COMMENT
Start as you mean to go on.
Set the right tone early and the rest will, with a bit of luck, fall into place.
Arsenal 8/15 to beat Leicester
That was once a mantra which served Arsenal well, with the Gunners regularly positioning themselves among the chasing pack for football’s biggest prizes.
It has, however, been a slogan to haunt them of late.
Unfortunately for Arsene Wenger, his dwindling fortunes in north London can be summed up by his record in opening day encounters.
There are, of course, no prizes handed out after 90 minutes of a 38-game marathon, but a stumble out of the blocks can leave you playing catch-up and place doubt into the mind of those in the thick of the action and watching on from afar.
In 2016-17, Wenger found himself the unfortunate target of regular protests against his reign, with a section of disgruntled Arsenal supporters feeling that the time was right for change after 20-plus years of sporting wedlock.
Ultimately, FA Cup success salvaged something from the wreckage of an otherwise forgettable campaign and offered enough to convince those in power that a new two-year contract should be tabled.
Wenger has since admitted that he erred in failing to address the issue of his future sooner, saying: “Maybe I made a mistake and allowed that to happen because I didn’t commit early enough. I think at some stage I did not think it would be a handicap for my commitment and it was not. But it was a bit of a handicap because it created a climate of insecurity and a lack of clarity about my person that maybe did not help at some stage.”
This again comes back to starting as you mean to go on.
Had Wenger and the club revealed their intentions early, one way or another, then everyone would have known where they stood and got on with the job – some may not have liked the answer they were given, but they would have got over it in time.
EPL 2017-18: Stars, flops and predictions
Instead, Arsenal allowed their campaign to become something of a circus, with doubts regarding their ability to challenge the best in the business emerging in their very first outing.
Any time you score three goals at home you really should be taking something from the contest, but the Gunners somehow conspired to open their 2016-17 campaign with a 4-3 defeat to Liverpool – having initially broken the deadlock.
The tone was set – and not in a good way – with Wenger’s side going on to record the worst defensive record in the top six, having slipped out of the top four for the first time under their iconic boss, and having taken just nine points from those around them.
As already mentioned, this has become an all too familiar theme over recent years.
Only once in the last seven Premier League campaigns have Arsenal opened with a win – a 2-1 victory over London rivals Crystal Palace in 2014-15.
It is not as though they have been kicking off against English football’s elite either, with two meetings with Liverpool complemented by clashes with Newcastle United, Sunderland, Aston Villa, Palace and West Ham United.
The Gunners have, in fact, now lost three of their last four – with it rather worrying to find that all of those setbacks have come on home soil.
Alexis out of Arsenal's PL opener
They will be back at the Emirates on Friday night kicking off another new season, with Leicester City the visitors to north London.
Which version of Arsenal turns up in that contest remains to be seen, with the club having shown in the past that they are capable of negotiating the first hurdle and keeping the feel-good factor flowing for at least another week.
Prior to their recent wobble, the Gunners had suffered just one opening weekend reversal (a 1-0 loss at Sunderland in 2000) in 16 under Wenger – stretching back to his first full season at the helm in 1997-98.
They won 10 of those contests, collecting four Premier League titles along the way, but the successes dried up in 2010 and since then the Gunners have finished 4th, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 5th.
A Community Shield victory over Chelsea has offered them early momentum this time around, with Wenger saying after a penalty shoot-out success at Wembley: "We had the intensity in the games in our preparation that is needed to be ready. Let's go into the Premier League with the same discipline, the same spirit and see where we can go."
The Frenchman is forever the optimist, though, often viewing the world through his own brand of rose-tinted spectacles.
In reality, even those inside the Arsenal camp know that they have wrongs to right and cannot afford another slow burn.
Theo Walcott has said: “Every season, we tend to start the league not so well, and being a Friday night I think a night game might be better for us.”
That is certainly one way of looking it!
The day of said fixture should not really matter in the grand scheme of things but if the Gunners can start firing, then perhaps an upturn in fortune across the entire campaign will lie in store for Wenger and a side which needs to start putting down early markers again.
Thank God it’s Friday!