december 4th
At home this Arsenal look a good side. Away from home we struggle and at Bolton our woes continued as we got done 2-0. When the manager says that Bolton’s desire and commitment was higher than ours then we have problems. The Reebok is not exactly a happy hunting ground for us and some lacklustre performances, especially in midfield, meant what is normally atough game became even tougher. When you know you have to battle and afterwards the manager says you were ‘tentative and frail‘ then something has to change.
For a start I would like to see Lauren over at left back while Cole and Clichy are out. Pascal Cygan is a centre-half and should not be playing left back just because he is left footed. Sol Campbell continues to be a worry and at this point I would give Eboue a run at right back and bring in Senderos alongside Kolo Toure in the centre of defence. Some players need to know their place in the team is not a given. The same goes for central midfield. Gilberto was very weak yesterday and unfortunately he knows he’s got no real competition for his place. Maybe we can bring Flamini in and give him a bit of a kick up the arse but long-term he is not the answer. I’m not even going to suggest Alex Song because the fact that he is our 4th choice central midfield player says everything about how our squad is lacking in that department. Gilberto knows he’s going to play because, after Cesc, he’s our best central midfielder and he knows we have a lot of young players playing so the boss is always going to err on the side of experience. It’s the same with Sol. There are players in the team who are there to add experience to the side not because they merit their place.
Come January we simply have to buy at least one established central midfielder. As our league season is now well and truly over we have got to ensure we finish top 3 and then go for it in the cups and the Champions League but changes need to be made. In the short term we’ve got to bring in players to replace the complacent performers in the team and in the long term we need to add real quality to the squad and we need to do it soon.
We’ve got kids dying for a chance and more than capable of taking it if the Carling Cup games are anything to go by. If the so-called senior players can’t muster the fight to take on Bolton, a team they have history with, a team they know the fans have history with, then they can go somewhere else and be wimps.
There is a serious lack of aggression in the team
and by that I don’t mean nastiness or committing bad fouls. I mean there is nobody who is on the pitch who gets seriously pissed off when we’re 2-0 down to Bolton and does something about it. There is nobody to lead. There is nobody to take the game by the scruff of the neck. I know people jump on the red card statistics whenever we get a player sent off and I’m sure there has been a conscious effort to watch the discipline recently but it’s gone too far. We need more fight and bar a couple or three players we don’t have it. We need to be more physical. In games like yesterday’s we have to fight fire with fire. We have too many players who don’t want to get hurt. Too many players, like Gilberto, who won’t go 100% into a 50-50. The bloke is 6’2 and musclebound but he’s a wimp. We need more.
It’s now up to the manager to solve the problems we have. The transfer window is not far away but we’ve got a lot of games before anything can be done. That means he has to fix it with the players we have. Maybe that means some tough decisions and maybe some noses need to be put out of joint but that’s why Arsenal pays Arsene Wenger’s salary. He has to change it. Like most of you I accepted that there might be a problem with consistency this season given the state of the squad but like most of you I can’t accept a lack of desire and I can’t accept it when the manager says Bolton wanted to win more than us yesterday. That hurts more than the defeat itself. Over to you, Arsene.
In
better news my team turned in the kind of battling performance Arsenal would have been proud of. A ten man 2-1 win over the team that were league leaders two weeks ago. I am hoarse from shouting (at the ref who was a useless cunt) but that might also have something to do with the beer. If you need us, AW, just drop me a mail.
