This is no knee jerk reaction to a week of two throw away leads. This is not a knee jerk reaction to the fact that Arteta, Monreal and Flaminihave yet again come up short, no this is a reaction that the past week is the end of my and many others tether.
Let's first praise Mr.Wenger on the fantastic work he has done at this club. He took us though one of our if not the most successful era ever in this club. He overlooked a radical change in the club from youth and recruitment to training and facilities. He is our greatest manager ever and that fact cannot be overlooked.
Vieira, Petit, Gilberto, Edu, not a bad quartet that. Possibly our biggest and most glaring falling over the years was to replace the above. Every man and his dog knows Arsenal have needed a solid midfielder who, when the situation arises, sits in front of the back but has the ability to integrate into Wengers tactics. We have failed miserably to do this. With Flamini we got close but let him leave for free before taking him back when he was not much more that an emergency squad filler. With Alex Song we got close but he lacked discipline to be trusted with that responsibility, he was also sold, I'll come to this, to Barcelona who have since passed him on to West Ham. Why hasn't this alarming hole in our team been rectified? Why do we continue to see a need for this position to be filled yet never is.
Adams, Keown, , Campbell, Gallas, Koiscelny, Per all good, some great but what we have lacked since Wenger arrived is quality back up defenders. Bar the team and back four he inherited have we ever had a situation when we had 3 fully fit centre halfs? Last season I suppose but you guessed it we sold Vermalean, again to Barcelona and failed to replace him. Again this is a glaring area that needs improved yet it hasn't been. Down the years we have had Flamini, Cygan, Senderos, Djourou, Silvestre, Monreal and co play at centre half - for a club of our stature, our ambition and a manger as great as the one we have this is nothing short of an embarrassment.
Are we tactically inept? After the invincibles did we switch off? We continue with this attack at all means approach when one or two up and then throw it away. We continue to rock up to big games with 5 men in front of a below par holding midfielder. Why do we only seem to play our way, we never adapt to the match or situation in front of us just pass pass pass everybody run forward. The continued implosions against big sides is now beyond a joke. We are a guaranteed 3 points for many of them now and usually a big plus on the goal difference.
Hello Barcelona, hello Man City. Overmars, Petit, Van Bronkhurst, Song, Fabregas, Hleb, Henry, Vermalean, Adeboyar, Toure, Clichy, Nasri and Sagna, if I've left anyone out I don't care. That list of names to those two clubs is enough reason to say what the f"#k is going on. Now obviously the sales of players is not just limited to those two clubs, we also like to sell our stars to the red half of Manchester. Transfers are part and parcel of football so I won't dwell specifically on the players leaving lets see what really really holds us back. When Vieira was sold, that season we bought only Diaby in a like for like position, for Thierry Henry it was Eduardo, in 07/08 we seemed to be back, good signings, nobody of note out and passed the 80 point mark. We then bought Arshavin and Sylvestre after selling Flamini, Hleb, Gilberto and Diarra, Adeboyar and Toure where next out replaced by Vermalean and Sol Campbell on a free after an unsuccessful spell at Notts County. From the 2010 season is when our transfers really descend into farce. Nasri, Fabregas, Clichy, Song & Van Persie have all been sold on and we only signed Ozil last year as a replacement for Fab, Monreal has never replaced Gibbs, Song has never been replaced and in Sanchez we have this season now only got a genuine world class goalscorer in. In a nutshell our recruitment policy has glaring holes in it. The buck stops with the boss.
Our consistent finishes in the top 4, the Bayern and Milan near comebacks, the trashing of Chelsea and now the FA Cup win are arguments that we are close, very close to being champions again. We are not, until the club lets Wenger go we will continue to be let down in the above areas. We need to act now because when we drop out of the Champions league I don't think we can spend 150 million like United have done. Move on and move forward together.
COYG
No comments:
Post a Comment