Why we should take the positives from the Arsenal defeat

When Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain smashed home a pinpoint effort in off the post to make it 2-0 to Arsenal after just 24 minutes against us this weekend, I feared the worst. A hush went over the home crowd, and if it wasn’t hard to read what was on everyone’s minds at that moment – “will this be another Tottenham style thrashing?”

Fortunately, the threatened caning did not materialise - and we stood relatively firm and were actually the better side in the second half. By then it was far too late of course, as the damage had been done.

But you have to look at the positives, especially as this was very much a ‘free throw’ style match for us. Despite this being our second 2-0 defeat to Arsenal this season I think we gave a far better account of ourselves than we did at the Emirates Stadium after all – where we had, effectively, no clear cut chances.

This time we at least forced Petr Čech into a few meaningful saves, and also managed to move the ball far more purposefully in the final third. Having Benik Afobe helped no end with the latter, although our new striker notably had no efforts on goal. He was essential in holding the ball up and linking play though, and might have been more of an influence in exposing spaces in Arsenal’s backline had we scored first. Instead the North London outfit closed out the game in an impressively professional manner in the second half – although I was surprised they didn’t do much damage to us on the break once we pushed more players forward. I was expecting the killer third goal to land at any moment, but it never did.

Ultimately you have to be realistic however - we are effectively a budget Arsenal in the way we rely on quick movement and precise passing, yet the Gunners having players that are more comfortable on the ball and (most importantly) far calmer in front of goal. The two goals against us at Dean Court is ample proof of that, with Özil’s belting strike and Oxlade-Chamberlain’s laser-guided finish.

Players such as Dan Gosling and Harry Arter are tireless workers and I love them to death, but can look rushed when in the box or faced with the challenge of making that final killer pass – even Matt Ritchie, arguably the most technically gifted player we have, was guilty of some incredibly wayward shooting this weekend.

So for us to get a result this weekend I said we’d need Arsenal to under-perform or a bit of luck to fall our way – and sadly neither of these things happened, with The Gunners putting in a solid (if not sparkling) performance and a key decision going against us (Mathieu Flamini’s ill-advised two footed lunge receiving only a booking, not a red). If we’d managed to grab a goal in the last twenty minutes - and in my mind we certainly warranted one - we could have really seen if Arsenal could hold their nerve, but sadly it was not to be.

For us to have a chance of getting a result against Stoke however, we - in my mind - just need to play as we did in the second half of this weekend’s match for the entire ninety minutes. I believe we will have far better opportunities against The Potters, especially if the talismanic Ryan Shawcross isn’t starting for Mark Hughes’s side. To say Shawcross is instrumental in holding Stoke together would be a massive understatement, and the ease with which Everton picked apart their backline without him gave me a lot of reasons to be positive looking ahead to the weekend.