We’ve had a nice big dose of Arsene Wenger’s rescue remedy. But where do we go from here?
Joint posting by DAG and Myles J Burrell.
There isn’t a lot anyone can say about yesterday apart from “utter disappointment.” Despite our previous run that saw us move from 17th to 4th our squad isn’t as strong as it should be for a club that considers itself perennial title contenders.
For sure there were a lot of reasons we lost on Sunday. It has been gone over ad nauseum in the press and on other blogs. Some say it’ts injuries others say it was bad calls by the ref. I say it’s easy to blame injuries and bad calls but it really boils down to not having a good enough squad. When fit (there it is again) we have a good starting XI. I think Szczesny, Sagna, Vermalen, Koscielny, Santos, Song, Wilshere Arteta, Van Persie, Gervinho and Walcott are as good as any 11 in the top 6 clubs. If anyone can remember when a squad remotely looking like that hit the pitch let us know.
More than any other reason, more than the dreadful passing, or the fact that we made Swansea look like Barcelona, it was our squad players and their poor performance that ultimately was the reason for a performance that was as crappy as any this season. Arshavin was non-existent, Yossi Benayoun for all his energy and running around wasn’t winning the ball in the middle of the park. And our fill in fullbacks while the have put in a yeoman effort aren’t fullbacks and its shows – alot.
We should expect drop off when squad players come in. That’s why they are squad players. What we don’t want is such a drastic drop in form that we look more reminiscent of West Brom than Arsenal. Simply put when we have injuries to players like Wilshere and Arteta we should be able call on capable players who, whilst they won’t light up the league, can do justice to being part a member of the Arsenal squad.. Right now we don’t have that.
Before the our frantic buying session at during the last two days of the summer window, all we had managed to do is sign a kid (a very talented Mr Chamberlain from nPower League One side Southampton for £7million (eventually rising to £15million), Gervinho, who took 9 weeks to sign (but a bargain at £10.7million), Jenkinson (another League One hotshot for £1million), and then flogged the rest of our chalk. Eboué went for £4million to Galatasaray, nobody bats an eyelid, suddenly our whole squad leaves and you think “was £4million worth it?”, never mind, what’s done is done. Then there’s the hot-out-of-hell Arsenal villain Nasri who picked a spot on the bench at Man City for £200K a week, transfer fee of £24million. Losing Nasri seemed fine, but that was with the expectation we would replace him with someone of similar, if not better, quality, cue Eden Hazard. As for Fabregas, it only seems like common sense that we signed an adequate replacement BEFORE we sold him, yet that never happened. It was inevitable that Fabregas would leave this past summer so why spend so long dallying over an outbound transfer and spend no time at all looking on bringing players in.
But then, inbound… Two of our left-backs have gone (Clichy and Traoré), leaving Kieran
Gibbs on his own with who as back-up? George Brislen-Hall (who we re-signed after releasing)? I thought: “****” we’re flapping our arms in the deep end now, but then out of nowhere appeared André Santos. Santos in fairness has been a revelation but with his injury and Gibbs’ constantly injured we need more cover – now. We “supposedly” planned a £12million bid for Baines, but like 95% of all Arsenal transfers, nothing materialised so we went for the cheaper option. Park Chu-Young as a replacement for Bendtner? I don’t see why not, although I’d rather we lost Chamakh than Bendtner. The point is at least we signed someone, even if he does have to leave for military service when he’s 28 (look it up if you don’t believe me). Per Mertesacker, 6’6” and has a good disciplinary record, why not? The deal was done fast and he’s only 26, good move for the future.
Benayoun? Fair enough it’s just a loan, but reeks of a “panic buy” and this is what we need to avoid if we are going to continue to grow as a club, even if Yossi is a decent squad player.
And to top it all off, we got MIKEL ARTETA who was a good and solid signing for Arsenal. Arteta is, in my opinion, exactly what we needed; he’s creative, experienced, and hungry to play (in Europe, we know he wasn’t starved of football at Everton). The icing on the cake: he took a £10k per week wage cut to play for us, shows how much he wanted the move and it shows how much he wants to be an Arsenal player. If you still don’t believe how good Arteta has been for this team you only need look at yesterday to see how open the middle of the pitch was without him there.
However, despite the all the signings, we’re still left with this weakened squad and a mountain of cash stockpiled on a varnished wooden table in the boardroom.
As for the lack of drive behind the scenes, I’m not sure who to blame here, is it Wenger? Yes. Is it the board? Most certainly yes to that as well. We’re left with one big problem which Wenger and the board are big parts of. Wenger is (arguably) too stubborn to change his ways when, let’s face it, his ways aren’t working anymore. The board lack any sense of direction whatsoever and only seem to care about lining their pockets with our money. It’s all a bit too much, and with Danny Fiszman no longer with us, it only seems right that we bring back David Dein to the board as well as giving a place to Usmanov (Red & White Holdings). There would be nothing wrong with having those two on the board, why? David Dein was always an influential figure in driving the club forwards (when he was here) but with him gone, everything seems to have taken a turn for the worst. Dein was known for backing Wenger’s transfer wishes, but with Silent Stan & Co not caring at all, there appears to be a chasm of separation between Wenger and the board and it’s hurting us, Dein and Usmanov could bridge that gap.
Why Usmanov you ask? Why on earth not?! It is evidently clear that the current model isn’t working. We are bereft of new ideas. We keep trying to do the same thing over and over and it doesn’t work. Hasn’t worked and won’t work unless someone brings something new to the table.
Alisher Usmanov is on record as saying that he “loves” Arsenal. He’s also thrown the gauntlet down by not selling his 29% stake in the club (Red & White Holdings) to Silent Stan during his brisk takeover of the club. The fans need a voice on the board, and that voice is Usmanov.
Arsenal are in serious trouble now. There is now way anyone could or should paper over that fact. 7 losses by mid-season is devastating. For the first time in 15 years the club are in the position of being on the outside looking in on Europe’s most prestigious competition and the cash cow they depend on. Wenger made it clear that for a club like Arsenal this is an absolute minimum. Well, unless the team do something about the squad we won’t even achieve the minimum. Which means in my book the manager and board have failed. It’s time to move the eyes from the ledger and do something about the makeup of the squad.
