The Premier League fixtures come out last week, so we thought we’d take a look at Arsenal’s opening fixtures in recent seasons…
2013/14
In 2013/14, Arsenal managed to lose 3-1 to Aston Villa at the Emirates.
Arsene Wenger chose to start with a midfield duo of Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere. Against Villa’s powerful midfield, led by Fabian Delph on the day, the Arsenal duo struggled to influence the game.
For all their talent, neither Wilshere nor Ramsey had sufficient knowledge of central midfield to get the better of their counterparts. This is something Wenger should have addressed before the Aston Villa fiasco.
To make matters worse, Wenger had, to date, only signed young French striker Yaya Sanogo. With the result allowing Arsenal’s opponents to get an early march on them in the title hunt, it was clear that Arsenal were yet again underprepared in their opening game of the season.
In 2015/16, Arsenal were once again subjected to defeat at the hands of a ‘lesser’ rival.
On the day, Gunners’ fans were treated to a similar apathetic performance that has become synonymous with Arsenal on the opening day of the season. Man of the match, Reece Oxford, a 16 year old school boy for West Ham looked like a man amongst boys as Arsenal’s error-strewn performance led to two, quite preventable, goals breaching the Arsenal net.
The first was a mistake by experienced goalkeeper Petr Cech, the second came after loose passes from both Coquelin and Alex Oxlade Chamberlain.
Similar to other opening day defeats, the crowd were frustrated with Arsenal’s lack of spending over the summer months and were vociferous in their frustrations…