games is adding up. Players at clubs like Arsenal don't get a break with International commitments with meaningless friendlies and qualifaction rounds for various tournaments nly adds to the pressure. All this adds us to a tremendous work load on the players and as the importance of games and injuries begin to rise, it leads to our poor performance in November. 

Looking ahead to December

Stepping up

We now go into the busy Dec month with 5 rounds of Premier League games and the last Champions League game against Olympiakos in Greece. A good Dec will see us in the hunt come Jan and I believe we will need atleast 11 points in the next 5 games to keep us in the hunt. Our injuries have piled up and this will be a real test of our bench strength as well as our determination to keep us challenging. Players like the Ox, Flamini, Gabriel etc will now have to step and show real performance and attitude.