Good morning from a thoroughly wet Dublin. Good for the garden, not good for the whole sitting outside in the garden drinking wine. I’m finding typing a bit difficult this morning having somewhat banjaxed a finger playing football last night. It’s all swollen and crooked. It looks like a bent Toulouse sausage. Insert, hah, your own joke there.
As expected some fallout from the Blackburn game. I’m ignoring all stories by anyone associated with Blackburn about how great they are because they ‘roughed us up’ and went after the goalkeeper, we know that already. In fact, I’ve been ignoring a lot of Arsenal stuff too. We tend to be a dramatically grumpy lot when things go badly and the vast array of Arsenal sites, forums and blogs out there make for a … erm … robust airing of views.
I’m as frustrated as the next man about the way things have gone but what’s quite interesting to me is that, regardless of how vociferous your opinion, the highly negative and the more positive are more or less singing from the same hymn sheet. I have an excellent regular email correspondant who I run into from time to time here in Dublin. We shall call him Ernie. He is, and has been for some time, of the opinion that the manager has taken the club as far as he can and a change is required. I don’t think we’ve quite got that far yet and this season’s title challenge made for some interesting exchanges.
When I saw the positives of winning late (showing character and battling till the end) he saw a team that lacked the quality to win games against mediocre opposition. He said the United and Chelsea games underlined the gulf in class between us and the top two, I might have said that to haul ourselves back into the hunt for the title after losing those two games showed the team had balls and more quality than people thought. And so it has gone on until the end of the season, the truth probably lying somewhere between our juxtaposing views.
Obviously now, having seen this team capitulate in the final weeks of the season, his views are more negative. Understandable completely, but leaving aside the issue of the manager, because I believe Arsene Wenger will be at Arsenal for at least another season, both of us fundamentally agree on what the team needs. It needs a top goalkeeper, it’s needs a bigger, stronger, more solid defence, it needs more physical presence in midfield, and it needs better striking options. He’d rather somebody else had the job of bringing in and coaching those players, I think Arsene Wenger deserves the chance to put it right and to spend the money that he’s been unable to spend in recent seasons because of the stadium etc.
Yet what we want in terms of the personnel is almost identical. I suppose it’s down to whether or not you think Arsene is prepared to perform that kind of surgery on his team. Is he going to spend the money to improve the first team and the squad or is he going to look at this season as progress (because of the title challenge) and hope the players learn from it and take another step forward next season? Personally, I think there are areas which are absolutely crucial and if he doesn’t address those then we have to think seriously about whether or not he should continue in the job – but I do believe he deserves the chance this summer to address them.
I’m not quite sure what my point is any more. I know I had one when I started. Basically I think there’s an awful lot of squabbling and fighting amongst Arsenal fans when essentially we’re pretty much all of the same opinion about how our team should be strengthened for next season. I suppose, like any kind of belief system, and supporting a football team is a bit like that, you get people on the far left and the far right, but finding a bit of middle ground and respecting each others opinions is not so tough. And I’ll buy Ernie a pint next time I see him. The big bollocks.
With much of the focus since the Blackburn game being on Lukasz Fabianski it’s little wonder the newspapers have gone into keeper overdrive when it comes to Arsenal. The Guardian said Arsene has made Joe Hart his number one target but Citeh will not sell. Which makes it a bit of a non-story really. They have no need to sell, if they view him as a long term option for the keeper position, then they can easily just allow him out on loan again, knowing they’re not going to suffer any financial burden in doing so.
In the meantime the statement from Gigi Buffon that he’d be interested in playing in England should he leave Juventus means our name crops up again. There’s talk of him going to City too as they try and build a collection of all the keepers in the world. While it might seem fanciful he’s the kind of signing I think we need. An experienced, quality keeper who would instantly improve our squad. With back-up perhaps for Wojscez© it’d allow us to strengthen that area properly. As I said though, it’s fanciful, but I do think that’s the direction we need to be going in.
The Mirror says William Gallas is refusing to commit himself to Arsenal and says his focus is on playing in the World Cup. No surprise really, I’ve long thought Gallas was off this summer, and he can go somewhere else on a Bosman, pick up a nice healthy signing on fee, and his new club can then cope with his annual 3 month injury layoff.
Also in the Mirror news that Bolton will beg Arsenal to let them keep Jack Wilshere next season. I hope that doesn’t happen. I think he’s proved during his loan spell there that he’s ready for Premier League football. Perhaps not yet as a starter for Arsenal but I can envisage him making the same kind of breakthrough as Aaron Ramsey did before that cuntheaded oaf broke his leg. If you see Wilshere play it’s not hard to see what he’d bring to this Arsenal side, his spirit and drive would set him a part from some of the options we currently have.
Tonight’s game between Man City and Sp*rs is interesting. A win for Sp*rs and they seal a top 4 place and could even go above us into third if they win their final game of the season and we lose to Fulham. A draw tonight and it goes down to the final day of the season for those two and third place is ours. I’m hoping for stalemate tonight and then some kind of simultaneous Ebola outbreak on the last day. Sp*rs in Champions League football would be unbearable but Citeh getting fourth means they can, with all their oily billions, attract the kind of players who wouldn’t come to them otherwise. It’s a toughie.
Let’s hope for a 4-4 with red cards and smashed heads and players knocking each other unconscious tonight, we can worry about the rest on Sunday.
Till tomorrow.
