And it’s ARSENAL – the craziest team Gooners have ever seen

Fickle lot aren’t we? Who you ask? Gooners, of course. Funny, how general opinion changed between last week and the minute that the Transfer Window closed.  Surely something massive must have happened to change opinions so drastically? Did we sign someone? Yes!   A superstar? Not exactly.  Who then? Oh a left back to replace an injured Kieran Gibbs (and not leave us with Andre Santos).  Oh…

I don’t blame anyone if you think I am mad or that this is shall we say over expressive. Well, that was exactly where I wanted to take you. How can I keep you reading if I weren’t so expressive?

I call that the Arsenal effect.

It’s simple theory really: when Arsenal loses we are never far from a mass revolt. Pitch forks and torches, crowds storming the barricades and screaming for Wenger to marched out and executed on madame Guillotine. Chants of , “Wenger out,” “Gervinho screw you,” (even if he is not playing) and “it is Ramsey’s fault.” Oh how could I forget “Spend some goddamn cash to buy half of the players in the world.” But that is quickly countered when Arsenal win or do something “right” suddenly “we have the best squad in the entire league,” “our team has all the necessary qualities to win the championship,” and of course  this old favorite “Wenger knows best.”

Oy would it hurt for a little balance? Some sanity and rational thought amongst the extremes of madness?

I mean you’d have to be blind to think everything is perfect at Arsenal. There are a fair amount of problems actually. But I reckon three quarters of the players are good enough to play for Arsenal. Well here is another problem: what does “to play for Arsenal” mean? 4^th place? Cups challenger? Or are we really chasing a serious title? Anyway, let’s get back to the present squad. I was really expecting Wenger to spend some cash. This transfer window looked a bit too calm for Arsenal; normally around 250 players are linked. Although there were positive signs: Wenger looked eager to reinforce the squad [actually he changed opinion fairly often on that subject], we heard about a big offer in preparation and some games looked so critical we had to do something, surely.

In fact Arsenal [only] signed one player: Natxo (Nacho) Monreal. There was a tinge of overoptimism about him and about the move and I have two problems with that –  first, do half of the fans even know him before the link to Arsenal? Did they know more about him because of YouTube or the snippets on twitter? Fair enough if you do. But I have my doubts. Secondly, if we think a bit, Arsenal likely only bought him because of the injury to Gibbs. You can ascertain for yourself what that really means but if not – had nothing happened to Gibbs whilst he sprinted to catch the ball,  it’s fairly likely Monreal would still be a Malaga player.

Now don’t get me wrong, Monreal is a solid player. I’ve personally seen him a few times.  I certainly think he’ll do well at Arsenal and his understanding of play with the likes of Cazorla will certainly benefit him, Cazorla and by extension Arsenal. He is also more experienced than Gibbs and it will be a good thing for both of them to be in competition vying for that LB spot. Finally, his experience brings a certain maturity with him to the spot and when Arsenal were pressing on Saturday without any luck he was calm, he was collected and made smart decisions with the ball and in defense.

As to whether or not we were really looking to bring someone else in? I have my doubts here as well. I’d like to think so,  especially at first when Wenger hinted he had “work to do.” Butas the window started to wind down I personally began to lose confidence in us doing any deals.  I never believed in the David Villa fuss.  He seems too expensive, too risky, too hard to move our asses to get a a deal done and his wage requirements likely exceeded Arsenal’s socialist wage structure.

There were also a lot of rumblings around Florian Thauvin. A promising midfielder plying his trade at Bastia, there were heavy links to Arsenal. In the end he  decided to join Lille. With all due respect to Lille, if Arsenal were really in for him, they likely could’ve paid him way more than the French club. So you have to ask yourselves, were we ever really in the hunt?  And then there was West Ham’s Diamé? He had a 3.5M release clause. I still can’t understand why we didn’t go for him,  especially if all our other plans had broken down.  Adding him to our midfield could’ve partly resolved some of our problems in midfield. I firmly believe we lack some grit in the midfield – regardless of the showing verus Stoke. Wenger freaked me out when he said Ramsey “fitted the role perfectly” [the DM role] and that he “could do the job perfectly”. Wow! Arteta, a markedly more consistent player then Ramsey  doesn’t even handle  the DM perfectly.  Does Wenger really think Ramsey, a more offensive player than Arteta or Diame would?

Okay he did well in two games but to think of him as our deeper lying, more defensive  midfielder is madness.  It worked out in the lasyt three games, but surely some of that has to be down to the oppositon and their lack of organization or creativity in the midfield.  What happens when we play a stronger midfield combination with him in there?  Ramsey is also benfitting from his partnership with Jack Wilshere who is doing an outstanding job covering the Weslhman.  Maybe my “freak out” will subside as  Diaby and Arteta are back in the fold.  So we can go back to the “routine” with all its benefits and drawbacks.

If I have to summarize my rant, it’s that I feel strongly that we need first and foremost a true DM – one who likes to do nothing but sit back and provide cover to the back four. In addition to that, we need another striker – for all the reasons you know about.  Giroud is building up confidence and has been scoring a fair amount of goals recently. Podolski is getting better and better but leaves me wanting more in terms of his success in open play situations despite his numerous assists.  Then there is Theo who seems to be back on the right track.  However, even with the success of these three forward we have not one other option to change it up if we need to. Chamberlain still hasn’t reached the stage of consistent strenght to strength performances. And that is becoming a real problem. He’s still is young and there is time to improve but he right now he is not someone I think you can rely on game to game. You can’t deny his talent and work rate he just needs to have more end product as a result of that. Let’s not even touch on Gervinho shall we?

Arsenal and Wenger are having a difficult season, probably the most difficult one since the Frenchman took control of the team. The question being asked, given the bi-polar attitude and approach to not only this season but the transfer window is – is Wenger still the man for the job? Many of the fans are starting to wonder – and I include myself in that group. And opinions vary jumping from “Wenger out” to “Wenger in”. Wenger’s obvious flaws have been had a light shown brightly upong them this season –  tactically he isn’t at his best, his team set ups he don’t  always work and when they don’t he doesn’t seem to have the means or ability to change them. You really wonder does he go over his set up prior to games? Do his players know their roles? On the evidence, not always.  And why is that? Do they not understand their role? Are they lazy? Not good enough? Maybe its a mixture of them all.

I try and so should all Gooners and recall what Wenger has done for Arsenal. His tenure at Arsenal has to be taken in the context of everything – success and failures.  Criticism is warranted when it’s warranted but praise should be as well. I am criticial of his approach to this Window. But I also see that the 3 players he brought in this summer have been quality signings and I also see he has gotten a core of young and talented British players to commit to Arsenal.

I get that there are things not to like about Wenger. About this team and about this hierarchy. I spent half the piece ranting about some of the stuff I didn’t like. But I also look back and I see some promise in the squad and look at the rest of the teams around us and know some of the problems aren’t individual to Arsenal and are part of a larger league wide issue.  But Arsenal is obvious are focus and with our addiction to Arsenal comes taking the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly and being as sanely rational as an addict can be.