Martin Keown has spoken about Arsenal’s title hopes ahead of our season opener against West Ham and how he believes we need to be consistent throughout the new season.

Pretty much everyone has mentioned our consistency over recent seasons and how we need to maintain a high level throughout in order to be in with a chance of winning the title. Most recently, former Gunner and TV pundit, Keown, has echoed this theory and also believes we need to get off to a strong start.

“They’ve got to be consistent throughout, they can’t afford a bad start,” the defender said.
“It’s not a 100m sprint but if you don’t get out of the blocks quickly you won’t win a gold medal.”

He added, “Every stage of this race, they’ve got to be contention. They can’t fall off the leading pack which they did last season.”

The former defender also pointed out Mesut Ozil as an example of someone who he believes will step up their game this season.

“Ozil’s starting to look powerful and more serious in his performance,” he said. “The manager has found his perfect position just off the front. That’s his position but there is so many who could play there, it has been difficult for Wenger. But Ozil is sort of the number one now.”

Although Keown isn’t really re-inventing the wheel with his comments, they are true and his analogy about getting out of the blocks quickly, while remaining consistent throughout the season, is particularly relevant to our opening match.

Keown featured a staggering 365 times for Arsenal during his footballing career and he still has a huge amount of love for the club. Hopefully our players, especially the younger ones, will heed his warning and respect the words of someone who’s been there and done it.