2014 has been hugely important for Arsenal; the long awaited trophy came in the form of the FA Cup at Wembley in May. The highlights of the year weren’t just in this dramatic final though; memorable goals, signings and individual brilliance all played a part in the vital progress made by finally ending the trophy drought.
Player of the year: Aaron Ramsey
The start of the 2014/2015 season may have been a relatively slow one by the standards he set last year. However, Aaron Ramsey has simply been magnificent for Arsenal in 2014, his FA Cup final winner being thoroughly deserved. Despite that goal being of such importance, it wasn’t even close to being his best in terms of pure quality. That came in the form of a remarkable goal away at Galatasaray in Arsenal’s last Champions League group game.
In the 2013/2014 season he contributed 16 goals and 9 assists in all competitions. Most impressively, this form seemingly came from nowhere. There was no doubting his quality, but he had not seen anything like such figures in his previous years in an Arsenal shirt, warranting criticism from some. He even managed to make Piers Morgan eat his words, who had previously claimed Ramsey was “a complete and utter liability”, which was rather kind of him. Of course, new signing Alexis Sanchez will be favourite for the award in 2015 and rightly so, but Ramsey’s presence in 2014 was invaluable and finally resulted in a trophy for the club: the most valuable reward for his hard work this year.
Arsenal’s FA Cup Run:
January 4th (3rd Round) : Arsenal 2-0 Tottenham
January 24th (4th Round): Arsenal 4-0 Coventry City
February 16th (5th round): Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool
March 8th (Quarter Final): Arsenal 4-1 Everton
April 12th: (Semi Final): Arsenal 0-0 Wigan Athletic (1-1 AET) (4-2 on penalties)
May 17th (Final): Arsenal 2-2 Hull City (Arsenal win 3-2 AET)
Dispelling the myth:
Arsenal’s FA Cup run in was dismissed as “easy” by some. It’s worth noting the 3rd round started with the North London Derby, arguably one of the hardest fixtures a team can expect when so many teams remain in the cup at this stage. In the 5th Round Arsenal faced a Liverpool team who so very nearly went onto win the league that year, then they want onto to knock fellow Merseyside club and five-time FA Cup winners Everton out directly in the next round. The truth is, by the semi-final stage Arsenal had faced three Premier League ties out of four and such criticism is unjust; other teams from the Premier League simply had failed to succeed where Arsenal had.
127 and out:
Arsenal spent 127 days at the top in last year’s title race and in the end continued their love affair with fourth place. It seems ungrateful to dismiss this as a failure as so many teams in the league crave what Arsenal have—but it felt like it.
The Gunners had a great chance last year; United were for once out of the picture and, despite Arsenal’s 6-0 loss to them, Chelsea weren’t quite the force that they have been at the start of the 2014/2015 season. The recurring problem of the failure to beat the big teams proved costly, again. Not only failure to win but failure to avoid humiliation. The 6-0 defeat to Chelsea in Wenger’s 1000th game has been mentioned; the 5-1 defeat to Liverpool was just as perplexing.
The Liverpool game perhaps was worse, when you acknowledge the fact just over a week later Arsenal managed to beat the same Liverpool team who had so easily disposed of them at Anfield. This is perhaps reflective of the truism that it is in fact a mentality issue hindering Arsenal in these games. Credit goes to Liverpool and Chelsea for outstanding performances too, but are these really games Arsenal should be conceding five or even six? No. The fact is they did and as they fell seven points short of the title these games more or less prevented Arsenal from a Premier League trophy that very easily could have been.
The turning point:
There was still something a little special about the team in 2014. Arsenal’s failure to give up in competitions had been most noticeable in the Champions League prior to this FA Cup win. Ambitious comebacks against Barcelona, AC Milan and Bayern Munich are impressive, admirable and brilliant to see apart from the one most obvious factor, ultimately they are still defeats. The Capital One Cup Final against Birmingham saw Arsenal come close yet again, but Arsenal perhaps needed to know what that felt like to power their FA Cup charge in 2014.
The game against Wigan wasn’t pretty, 0-0 at half-time left many incredibly nervous and when the worst case scenario came and Wigan scored, Arsenal fans got that all too familiar feeling of complete and utter disappointment. It would have been easy to give up. Conceding late on is always difficult to bounce back from. Not only is there less time to bounce back, but players are physically and mentally exhausted by this stage and a goal against a team is usually the final blow. Arsenal simply wouldn’t let that happen and Per Mertesacker delivered one of the most important goals he will score in an Arsenal shirt. From there, Arsenal felt destined to negotiate penalties and have their meeting with fate in the FA Cup Final.
Hull City lied in wait in the Final. If there was ever a time to learn easy games don’t exist in football, least of all in FA Cup finals, this was it. Falling two behind was everything that Arsenal fans had feared and more, the trophy was slipping away from Wenger and Arsenal and it was incredibly painful to watch it happen.
Up stepped Santi Cazorla. In the previous year he had won Arsenal player of the season, this year he had struggled for form but what a redemption this would be. The free kick looked a little too far to score from, but when the ball flew in the net you got the same feeling you did when Mertesacker scored in the previous game. Not this year. Arsenal then went onto have yet another defender score a hugely important equaliser, then a “typical Arsenal goal” to win it. Never in doubt. Arsenal finally had their hands on another trophy, the highlight of 2014.
New Years resolution:
Just the one this year will suffice. As January approaches and the Transfer Market too it’s obvious, a defensive midfielder is a must. Signing Sanchez in the summer may have bought Wenger some time as the Chilean, as expected, has been outstanding and has already contributed fifteen goals this year. It seems unnecessary to prolong the need for a player in this position though; one would hope Wenger is active in this area. If Arsenal are lucky as well bolstering the defence wouldn’t go amiss either, but the priority is easy to see.
So, onto 2015. The very first article I wrote for LastWordOnSports I looked at what the future held for Arsenal. The best case scenario set out there is still possible: “Champions League: Semi Final (onwards) League: 2nd/3rd, Cups: Winners (of either).” Of course, it will be difficult, although Arsenal will be hopeful they can progress beyond the last 16 with a slightly easier draw, but as we learned in 2014 easy games don’t seem to exist when Arsenal play. Whatever does happen, 2014 has undoubtedly been a year of the utmost significance at Arsenal. The aim now is to build on the FA Cup victory and make trophies at the Emirates a much more regular occurrence.
Your highlights of 2014
On the Twitter account for Arsenal at LastWordOnSports (@AFCModiOperandi), we asked what your top 3 moments of 2014 had been. Here are your responses:
@DaBhai13: @AFCModiOperandi Theo’s 2-0 gesture, Winning the FA Cup and the signing of Alexis.
@Oluwamaryowa: @afcmodioperandi winning the fa cup winning the community shield and signing Alexis sanchez
@Gooner2009_29: @WsGoona @AFCModiOperandi I was behind the volley. Amazing tekkers from Rambo. I love NCFC. I was also behind Wilshere wonder goal at home.
@PitchsidePie: . @AFCModiOperandi 1. The FA Cup after 9 years without a trophy. 2. Signing Alexis Sanchez. 3. Beating Spurs and Theo doing the 2-0 signal.
@devakay99: @AFCModiOperandi Alexis Alexis Alexis. He gives 110 percent every match, #class
@dazznette: @AFCModiOperandi signing ozil signing sanchez aw s new coat
@MrBushy: @AFCModiOperandi FA Cup. Signing Alexis. Rosicky’s goal vs Sunderland.
@WsGoona: @AFCModiOperandi 1. Has to be Ramsey’s goal at Wembley. Run of nine trophyless, painful years ended in glorious fashion. 2. Spurs away. The away fans stayed over half an hour after the game singing ’49 49 undefeated’ in an empty White Hart Lane 3. Second half of Norwich away in May. Away end going crazy for Jenko’s first goal and Ramsey’s amazing volley
@arron83: @AFCModiOperandi My top 3 AFC moments. 1.The FA cup win 2.The signing of Alexis Sanchez 3.The community shield win #arsenal #afc
@SirGooner101: @AFCModiOperandi Beating Liverpool in the FA cup after the Anfield trashing, Signing Alexis and Winning the FA cup.
Thank you for reading. Please take a moment to follow me on Twitter – @LWOSDanSiggins. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LWOSWorld and “liking” our Facebook page.
Feel free to discuss this and other footy related articles with thousands of fans at r/football.
Have you tuned into Last Word On Sports Radio? LWOS is pleased to bring you 24/7 sports radio to your PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone. What are you waiting for?
