Arsenal Maintain Their Consistent Poor Form

A scrappy win against a tough Southampton side would have awoken Arsene Wenger to tighten up the loose screws and carry on with the momentum against a disciplined Stoke City side. This wasn't the case with the Premier League giants.

Arsenal were completely shattered at the very beginning with Peter Crouch, the tall Stoke City scoring for them from kick off. Even though it was an early blow away from home for Arsenal, they had the entire match in their hands to get the lead and eventually the three points. But, yesterday was something completely catastrophic for a side who have qualified for the Champions League in sixteen straight seasons.

With the introduction of Mark Hughes to the Stoke side, they have looked more fluid and confident on the ball rather than playing the ugly long ball game they have played under Tony Pulis. They took the early momentum in their grasp and continued to affect Arsenal's play. The second goal for Stoke came in the 35th minute when Jonathan Walters heaved a high cross only for the swift and elegant Bojan to come across and score. Arsenal were blown away by another sucker punch right at the stroke of half time when a corner led to a scrappy goal adding on to Arsenal's towering problems.

Arsene Wenger, who has had to face a lot of criticism from the Gunner faithful, had a mountain to climb in the next 45 minutes. The Frenchman made a few quick changes with the introduction of Danny Welbeck which meant he would play with two strikers including Girourd, who missed a excellent opportunity of closing the gap with the opposition.

Arsenal started the second half brightly, with many elegant passes put together. Sanchez, Welbeck, Chamberlain and Aaron Ramsey enjoyed  lot of freedom and contributed to many exciting and creative moves resulting in many unsuccessful attempts on goal. Arsenal finally broke the duck with a Cazorla penalty after Flamini was brought down in the box.

Arsenal scored a second just two minutes after the first strike with a sensational volley by the Arsenal academy graduate Aaron Ramsey. This goal proved to be the driving force which made the fans believe that there could be three points to take away. Arsenal kept the intensity at soaring levels with Stoke settling to a defensive formation trying to defend the slender lead.

In the end. all the late attempts on Stoke's goal didn't prove enough for the Gunners to grab any points at all ending the game at 3-2 in the favour of Stoke City.

I believe Arsenal has far too many improvements to make with Arsene Wenger short of ideas at the moment with an ordinary sixth position in the table. Maybe the fans are right in asking Wenger to hang his boots, maybe not. Only time will time.