Despite Arsenal’s 1-2 start, the second loss being as woeful as they come for a club as celebrated as the Gunners, there’s a path back to Premier League contention for the beleaguered North London side.
After all, they’ve been here before. Through three matches of each season since 2011, Arsenal has dropped eight, four, three, four, five, five, and now six points.
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Yeah, that means this year is the second-worst of that spell, but this is a club that finished three points out of third place in the Premier League last season with its 75-point fifth place campaign and so far only lost one player who played significant minutes during the transfer window (Gabriel Paulista) while bringing in two impact players in Alexandre Lacazette and Sead Kolasinac.
Arsene Wenger -- whose continued employment may well be the biggest problem at the club -- now has two weeks to just start Lacazette and Kolasinac, man set up shop for an extremely forgiving Premier League run of fixtures. Aside from one trip to Chelsea, the Gunners have points waiting for them from Sept. 9 to Oct. 14.
Sept. 9 - vs. Bournemouth
Sept. 14 - vs. Koln (Europa League)
Sept. 17 - at Chelsea
Sept. 20 - vs. Doncaster Rovers (League Cup)
Sept. 25 - vs. West Brom
Sept. 28 - at BATE Borisov (Europa League)
Oct. 1 - vs. Brighton and Hove Albion
Oct. 14 - at Watford
The following week sees the Gunners off to Red Star Belgrade and Everton, so party’s over, but look at that list lining up for Arsenal.
If you believe The Telegraph report that Alexis Sanchez’s teammates would love to see Arsenal send him to the moon (or Manchester), then Wenger would have a week to restore good vibes and insert any deadline buys into the fray.