So one more game to go this season then it’s summer time and transfer speculation and rumour to help us pass the days and weeks without football. There’s still something to play for obviously. The aim is to finish third and, in terms of the league table, show improvement on last season.
Wherever we finish there’s a mighty gap between us and the champions and that’s something that the manager has to work on. He admits the problem himself, saying:
It is a big frustration. What I have to get right in the summer is to evaluate what we need but there are signs that when everybody is fit we have a good chance. If you look at my squad when everyone is fit and available, frankly we lack nothing.
Off the top of my head we lack wingers, possibly a striker and more importantly leadership.
No question we’d have done better if Henry, van Persie and Rosicky had been fit all season long but perhaps not 20 points better. When you hear Alex Ferguson, one day after winning the title, saying he’s got three players in mind to bring into his squad for next season you can understand why the idea of us going into the new campaign with the same players would frustrate many fans. There’s no sitting on any laurels at Old Trafford. We definitely need new faces, we need freshening up, we need to move a couple on and we need to get the balance in midfield right again. From a team who boasted two of the best wide players in the league (Pires and Ljungberg) for years we now play central midfielders in the wide areas so it’s no wonder we lack width.
The one positive is that the manager knows there’s an issue there. He’s due to talk to Real Madrid this week about Jose Antonio Reyes and he says:
There is no doubt we have missed him at times. We could easily play with him in a 4-3-3 next season because he is a natural winger.
On paper it sounds good but will Reyes want to come back to London? Is there any point in bringing back a player who is blatantly unhappy at the club? I do quite like the idea of 4-3-3 but that’s something I’ll address at a later point with a squad review of the season. Obviously we miss a Reyes type of player, someone who can get wide, get past defenders (without falling over and clutching his knee, ankle, back etc) and who can deliver a decent ball into the box. Whether that gap in the squad is filled by Reyes remains to be seen but I’d be very surprised to see him at the Grove next season.
Cesc talks about midfield needing to contribute more goals next season and the players growing up and maturing next season. Certainly we need more goals from midfield but the only regular starter who should be looking at maturing and growing up is Cesc himself and that’s only down to his age, not his performances. Gilberto, Rosicky and Hleb are all experienced players and while Diaby, Denilson and perhaps Walcott can come on next year they haven’t exactly been regulars. Of them Gilberto has contributed well and is probably my player of the season, Rosicky gets another go next season to see if an injury free campaign is more productive while Hleb would be top of my list to move on in the summer.
I guess what happens is entirely down to how much money the boss has to spend. If you could get £4m for Hleb and possibly £8m for Reyes, on top of the transfer funds the board have said are available, then there’s obviously enough there to bring in some new faces. I like the boss’s faith in his players but he’s got to realise now that some of the faith he’s placed in them has not been repaid by performances on the pitch. Seeing some new faces in and a couple go out might snap a couple of others out of the comfort zone too. Anyway, there’ll be loads of time for this kind of stuff in the summer.
So far the manager hasn’t identified any targets (according to the Chairman who also reveals Satan Kroenke is too busy grooming his ‘tache to meet the board of the club he wants to buy) but then I wouldn’t expect him to until the season is over. No panic just yet.
Maybe we could bring in Vic Akers to freshen up the coaching side of things. His Arsenal Ladies side completed an unprecented quadruple as they beat Charlton in the FA Women’s Cup. Congratulations to everyone involved. I’d be happy if the Arsenal men could do just 50% of what they did. That’s not too much to ask, is it?!
And that’s that. There’s just time enough to laugh at Alan Pardew so ‘hahahahahahaha’. Hasta mañana.
