Arsenal are currently in the thick of their most trying sequence of games thus far into the season.
Two losses against Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea were instantly cancelled out following the win at home to Liverpool, but many will be expecting another slip up this evening away to the Bundesliga club and on the weekend against Manchester United.
But Dortmund are not a stick that should be used to beat Arsenal with – or any Premier League side, for that matter. Why? Because the Bundesliga club are comfortably better than any English side, and because Arsenal’s ability or inability to take points from Jurgen Klopp’s side won’t have a direct effect on how well they do in the Premier League.
Dortmund are currently one of the top three or four sides in Europe and Champions League finalists of earlier this year. Manchester United’s credentials as Premier League champions were not hacked away following those two Champions League final losses against Barcelona, just as Arsenal were not guaranteed of making the top four last season following their win at Bayern Munich. The point: domestic and European form is to be held completely separate.
Dortmund were once again irresistible and unstoppable in their last Bundesliga game, putting six past Stuttgart. Robert Lewandowski, one of the most in-demand forwards in the game – and with the ability to back up his reputation – scored a brace within two minutes and rounded out his hat-trick not long after on Friday night. Combined with players like Marco Reus, Jakub Blazsczykowski, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and the yet to return Ilkay Gundongan, there aren’t too many club sides who can match the quality of personnel and style on display at Signal Iduna Park.
But Arsenal don’t need excuses made for them. Instead, it’s necessary to weigh up the logical and legitimate criticisms of Arsene Wenger’s side and their apparent inability to win domestic silverware. Arsenal are not a match for Dortmund, despite holding them for much of the ninety in the first meeting between the two sides this season. Yet regardless of the loss, it shouldn’t take away from the clear steps forward Wenger’s team have taken.
If Wenger chooses to add one or two more in January, this Arsenal side will wipe out the only yawning drawback in their fight for silverware.
Arsenal are not top of the Premier League table by accident. Others haven’t been as consistent, both in results and quality of football. But above all, this is the Premier League, Arsenal’s priority for the campaign. There’s little point in using a foreign club to measure another’s domestic credentials. No one was as good as Barcelona during Pep Guardiola’s reign. Just as it is in this case, it would have been illogical to say that the countless teams they beat on the way to lifting two European Cups were not worthy of domestic titles.
Chelsea’s win over Arsenal in the League Cup displayed one gulf: depth. Yet even with the fact that Juan Mata, David Luiz and Willian alone amounted to a transfer total of around £100 million, the line was continuously trotted out that Chelsea’s second string were on display against Arsenal’s first. Another idiotic and pointless swipe at Wenger’s team.
You have to beat the best in Europe, eventually, to win the Champions League. There is no shame in Arsenal if they fail to come through a group consisting of two very, very good sides in Dortmund and Napoli. In fact, not a whole lot was said of Manchester City’s Premier League pedigree when they finished bottom of their Champions League group in the season they won the league title.
It’s unfortunate, for the sake of Arsenal’s squad size – one which is still feeling the effects of widespread injuries – that Dortmund away falls between Liverpool and Manchester United. But it’s secondary; far more important than the pointless League Cup, but not an indicator of what Arsenal can do in the league.
Should Dortmund measure how far Arsenal have come this season?
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