On the Spot: Why Arsenal will not win the League this year

At Old Trafford, Daley Blind and Michael Carrick started in central defence. Dutch-U17 international Timothy Fosu-Mensah came on for the injured Marcos Rojo. 18-year-old Marcus Rashford led the line for Manchester United. The signs were all pointing to an Arsenal win, given United's difficulty forming an entire starting-11 from their injured roster. They did, after all, tear apart a relatively full-strength United 3-0 at the Emirates in October earlier this season.

Clearly, Rashford did not read the script.

Some people choose to see Arsenal’s 2-1 victory over Leicester City as proof that they could grind results out when necessary. People forget that Leicester had Danny Simpson sent off after 54 minutes; Arsenal took a full 45 minutes to make their numerical advantage count. Great championships are won with solid defences, and Arsenal do not have that at the moment. They have a good attacking line-up, but for Arsenal’s reputation as a great attacking side, they’ve scored just three more goals than 11th-place Chelsea this season; they’ve also scored three fewer than 12th-place Everton -- not exactly living up to their reputation. 

They’ve also conceded the same number of goals as seventh-place Southampton. The fact remains that Arsenal does not have a solid defensive structure -- if you take out Cech and maybe Koscielny – that can shut the door on offenses better than those led by a Mancunian who only made his first-team debut mid-week. Arsene Wenger has not made a defensive signing that makes me go, “that’s the player that will win them the league” (Elneny doesn’t fall in that category). Until he improves that aspect of the team, finding players of a higher quality than Coquelin and Flamini or stronger and faster than Mertesacker, Arsenal simply will not win the League.

Wenger made claims earlier this week that the team spirit is stronger than ever. On some occasions, I cannot fault that argument – they’ve got players who look hungry such as Sanchez. But against a weakened United they looked anything but. United changed their strategy to fit the opposition and be more direct in their approach; Arsenal hardly looked like they were willing to put the ball in the box, instead trying to score “the perfect goal” – when they did manage this they scored twice, mind you. They were not as willing or as hungry to get to the loose balls as I know they are capable of doing, nor did they show they were willing to kick it up a notch to end their 12-year Premier League title drought. Contrast that to Tottenham, who have demonstrated that comeback ability against Swansea, or Leicester, who eventually found a way past Norwich. Don’t get me wrong, they have a good team going forward–any team with Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil would strike fear in any defense, but without defensive stability and displaying grit week in week out, that title drought may just go on longer. They just have to show it against their North London rivals (and title rivals this year) next weekend when they play Tottenham, who do have the quality in their attacking line and at the back, plus the determination to win.