Arsenal’s back-to-back titles appeared to give them a lot of confidence about challenging for the Premier League campaign in the 2015-16 season.
Arsene Wenger has made just one signing – Petr Cech from Chelsea – in the summer, but that appeared to be more than sufficient to strengthen the squad in all the right areas. Cech played a huge role in the team’s 1-0 win against Chelsea at the new Wembley. However, the 33-year-old goalkeeper was the culprit after the gunners fell to a 2-0 shock defeat against West Ham on Sunday.
The North London outfit were overwhelming favourites to get three points from this opening game especially since the team was on a high. SlavenBilic recently took over from Sam Allardyce and he has now managed to make the best possible start. A win would have helped Arsenal off to a great start and will also have provided them with sufficient confidence to take on the top teams like Liverpool and Chelsea in the next few weeks. As it is, Wenger’s team will have to go back to the drawing board.
This defeat is unlikely to cause panic at the club, as Wenger has always maintained that he buys only when necessary. The lack of width from the team against West Ham would have been a cause of concern, but this is an aspect that is amendable due to the presence of names like Theo Walcott and Alexis Sanchez. The high-profile mistakes from Cech, which allowed not only one goal but two, are something of a rare occurrence and Arsenal continue to remain as one of the favourites for the league title in the upcoming campaign.“I haven’t spoken to Cech. The first goal was a defensive lapse — a collective lapse. The concentration maybe was not completely there on the set-piece, the organisation was not perfect,” said Wenger.