David Luiz wants Arsenal to fight for the title this season, and he believes they can do so.
Speaking during the international break, Luiz didn’t shy away from setting his sights high with Arsenal. Though most fans would probably bite your hand off for a top-four finish right now, the defender thinks they need to aim for the title.
“For me, if you start something, and we’ve just started the Premier League and all of the competitions, if you don’t think you can win the competition then you won’t start anything in your life,” Luiz said (via Sky Sports).
“I want to win titles with Arsenal. I want to improve and adapt myself for the style of Arsenal, as a club and how the manager wants us to play. I think we can do that together.
“My vision, my ambition and my will is always to fight for the title and between the club, the players and the coach, we have the possibility to fight for the title. I think this club deserves to shine again.”
The obvious response to the comments is going to be that if Arsenal want to win anything, they need to defend better. That’s on Luiz as much as anyone else in the team, but so far they simply haven’t been good enough at the back.
“I always say, defending starts with the strikers and through the whole team,” Luiz continued. “We are going to try and improve, we are already doing well and the last few games have shown that we are stronger in a defensive way.
“I think we’ve started really well and we just lost one game in the Premier League. I think the team is improving and now we are in third in the table but we want to finish this season fighting for the title.”
Since Luiz’s debut, Arsenal have conceded 11 goals in seven games, but he’s right that things have improved a bit lately.
Since the collapse against Watford, Arsenal have kept four clean sheets in all competitions, conceded one to a deflected effort from range against Manchester United and conceded two to Villa.
Even that last result was somewhat excusable given the amount of time the Gunners played with 10 men.
At the same time, that’s still only amounted to two wins (both by a single goal) and a draw in the league, even if things are going very well in other competitions. It’s a start, but it’s something Arsenal have to build on now in a hectic run of games.
Realistically, Arsenal still seem a way off challenging a team like Liverpool for the title. Maybe it would be good for Unai Emery’s side to aim high and then settle for top four later though.