january 15th
Quite a bit went on yesterday as Arsene Wenger sort-of denied any rift with Jens Lehmann and also stated that the keeper would not be leaving the club. The boss said “I do not want to sell the story that Lehmann is happy but there is no problem in our relationship. We need two good keepers to have a successful season.”
Last season we only needed one keeper to have a successful season though.The boss has confirmed that Gilberto is lilkely to be missing for at least another two months and has given Edu a week to make his mind up once and for all. From what I’m told nobody should be in the least bit surprised to see Edu sign for somebody else and see the season out in the reserves. I was also told yesterday that there was no movement inside the club in terms of signings and AW made it fairly clear what’s going to happen in January ruling out any move for Michael Essien and saying “It’s quite simple mathematically, quite even. Coming in zero, going out zero.”
He’s definitely placing a huge amount of faith in the young players at the club if that is the case. If Edu is out of the equation then that does leave us light in midfield should anything happen to one of the three available players, but the boss is happy that the youngsters can do the job. “I believe that, until the end of the season, we will be stronger and stronger.”
There’s no doubt this is a very talented group of young players and perhaps they’ll never fulfill their potential if we go out and buy players. Maybe this season is one we have to look at as an investment for the future. They need to play games to get better, that goes for Cesc, Senderos, Flamini (who won’t be going back to Marseille according to the boss), Clichy, Hoyte (who has just signed a new three and a half year deal), Eboue, van Persie et al – and we’ve seen what regular first team football has done for the likes of Cole, Kolo and this season with Cesc. We cannot compete financially with Chelsea, nobody can, but we can invest in the future of our club and ensure a solidity within the squad and the benefits of having a group of players who know each other very well. As well as that there don’t appear to be any outstanding targets for the positions we might need to strengthen. ANR are talking about Edwin van der Sar but I don’t see the point of signing a 34 year old goalkeeper who really is no better than Lehmann. Maybe we could do with a midfielder but that’s only because of Gilberto’s injury so it doesn’t make sense to sign someone there.
On the other hand though there’s this typically Arsenal thing going on whereby we’re the defending champions and we don’t seem to have improved the squad enough. I’m not writing them off or anything like it, it just feels a bit like ’90 and ’92 and ’99 and so on, but if the boss is convinced that the kids are the way to go then I’m happy to go along with him. He’s quite cautious in that he won’t play young players unless he thinks they’re ready and I’m quite sure there’s money to spend if he really wanted so let’s get behind the kids who need support and encouragement not just from the manager and staff but from the fans as well.
So it’s those evil fuckers from Bolton and their walrus faced manager later this evening. Will we get revenge for that game a couple of seasons ago? Can Spurs do Arsenal a favour against Chelsea? Will Liverpool take points off United? Answers to these questions, and more, on tomorrow’s hungover edition of Arseblog.
