Wenger was rarely able to start his best team this season. Be that as it may, you would hope that the players that come in can perform to the levels expected at Arsenal football club. Perhaps I’m putting to much pressure on these guys

Improvement?

Like snow in July, the last 12 months have made for a very strange season. There have been mephadrone-like highs and crotch-kicking lows. One thing we always hear year on year is about how this young side has been improving but a little look at the final tallies over the last three years would suggest that this really isn’t the case. Ok, we’re three points better off than last season and better placed in terms of goals and wins but the number of defeats as well as the poorer defensive record (Silvestre, I’m looking at you…) are cause for concern and not quite what you want if you’re supposed to be chasing the title. The optimist will tell you we’ve done better than last year but given where we were just two seasons ago, is that really cause for celebration? WELL, IS IT???

As for our cup performances, after two semi-finals last time around, we never once looked like replicating those runs this year.

Injuries and the nature of the squad

Of course, our comical injury record has contributed to our final standing. Seriously, was The Emirates built on the site of an ancient Native American burial ground? Because Native Americans in Islington would actually make more sense than the regularity of knocks suffered by Arsenal players. I’ve got more chance of a threesome with Megan Fox and Beyonce than the Arsenal have of a fully fit squad.

I’m hearing noises that the club are taking a look at the medical team this summer and there is talk of a complete re-vamp. This implies that we are not simply ‘unlucky’ with injuries but rather our problems are coming from within. Impact injuries such as Ramsey and Robin are understandable but when you constantly hear about calf injuries and thigh strains and hamstring pulls, you have to wonder what the so called doctors, physios and fitness team are even doing on a day to day basis other than eating Ben and Jerry’s while watching re-runs of Top Gear on Dave. According to the Big Cheese Mr. Gazidis, Arsenal suffered twice as many injuries as Champions Chelsea this campaign. I didn’t realise it was that few…

Of course the injuries meant that Wenger was rarely able to start his best team this season. Be that as it may, you would hope that the players that come in can perform to the levels expected at Arsenal football club. Perhaps I’m putting to much pressure on these guys but I feel there is a certain standard you need to be at to play in the famous red and white and if you are given your chance, you are required justify your inclusion and the manager’s faith in you. Too few of the players who have stepped in this season have done that. This is what irks me when the manager claims that he wont make signings for fear of ‘killing’ his youngsters. Well, Monsieur Wenger, I see your ‘kill’ and raise you ‘increased competition for places’. If these youngsters are really as good as he says, they would fight tooth and nail to be included ahead of these ‘killer’ signings and when they get their opportunity, they will grab it with both hands.

Keeper issues

Speaking of grabbing things with both hands (or failing to…), Arsenal never had a chance this season thanks to the unheard of levels of mediocrity between the sticks. If 2009/10 has taught us nothing else, Almunia has been an accident waiting to happen ever signed in 2004 and his one decent season in 07/08 has been quite clearly the exception rather than the rule. The club has had a tradition of great goalies since forever and the fact that Manuel is the ‘best’ option at the moment is a joke. An unfunny one at that. Not that his understudies have covered themselves in glory either. Statistically, Arsenal would have been relegated if Fabianski played 38 league games this season[citation needed] and even Vito Manonne, for all his heroics at Craven Cottage, was almost wholly responsible for the points dropped at Upton Park last Autumn.

A decent keeper is worth upwards of 10 points in a season and despite everything else, injuries, Silvestre etc. I genuinely believe Arsenal would have been league champions with a better goalie. Like everyone else, I’m desperate for the manager to address this in the summer. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record (not a broken one, because a broken record wouldn’t play at all would it?), big sides cannot afford to nurture young keepers like Fabianski because part of the learning process is making mistakes. If you have serious ambitions as a team, you can’t afford these mistakes. Yes, he may be ‘great in training’ but when it matters he has always been found wanting. How do you think it makes our players feel when they have their keeper literally throwing the ball into the net?

I’d personally be delighted if the club spent as much as £20 million on someone like Pepe Reina. If that was the ONLY bit of business Wenger did throughout the transfer window, I’d be happy. Just think, with a fully fit squad and a decent goalie, we might well be where we want to be. Yes, I know such fanciful thoughts shouldn’t be entertained. Again, that threesome looks more likely.

Cup importance – The winning mentality

Like a nagging girlfriend hinting at marriage, it cannot be ignored that Arsenal have been starved of shiny objects in recent years. So much so, relatives of the Emirates Stadium trophy cabinet have been calling anorexia help-lines in a state of deep concern. The club are going through their most barren spell since Spurs last finished in the top 4 and gooners are getting restless. Arsenal have always had a rich tradition in the domestic cups. Some of the club’s most memorable moments have come in the domestic cups. Alan Sunderland in ’79, Rocky against Spurs in ’87, Lineghan ’93 and of course, Parlour in ’02.

Recent years have seen Le Boss opt to essentially disregard the domestic cups, choosing to give squad players and youngsters an opportunity to play in competitive games. A noble gesture no doubt but not one that will see Arsenal win trophies and recreate similar memories to those mentioned above.

There seems to be this whole ‘would you rather’ debate going on between fans suggesting that cup success would somehow compromise league or European form. I don’t understand why a club the size of Arsenal isn’t able to compete on all fronts and seeing as we can’t seem win the bloody league or champions league anyway, why can’t we go for the domestic cups and have a good boozy day out at Wembley?

In all seriousness, as was touched upon recently in the comments, winning a cup, ANY cup, will help breed that winning mentality that seems to be lacking in the current squad. Without wanting to bore you with talk of other managers, Brian Clough (the only other manager in football I find as fascinating as our own) won something called the Anglo-Scottish cup in 1977 which he regarded as the most important trophy in his career. Why? Because it was his first with Nottingham Forest and more importantly, it taught his players how to win! Three years later they were successfully defending the European Cup. You see? My ramblings aren’t just my whinges spliced with sh!t jokes, you get a history lesson too!

And Clough isn’t the only example, Red nose at Old Toilet set his legacy in motion by winning the FA Cup in 1990, Jose Moneyho won the Carling Cup first and foremost at Chelscum and even our own George Graham made sure his players won the League Cup in 1987 before they went on to win league titles. Yes, I KNOW Wenger has already won stuff, but not with this current crop of
players. By building a new team, it’s almost like starting from scratch. This Arsenal team have won nothing and the longer they go without success, they will harbour the mentality that it is ok to simply finish third best every year. Ambition, nil.

I understand the need to prioritise but I don’t agree with it. If you’re in any competition, you’re in it to win it. Every title is there to be won. A lot of fans will agree with me too. As for giving the kids a chance, they learn nothing from beating lower league teams nor do they gain ‘experience’ getting hammered by top flight sides.

Big game FAIL!

Time was, I used to be really nervous before our ‘big games’ in a season. Benzodiazepines and tranquillisers before matches with Chelsea, rubber sheets the nights before games against United, and LOTS of porn, you know, to relieve tension before North London derbies. I can’t even legally say what I did before cup finals! This season however, has done more than enough to completely sap my enthusiasm before said games because from now on, I guess I can just resign myself to defeat beforehand and anything else would be a bonus, right?

Ok, maybe that’s going too far but for all his supposed genius, Wenger has, this season in particular, been spectacularly guilty of tactical naivety and not knowing when to change the script and adapt, particularly when we are missing kep players, in games against big/better teams. Arsenal failed to beat a ‘good’ team (sit down Spurs!) this season unless you count Olympiakos or Porto. Which I don’t. The results and performances against Chelsea, Man Utd and Barcelona speak for themselves. The exception being the defeat at Old Trafford when individual errors spoilt what was otherwise a decent performance. In the big ‘six pointers’, I would very much rather a scrappy 1-0 with our only shot on goal after playing in our own half for 89 minutes rather than being battered 3-0, ruing missed chances and ‘boasting’ about having more possession. At the risk of over-using the ‘if onlys’, IF, in the highly unlikely event we won our two matches against Chelsea – just those two games – we’d be champions.

P.S. Given their performance this season, I don’t think you can class Liverpool as a ‘big game’ anymore.

Opportunity missed

As an overall assessment of the season, Arsenal haven’t done too badly. In essence, we’ve actually done better than most expected. Many ‘experts’ had us down to finish 5th or 6th place. 17 teams in the league would kill small children and harvest their remains to unscrupulous hot dog vendors to be in Arsenal’s position.

However, as I stated in the comments on Monday, third place is not a trophy or something to brag about. I laugh heartily at them down the road for their ridiculous over-reaction to FINALLY getting fourth. I was with a despondent United fan on Sunday evening who I had the temerity to suggest was overreacting to not winning the league for the four year in a row. His response was that, unlike me, he is used to success. I had no comeback. He knew it, I knew it. The bastard!

Despite everything, I can’t help but feel this season was a missed opportunity. Chelsea, for all their goal-scoring exploits, were certainly not the dominant force Monday’s papers would have you believe and Man Utd were undeniably weaker than years gone by. Arsenal had a real chance at the league for the first time in years and didn’t take it. We stuck at it for the most part but when the going got tough in the final weeks, the naivety, inexperience and of course, injuries of years gone by reared their ugly, Bernard Manning-esque heads and we fell short yet again (How many more years will we be saying this?). For all the brilliance of being able to chase down the 11 point gap that Chelsea opened in November, this was still the gap between us and them when the final whistle blew on Sunday.

We seem to be looking back on every season with more regrets than Gordon Brown (ooo topical!). Hopefully this will be the last time I am writing such a negative summary of the season. Here’s to no-one getting injured in South Africa, Cesc Fabregas staying put and for the love of Jebus, a new goalkeeper!!

COME ON ARSENAL!!

Click for Iron Man’s Blog http://theibyss.blogspot.com/
Click to follow Iron Man on Twitter