The Best and Worst of 20009/2010
It’s over. Mercifully it’s over. A season of back and forthy. Up and down and as many other cliche sayings as you can muster has been put to bed. With the shambolic 4-0 beatdown on Fulham’s reserves, another silverwareless season in Arsenal history was brought to a close.
Thankfully.
No more debating whether we are in the race or not. No more wondering whether Denilson is going to start a match. No more aching and moaning about having the two worst goal keepers in the league. We can rest and turn our minds to other diversions. Like, who will we sign, what will we sign – hell WILL WE SIGN SOMEONE. We also can turn our mind to other happenings like that gathering in South Africa – the World Cup – or something like that.
Rather than sit here and disect the season (I’ll leave that to my faithful readers) I thought I would touch on some highs and lows of this season in the form of a best and worst list. This is my own opinion and I am half part kool-aid drinker and half part angered fan – which means I argue with myself alot. So take it all in stride.
BEST MATCH OF THE SEASON:
I would like to say it was the 3-0 thumping of Villa with the 25 minute Cesc Fabregas cameo. But no. It was the 3-0 drilling of our cross town rivals Spurs. I have made no secret of my disgust of all things that have to do with Harry Redknapp. More so now that he manages that lot from Tottenham. We clearly were class that day and played probably our best match of the season. From start to finish we were in control of the match. We were defensively sound and our attack was crisp. We were always a threat.
WORST MATCH OF THE SEASON:
Take your pick. There are just too many bad performances and each one them led to a loss. Though losing to any team managed by Sam Allardyce is really disconcerting. So my pick is the 2-1 loss to Blackburn in the next to last week of the season.
BEST GOAL OF THE SEASON:
Let us again turn our attention to the first game against Spurs. Can anyone sing – “your own personal Jesus” because that is what Cesc Fabregas is. Our own personal Jesus. Up 1-0 on an Robin Van Persie goal. Arsenal win the ball of the ensuing kickoff. Fabregas gets the ball and the Spurs defense opens up like the red sea and lets the spanish wizard wander in untouched for a beautiful scorcher of a goal. If I was a Spurs (thankfully I am not) I would have been embarrassed. It was sublime and a delightful to watch him with the ball move through the defense skillfully and just bury the ball.
WORST GOAL OF THE SEASON:
Tie – Diaby’s OG header to give Man U the win at Old Trafford and the Porto free kick goal that Fabiankski just didn’t want to pay attention to. In the OT match against United, Arsenal outplayed the title holders for most of the match. And even after the equalizer a draw at OT wouldn’t have been bad. But Abou Diaby forgetting which way the ball was supposed to go headed it in to give United the winner. The next one, well, we all saw it. We didn’t know what we had just seen (or at least had it register) but in the end Fabianski showed why he should be playing for Notts County when he showed a lack of focus and understanding of the situation when Porto were awarded a FK for the back pass. Flapianski didn’t delay as is often the case with GKs no he gave the ball back and meandered back to his goal as Porto quickly assembled and knocked the ball past him – laughing all the way to the win.
BEST PLAY OF THE SEASON:
Filling in in the central role for the injured Captain, Samir Nasri, displayed a skillful display as he scored a wonder goal against Porto in the home leg of the Champion’s League. With the ball on the outside of the box, Nasri took on three defenders spinning and juking his way into the box and from a difficult angle slotted home his legendary goal.
WORST PLAY OF THE SEASON:
Looks like every other year Arsenal are destined to have a player go off with a severe, possible career ending injury. This was that year. Going in for a 50/50 against Stoke’s Ryan “he’s not that kind of player” Shawcross, Aaron Ramsey suffered a horrific double fracture of the fibula and tibia. Luckily the break was high and those tend to heal better than the ones lower on the leg. The end result is losing a talented young player, who was finding his place rather quickly on the first team. Gooners all over hope that his recovery doesn’t wind up resulting in a loss of form like Eduardo seems to have coming back from his injury.
BEST IMPROVED PLAYER:
Alexander Song without a doubt has stepped up way beyond where I think anyone thought he would. Going into the season noone would be saying “if we don’t have Song in the lineup we’re screwed” Well come the second leg of the Champion’s League tie with Barca that was exactly what we were saying and it was true. Song for 90% of his games controlled the midfield and played very well against some of the best players in the game. He is strong on the ball and is excellent at providing defensive cover. He still makes some errant passes and every now and then gives the ball up but for the most part he is a vast improvement over last year.
WORST IMPROVED PLAYER:
Denilson’s foot and ankle were worth something – once in blue moon. But the kid just was giving the ball away too many times. He was indecisive at times and was hardly a suitable player for the MOST IMPROVED PLAYER ON THE TEAM.
BIGGEST TEAM CULT FIGURE:
Like this ihard. AHHHHHHHBOOOOOOOOEHHHHHHHH. Emmanuel Eboue has gone from goat to lovable figure in the span of one year. He is a prime example of taking the criticism that is thrown at you and improving your work rate to get “reacquainted” with the fans. He isn’t the best player and isn’t the best improved but he goes out works hard, has good speed and good defencive ability and is an outstanding player off the bench when you need a dynamic change on the pitch. Now if we could do something about his diving. But that is part of his charm.
BEST SIGNING OF THE SEASON:
Tie – Vermaelen and Campbell. When Thomas Vermaelen was signed for £10 million at the start of last summer’s transfer window a lot of us were like “WHO?” well a year on noone is asking who is Thomas Vermalen. He is a hard man to play against, learns from his mistakes and isn’t afriad to mix it up. I am convinced he is a closet striker as he has uncanny knaock for a CB of finding the back of the net. Sol Campbell has had a whirl wind of a year. Starting in League 2 Notts County and then spending 3 months just practicing. He was a low risk signing for Arsenal. Most likely signed to offer limited cover and provide an older leader on the squad, Sol came to play a substantial role in the final weeks of the season. He scored a marvelous header for the away goal against Porto. He was constantly solid and never looked out of place in the EPL. The simple fact that he ran down Gareth Bale shows he still has pace. What the man doesn’t have in speed he makes up for in situational awareness. Frankly, I am surprised that he didn’t make the England WC squad. I thought down the stretch he was one of the best CB’s in the league.
WORST SIGNING OF THE SEASON:
Does Mikel Silvestre still count?
And for the final awards:
WORST PLAYER OF THE SEASON:
Tie – our goal keeping tandem of Manuel Almunia and Lukasz Flapianski – cause more heart ache and pain than any Didier Drogba goal ever could. Simply put – they are the worst tandem in the league. The let more balls go in because of poor decision making or poor positional awareness then I can remember seeing any ‘keepers. The Wigan and Blackburn match were hopefully the nails in the coffin for Flapianski and Almunia has his second stint on the bench with a “mysterious” injury. They both are awful I can’t say it any other way and they cost us games that had they been even fair goal keepers we may have won. They both need to go and go now.
BEST PLAYER OF THE SEASON:
Cesc Fabregas. He is who he is. The heart and soul of this current Arsenal squad. If he were to leave now, I am not sure how the squad would cope. There isn’t anyone on the squad who is close to what he means. Even with the return of Robin Van Persie the squad lacked its artistic flair without Cesc. We will see him go someday, probably when Arsene leaves Arsenal. For right now he is the reason why Arsenal are so good (when they are so good).
HONORABLE MENTION AWARD:
The Garden Gnome. My personal choice to replace either Denilson or any one of Goal Tending idiots – the Garden Gnome is a legend and even when he is standing still makes better decisions than Denilson, Almunia or Flapianski.
