Another Friday, another weekend of football and no matter how sorry we’re feeling for ourselves we have to get going again.
It’s Chelsea on Sunday and while there’s still the outside chance of third place we have to go for it. It’s not exactly the end of the season we were hoping for, but what can you do? With no new injuries since Tuesday night the squad will be the same one with the addition of Andrei Arhsavin although the Russian has been suffering with ‘flu’, according to the boss.
I have no doubt Arshavin will start this game though and I wonder if, like against Liverpool, his performance might send a message to the boss. After being left out of the semi-final at Wembley he responded by scoring four goals at Anfield. Perhaps he’s got a point to prove playing against Chelsea and Hiddink. Let’s hope so.
In the meantime Kolo Toure has rather succinctly summed up this Arsenal team, saying:
We don’t know how to win a trophy right now. Winning the first will help us to win some more.
Which is why the manager’s apparent decision to prioritise third place and/or the Champions League over the FA Cup seems more strange. We could be facing Everton in the final with a chance to win a trophy, instead we’re licking our wounds with nothing left to win.
George Graham’s first trophy for Arsenal was the league cup against Liverpool in 1987. Two Charlie Nicholas goals and some bad dancing with Perry Groves were the launching pad for league titles, a European cup and domestic cups. You wonder would that famous night at Anfield have happened without that Wembley win. It’s the same with this team. Yes, they may have potential but that’s all they’ve got at the moment.
Arsene repeatedly calls them winners but the fact is they haven’t won anything. 21 games in the league unbeaten is impressive and they deserve credit for it but there’s no trophy for that. This group of players needs silverware if they’re to fulfill the potential the manager believes they have. They need other things to win that silverware in my opinion but until there’s a trophy in the cabinet it’s impossible to call this team or Arsene’s project a success.
More than any other summer in recent memory the theme of this one is going to be reinforcements, adding to the team and to the squad. Cesc says:
Manchester United have many, many players who can make a difference. Chelsea, too. We don’t have that same deep squad but we have to cope with it because our job is to play football and the rest is for the boss.
I remember Arsene’s quote a little while ago when he was asked why he didn’t replace Flamini or Hleb and his answer was that bringing in other players would ‘kill’ the likes of Song, Denilson and Diaby. You may agree with that or not, I don’t, but there’s another danger. It’s that if you don’t bring in the experienced, quality players then you ‘kill’ the likes of Cesc, one of the finest young talents in world football but who’s playing with mediocre/unready players.
He needs a proper, established, quality partner in midfield. And it will benefit the other players. How much better would Denilson be if he learned from an experienced player instead of being chucked in at the deep-end and asked to play an unfamiliar role?
I know this is a road we’ve been down before and I don’t want to go too far down it today but you just get the sense that there’s a restlessness around some of the squad and it’s down to the manager to put that right.
I haven’t really mentioned Emmanuel Adebayor this week. His poor showing in both the semi-finals hasn’t gone unnoticed though, nor has his conduct pre-game. He’s talking about Milan one moment then pledging his future to Arsenal in a rather stage-managed fashion the next. In the Mirror John Cross has an excellent piece which sums it up perfectly, in my opinion.
Some good news this morning is that Theo Walcott is apparently on the verge of signing a new four year contract with the club. It’d be a timely boost and hopefully Robin van Persie can follow suit shortly as well.
Update: It’s done and officially announced. Hurrah!
Right, time for the Arsecast and this week I’m joined by Philippe Auclair from France Football for a lengthy discussion about the Champions League exit, Arsene’s thinking, the state of the current team/squad and much, much, much more.
You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here (28mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.
Finally for today if you have an iPhone you can check out the brand new Arseblog App, designed and built by Rocky. To download it click here and do the usual stuff, or you can search the App store for ‘Arseblog’ and it should find it.
And that should do it. Have yourselves a good Friday, more tomorrow.
