Arsenal were almost invincible
when they took the lead last season and were at their strongest at
the end of games that is the assessment of Arsène Wenger.
The dust is settling on the 2006/07 Premiership campaign. Just
before its conclusion, the Arsenal manager crunched some
illuminating numbers. They demonstrated the strengths and
weaknesses of his side last term.
If you take our season, its simple, he said. In the Premiership
we had the lead 16 times. We won 14 times and drew just two - the
two Chelsea games and lost zero. But we were behind 20 times in
the League.
We were the only team who scored 21 goals in the last 15 minutes.
The second team scored only 14 or 15 I think. For me, that means we
have the quality to push teams and kill them off. But what is
linked with our conversion rate is the aggressive level at the
start of the game and [the need] to be alert. That is because we
have a lack of experience.
However when we led first nobody has beaten us. Only Chelsea came
back once in the last minute and once at Emirates Stadium, where
they deserve a lot of credit for their performance.