Wenger’s direct replacement is not even close to what Pires brought to the team; instead he brought a player that rarely scores the first goal, one who has – to put it mildly – poor shooting accuracy coupled with the fact he is injury prone.

PLEASE NOTE THAT YOUR VISION ARTICLES ARE SENT IN BY READERS AND ARE NOT WRITTEN BY ARSENAL VISION WRITERS.

By Big Scoop

Now some may say all of our problems are down to the new stadium, greedy players etc etc. However, the real problem lies with none other than Wenger himself, the rest are just excuses.

Let’s start with Pires: he reaches 30, which of course is a big problem for Wenger so he gives him just a 1 year contract. First of all why would you want to allow such a good player to leave for free? Surely you would want to make a profit? Secondly why would you not try to keep him for the sake of experience (the same experience that won AC Milan the CL last season and the same experience that had Man U win the title for a second consecutive season)? So of course naturally Pires felt insulted, and coupled with being substituted in the CL Final he decided leave.

Wenger’s direct replacement is not even close to what Pires brought to the team; instead he brought a player that rarely scores the first goal, one who has – to put it mildly – poor shooting accuracy coupled with the fact he is injury prone. Of course AW cannot be held accountable for that, but then there’s the Ljungberg replacement in Hleb who has remarkably gone from underrated to overrated and I believe he is overrated, he has some sort of psychological barrier to shoot when in a good position, he holds onto the ball for too long and his insistence of rarely using the width is frustrating. However all of his other qualities are superb his link up play, football brain, technical ability, tactical awareness and silky skills fits in nicely with Arsenal’s intricate football style. If you’re gonna have a winger who can’t/won’t shoot than surely you’re gonna need to prolific/efficient strikers rather than one or none which is clearly the case.

One of AW incredible mistakes lays in the defence. Sol Campbell leaves (for free) for a new challenge. Campbell stood at 1.88m a man mountain and intimidating figure. AW’s replacement was Gallas who stood at 1.83m who is coincidently the exact same height as his defensive partner Toure, so there was no surprise that they could not deal with the likes of Drogba + Crouch simply because it’s logically impossible. I mentioned this on this website before the season began (funny how no one remembers) so it takes Wenger a century to work out that when you have 2 defenders who are both 1.83m they are less than likely gonna be able to deal with 1.89m+ strikers.

So no major trophy(s) for 4 years, that’s a very long time. Sure he was building a team and it takes time but he has just lost his most consistent performer, a player he could have signed last season but again he very stupidly was prepared to let him go for free regardless of how little he would have got. 4/5mil is better than jack shit. Yes I am talking about Flamini who had combined with Fabregas to form one of the strongest, if not the strongest, midfield partnerships in Europe. Flamini’s departure and the manner of it has understandably angered many but I would like to rewind to the 2006 CL campaign when it was Flamini who deputised heroically for the injured A.Cole all the way to the Final, only to be dropped in the final for the returning A.Cole. Can you imagine how he must have felt? I know how I would have felt and what kind of message does that send, especially to the younger players? Everyone’s upset that Flamini basically used Arsenal, but AW did exactly the same thing.

Little bit unfair in my opinion. Flamini’s initial request was apparently £60,000 a week – if that is the case than that’s fair; if that’s breaking the bank than we’ve got issues. I know a lot of you have said if Flamini got £60,000 a week there would have been a snowball effect so you mean players like Hleb, Van Persie and Rosicky would have asked for more. What Wenger should be saying is: “first of all Hleb get at least 15 goals a season”; “Rosicky sort out your injury problems and get 15 goals a season”; “V.Persie complete a full season and get 20-25 goals a season” and then I will raise the your wages. until than nothing changes. The only player who deserves £60,000 apart week (apart from Flamini) is Adebayor, but that’s the limit at £60,000 (not 61, 62, 63 and so on) simply because he still has to prove himself. Though I like him he is not a world class striker.

But the thing that makes me MAD is the Diarra situation. I call it a situation because that’s exactly what it became. I said send him out on loan. Wenger said we have to sell him because he can’t deal with strong characters. Diarra, regardless of his attitude which I thought was poor but manageable, was clearly the direct replcement for Flamini and some even said he was better than Flamini and yet AW lets him go. He was asked in an interview why he let him go and the reason was along the lines of “we already have players in that position”. The interviewer failed to reply, when instead he should have asked then “why did you sign him in the first place if the position was already covered?”