So that’s it. Another season over.
All I saw of yesterday’s game were the Match of the Day highlights. A James Beattie own goal, two from Robin van Persie to bring his tally for the season to 20, and an Abou Diaby header gave us the win we all wanted to round the season off with.
I really can’t tell you any more about the game than that but I’m glad we finished on a positive note. Afterwards Arsene Wenger said:
I feel the team is moving forward but the question we have to analyse now is are we strong enough to win the League next year? If not, what do we need to add to the squad? That is the basic question we have to answer.
And on the reception he and the team got from the fans after what has been a difficult 10 days or so:
It makes me feel appreciated and even more regretful that we couldn’t give them what they wanted this season. I am very respectful for their faith in me. It’s very warming and it makes me even more determined to pay them back.
The first thing on the agenda appears to be new deals for Robin van Persie and Nicklas Bendtner. The former has had his most prolific season since joining, mostly because he didn’t spend huge chunks of it out injured. The latter had his critics, most vociferously Arsene Wenger after his display against Burnley in the Carling Cup, but in the second half of the season I think he improved, showed good character and effort, and has a very respectable goals total.
After that he’s got to think about who he’s going to bring in this summer and who is going to leave/be allowed leave. Obviously we’ve got 12 weeks of intense speculation so I’m not about to start today. At some point this week I might do a review or some kind of player ratings for the season overall.
At the other end of the table it was Newcastle and Boro who went down, Hull avoiding the drop by the skin of their teeth after a 1-0 defeat to Man United’s reserves. Still, it allowed the football world to bask in the unholy orange glow of Phil Brown who once again ensured everything was about him by taking to the pitch and singing. No, really.
Anyway, we’ll see them next season and we will smash them good. Overall though I don’t think this will go down as one of the great Premier League seasons. Leaving aside our poor performance it just wasn’t high quality, was it? United were deserving champions without ever playing brilliantly, and even the final day relegation games went with a whimper rather than a bang. Also, look at the Match of the Day goal of the season competition, there are a couple of good ‘uns but that has to be the most disappointing batch of goals I think I’ve ever seen (and not just because a couple of them were against us).
In other news Arsene Wenger is concerned that Theo Walcott will be overused by England this summer. The senior squad have two World Cup qualifiers then there are the U21 European Championships and he’s likely to be called up for both. It doesn’t leave him much room for summer rest if that happens and I can understand the manager’s concern. All the same Theo did have a 3-4 month layoff this winter and he’s still a very young man so maybe he’d cope all right with it.
So that’s about that and here comes the summer. I wonder who we’ll sign. You know if we sell Adebayor, Eboue, Sylvester and Diaby we could £40m and then add the other money we have and get another bit of a loan and OMG LETZ BY MESSY!!!
Tomorrow, Arsebandits.
