Arsenal 2-1 Burnley
by Tashan Deniran-Alleyne
at Ashburton Grove

Arsenal’s 2-1 victory over Burnley yesterday afternoon shouldn’t be hailed as a “big” result by any means, it should be looked at as a timely reminder from where it all went wrong last season.

After all, you can draw comparisons with Alexis Sanchez’s injury time winner to that of Danny Welbeck’s against Leicester City almost 12 months ago.

And look how events panned out.

The situations are not too dissimilar. Ashburton Grove erupted with joy on both occasions but in reality, Arsenal are in an even worse position today than they were on February 15 2016.

Back then they moved to within two points of the leaders yet still failed to sustain a title push. Before kick-off at Stamford Bridge the gap between them and Chelsea was five.

Yet come half-time in west London, Diego Costa had scored and all of a sudden an eight-point difference was opening up again.

Results on Saturday couldn’t have gone better for the Gunners. Liverpool were beaten at home by relegation-threatened Swansea City, while both Manchester clubs, as well as Tottenham, dropped points.

Facing a Burnley side that has picked up just two points on their travels so far this season, it seemed like a routine victory for the home side on paper but it was everything but that.

Even when Shkodran Mustafi broke the deadlock with his first goal for the club just before the hour mark, some of his teammates seemed hell bent on making things difficult.

Granit Xhaka’s lunge on Steven Defour just six minutes later was thoughtless and needless which left his side down to 10 men.

Worryingly that is the Swiss international’s fifth red card since the start of last season — a number which is more than any other player in Europe’s top five leagues — and understandably Wenger has called on his big money signing to improve that side of his game.

“The noises I get are that Xhaka’s was a red card. He has to control his game,” the Arsenal manager said in his post match press conference.

Francis Coquelin came on to offer defensive protection yet didn’t cover himself in glory either. No question that he was at fault for the concession of the penalty from which Andre Gray converted and saw a frustrated Wenger sent to the stands.

Luckily Alexis kept his cool right at the death to keep Arsenal’s faint hopes of winning the title alive but it will take a lot more for many to be convinced that this is their year.