Same old, same old. This phrase best chronicles Arsenal's ten-year struggle for Premier League supremacy. Apart from the 2004-05 season where they finished second place behind champions Chelsea, Arsenal's league seasons since then have been littered with a string of scrappy, uninspiring fourth place finishes. Add to that, with Arsenal going through a nine-year long trophy drought in all competitions during that period, fans, including me, were calling for Wenger's head on the chopping block.
At least, on the trophy front, the 2013-14 season offered a milestone phase for Arsenal. From nearly squandering another chance of a trophy after going two-nil down in the first eight minutes, Arsenal recovered and won dramatically at extra-time against Hull City in the FA Cup Final. Obviously, it was a day of elation for everyone associated with the club, but it was sensible the way to take Arsenal forward was to challenge for the title in the 2014-15 Premier League season.
So far, it's been the typical Arsenal season, where at the end of the day, they're most likely to be nothing more than top four-bound. Midway through the season, they already find themselves 11 points behind league leaders Chelsea, which is quite a sizable gap to close. If you're a fan of the numbers, Chelsea would have to lose five and Arsenal win by the same number to overtake the blue-shirted supremos. Though, this is a Jose Mourinho team who, despite "embarrassingly" losing to Bradford at the FA Cup a weekend ago, is not a side who tends to let such big advantage go.
On the evidence of the last two performances, a disciplined performance in the 2-0 win away to Man City and a scintillating attacking display in the 5-0 thrashing of Aston Villa, perhaps the tide could finally turn for the better. Still, the fight for Champions League spot does not get as tougher for Arsenal as it is this season with the likes of Southampton, Manchester United, Tottenham and a resurgent Liverpool all with equally decent chance of getting there. However, after a weekend which saw the top two teams of the division battled out a 1-1 draw, thereby preventing Chelsea from making it an eight point gap and for Manchester City, from closing the gap to two points, could it open the gap for those teams, most particularly Arsenal, to produce a late rally to ruin the two-horse race scenario? If so, then these could just be the key points to achieving that.
