Morning and welcome to another week of this painful season. Firstly, thanks to Tom for filling in so ably yesterday. One of these days he’ll find himself with a positive result to report on but I thought his views more than summed up the frustration of so many Arsenal fans at the moment.
I watched the Sunderland game on Saturday and it was at first exciting, Arshavin looked extremely good and brought something different to the side, then mildly vexing, then it was just like too many other games this season and the result was inevitable. The lack of urgency and drive was horribly familiar and something Tom and others have commented on.
All the focus at the moment appears to be on central midfield. The Song – Denilson axis is about as effective as chucking pebbles at Godzilla but this isn’t really any surprise. Two young players who should be squad members busting a gut to try and improve and show they’re worthy of a first team place are now assured regular starters with practically no competition for their places.
Diaby, pffff. Aaron Ramsey hasn’t had a look in since one poor game against Cardiff. Then what? An injured Cesc. For a club of the stature of Arsenal the paucity of options for our central midfield is embarrassing.
When you’re taking off Song to try and win a game and the option is Eboue then you can’t do much else but feel sad at the state of the squad. Could Jack Wilshere have done something in those final minutes that Eboue couldn’t? Or rather, is there anything Eboue can do that Wilshere couldn’t do in his sleep (even if he is just 17)?
We are where we deserve to be in the league. ‘If onlys’ are pointless. By all means bemoan the absence of Cesc, because he would make a difference, but in my opinion we still needed to purchase at least one central midfield player when he was fit. Without him our need was so much greater. I’m with Goodplaya on this one – if we buy two quality central midfield players then our squad becomes much more competitive.
It’s not rocket science. When the squad was crying out for someone to come in and do what Cesc can do the boss went out and bought Arshavin. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that Arshavin has arrived, he looks like a quality player, but ignoring the central midfield issue is Wenger at his obstinate worst. As if he wants to prove everyone wrong with his, to my mind, misplaced faith in players like Song and Denilson.
And it’s not really their fault they’re struggling. Certainly Denilson is a trier and always willing and eager but he’s been chucked in at the deep end without any armbands and he’s barely keeping his head above water. Song’s lazy, ambling style is because he’s a lazy, slow-minded player who knows he’s going to start every week simply because we have nobody else to do it at the moment.
Nevertheless the ultimate buck stops with the manager because of the decisions he made, because he didn’t replace one of Flamini, Diarra or Gilberto, because he trusted Diaby to stay fit, because he played Cesc to the point of wearing him out, because his only central midfield signing was a 17 year old with barely 30 professional games under his belt, because he has left himself in a position where he’s relying on two young guys who are just not good enough right now, and may not ever be good enough.
Yet to all and sundry it appeared to be an easy problem to fix. Spend money on a player, or players, where they was badly needed. Buying Arshavin was like buy alloy wheels for your souped-up Cortina when you don’t have an engine.
The one positive we can take is that despite the draw we have gained a solitary point on Aston Villa in the ever-more-daunting race for one of the top 4 places. The problem is that in order for us to catch them we’re making the assumption that we’re going to take maximum points from our games when our form, not just recently but throughout the season, suggests that’s almost impossible.
Most league games won consecutively this season? Three. A sequence which saw us beat Bolton, Portsmouth and Hull. Everything is interspersed with draws and defeats. The next six league games are Fulham (H), West Brom (A), Blackburn (H), Newcastle (A), Man City (H) and Wigan (A). On paper six games we can win, in reality we’ve lost to two of those teams already, muddled past West Brom on the opening day, scraped past Wigan at home in a game which was so representative of our season, and beaten Blackburn and Newcastle quite comfortably.
Tomorrow night we play Roma in the Champions League which, because of the stature of the competition and the prestige of playing a club like Roma, is a big, exciting match. And while I am looking forward to it I think much of the anticipation is because it’s a welcome distraction from the league. If you offered me defeat to Roma in exchange for 6 league wins in a row I’d bite your hand off.
Arsene says the team wants to go as far as it can in the Champions League this season. I can understand that. Unless things improve, and dramatically, they’ll have Tuesdays and Wednesdays free next season to watch the games at home.
We need to pull a rabbit out of the hat now, in my opinion. We need the best run of form of the season and hope for Villa (because to my mind they’re the ones we’ll catch if we catch anyone) to drop at least 10 points between now and the end of the season.
Stranger things have happened but I’m not sure I’d put too much money on it.
Till tomorrow.
