Learning from the (current) best

Another season has come and gone and unfortunately another season of mixed reviews for Arsenal. For Chelsea however it has been a great season having come out on top in the Premiership. As hard as it is for me to say, Arsenal has to look at and learn from this year's champions because they have done a couple of key things better than us this year, add some of Chelsea's winning qualities to our own selling points and trophies might follow.

One of these points is the performances in the big games, looking particularly at the top four mini-league. Arsenal lost both home and away to Manchester United as well as Chelsea, picking up wins against Liverpool whilst Chelsea won every single game against last year's top four, that's a big difference to both morale as well as the table itself. Giving Chelsea a six point head start by losing to them at home and away is a big gap to make up and it already puts more pressure on the games a team like Arsenal are supposed to win.

Although we did manage to hang in the title race despite losing four games to our two main rivals, this is a big area we need to improve on next season. Up until the last couple of games of the season, when effectively our season had ended, we did manage to win most of the games we we're expected to win so our gap behind the top two was in essence created by our four defeats against those two.

Another area where we need to learn from Chelsea is in closing out a game and ensuring the three points are won. When it was José Mourinho's Chelsea they usually won a game by getting two goals in front or sometimes just one and then locking the back door, this season's Chelsea under Ancelotti's stewardship have taken the lead and continued to dominate a game, not even thinking about taking their foot off the gas, going on to sometimes score up to seven or eight.

This season I can think of too many times when a couple of goal leads have been squandered, thinking particularly of games such as away to West Ham when two points were dropped. We have too often taken our foot off the gas and not closed out games, we need to either continue going forward and play with our usual energy or strengthen our defence and lock the door to ensure a win and three points.

The final area where Chelsea might have the edge over us, for the time being at least, is in experience and consequently consistency. This isn't really something we can easily improve, I think it will probably come naturally to the youngest team in the Premiership but with growing maturity, I think it will improve both our big match performances as well as our ability to close out matches. This is unfortunately the one area where patience is needed, being such a young team we need to just wait and watch them figure out how to make sure of three points, hopefully looking and learning from the Chelsea team.

What this year's Chelsea team has been able to do, resisting the pressure from Manchester, winning when they needed to win and coping with their Champions League exit has all been majorly helped by their squad's age and experience. While they may be an ageing side, they do know how to get themselves to a win, not always winning by seven, sometimes just willing themselves through to a scrappy win, something you wonder whether we could do on a regular basis when our passing game is not flowing.

Nope I'm not a Chelsea fan, I am genuinely an Arsenal fan, you may doubt it after that glowing reference but you have to grudgingly admire a Chelsea team that has scored over 100 goals and finished with a goal difference of +71. All I am saying is that our team should look at teams winning trophies regularly such as Chelsea and Barcelona, look at what they do best and add it to our game, if we took those Chelsea qualities I mentioned and add them to our fluid passing style, we would go even closer to winning the title, made even easier to do with a fit Fabregas and van Persie too. Our young team will naturally improve season on season and with a few decent additions over the summer we should be even better next season but a note of caution, I think we will need to improve next year because I can't see Chelsea and Manchester United losing six and seven times again next season.

User Comments

User Comments

• Got something to say?
• Read comments

Vs chelsea