This is Why I Didn't Post Last Week....

After two weeks of silence, guess it's time to come back into the fold. 

There was much written after the victory over Manchester United and the Carling Cup beat-down that the kids administered to Wigan in mid-week.  And much of that was true.  But so much of it was hyperbole -- knee-jerk reaction to the moment.  I needed to give myself another week to find out how the team would respond to such victories after the string of poor results from the weeks before.

And now I have.

The facts are this:  Arsenal are a talented, but inconsistent team and that inconsistency is undermining their talent.  And they have been doing so for the past 3 years.  

Win at Manchester United.  Lose to Stoke.  Beat Liverpool.  Drop points at Fulham.  Hang with Chelsea.  Let West Ham win at home.  That's been the team's M.O. the last few years.  Good enough, but just not good enough.

Now don't misunderstand me.  There is no divine right by ANY team to win every time it steps onto the pitch.  Every club still has to go out and deliver the goods on gametime.  Thinking you're too big to face a real challenge from a small club is how Cardiff City can end up in the FA Cup Final or Hull ends up Top 7 in the league.

But to win the Premier League you need more than just talent and support and leadership and fitness and luck.  You need consistency.  You need to be able to take the fight to clubs who are fishing for a point with a 10-men behind the ball tactic AND challenge those that challenge you to a proper game of football.  You need to have quality defending and goalkeeping at the back AND the diversity in attack to break both fast and strong defenses.  

And you need to be able to do it every week...every game...every chance.

There's still plenty of silverware to be won.  Plenty of opportunities for glory for this Arsenal team.

But until the team manages to deliver back-to-back-to-back with consistency, we might as well get comfortable in the 3rd-4th place spots.