I had travelled back to the 2003/2004 season, I am sure you know of it well. A season where Arsenal did the unthinkable. We had finished runners up to Manchester United the season before and were being called the bridesmaids as the last time we won the league title was back in 1997/98. Arsene was being criticised for only bringing in a goalkeeper during that

I had a terrible dream last night, it felt so real that this morning I had to splash water over my face several times and check the date repeatedly. I still have a massive sense of deja vu about it all and for the life of me, I cannot understand why this is. I want to try and explain how I was feeling during this dream, so here goes.

I had travelled back to the 2003/2004 season, I am sure you know of it well. A season where Arsenal did the unthinkable. We had finished runners up to Manchester United the season before and were being called the bridesmaids. Arsene was being criticised for only bringing in a goalkeeper during that summer but not only did we win the league title but we went the entire season undefeated.

This just was not the case in my dream, in fact it was very different.

It is all very blurry and hazy so you will have to bare with me on this one I can remember pre season, our form wasn’t fantastic and the feeling amongst the Gooners wasn’t great. We are Arsenal, we want to be the best team in the league and not continuously fall short into second.

The term bridesmaid keeps flashing in my head and I am not entirely sure where it has come from. Perhaps it has been fed deep into my subconscious somehow.

Dennis Bergkamp had picked up some sort of ankle problem, we had thought that it wasn’t hugely serious to begin with, only to be told that it would pretty much rule him out for most of the new season. Shocking stuff especially considering that Thierry Henry was yet to stay fit for an entire season since joining the club in 1999. Well it is a chance for Sylvan Wiltord to step up and hopefully prove his quality.

Sol Campbell started the season very well but shortly joined Bergkamp on the treatment table. Remarkably it was the same bloody injury that had kept him out for pretty much the whole of last season but just the other leg. Now that the club know exactly what is wrong with him, they say that the problem shouldn’t keep him out for too long but we have heard that before.

In the first game of the season we drew against Everton at Highbury, at least I think it was Highbury, It almost looked like a mixture between the Emirates and the old ground. It was a game we should have won and looked the better team but Thierry was massively isolated and Everton parked the bus which made it very difficult for us to break them down. Patrick Vieira got himself sent off for a stupid stamp on Gravesen. It was a stupid thing to do especially considering that we already have Campbell out injured. Our spine will look a little weak without Campbell, Vieira and Bergkamp.

Robert Pires was sent off in what I think was our next match away to Middlesbrough, another frustrating game that we should have won and we were leading 2-1 with 5 minutes to go. With ten men we just could not hold on. At 2-0 up Pires was accused of diving but it looked a stonewall penalty (another saying that I am not sure where it came from), Pires was dragged up from the turf by Teddy Sheringham so Pires slapped him and was dismissed. This is ridiculous. That is now x red cards in x games under Arsene Wenger seems to be the mantra from Sky television.

We should really have 6 points from those last two games yet we have only managed two. The flip side is that we were still undefeated so once we get that first victory then we should kick on. We just need Vieira and Pires back because Henry is already having to do far too much on his own.

I must have spoke too soon because in our next match we were beaten at home by Portsmouth. We really shouldn’t be getting beaten by Pompey at home. Twitter seemed to exist in my dream, probably because I was tweeting about what it would be like to have all our players back before I went to bed.

Here are a few that I vaguely remember.

@Gunnerz4trophies wenga needz two wake up.da sqad jus izznt strong enuff

@KoloRollo Don’t understand why Arsene only bought a keeper. We need a new striker, its so obvious

@MeganFox ML, I think you are just amazing and…..

Ah, it looks like my dream may have taken a slight turn so let’s ignore that for a second.

When I did return to the Arsenal season my smile was quickly taken off my face as it seems as if defeat at Old Trafford a few games later sparked a downwards slump for us. A Ruud van Nistelrooy penalty was the difference against an Arsenal team missing some key players but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Confidence had dropped due to bad results, the fans were getting on the backs of the players.

We had lost three games in a row during January and this is the team that was beaten over the weekend.

Lehmann

Toure Campbell Keown Cygan

Parlour Cesc Vieira Ljungberg

Kanu

Henry

What is quite ridiculous is the fact that we have Lauren and Justin Hoyte out injured at right back and also have both Ashley Cole and Gael Clichy out for the long term on the other side. Cygan is our third or fourth choice center back but is having to play at left back. Kolo Toure has been positionally all over the place at right back and we are massively exposed.

Bergkamp is supposed to be back soon but is not ready to contribute. At least he and Lauren are running and should come back for the run in. It is mid January and we are long out of the title race but the fight is on to stay in the Champions League places which is very important for the club.

Gilberto had missed the last two games with a calf problem while Edu’s continued injury problems do not seem to have improved at all. So much so that he is flying around the world in a last ditch attempt solve the problems.

Arsene was brave enough to throw in the young Spaniard, Cesc Fabregas into the team but physically he still needs work and also needs to adjust to the league. The booing of the manager for removing the youngster for Kanu late in the second half was unnecessary and does the team no good whatsoever.

I wrote a blog on Arsenal Vision about the state of our injuries and how this is affecting the team.

Lauren
Hoyte
Cole
Clichy
Edu
Gilberto
Wiltord
Bergkamp
Bentley

That is just too many injuries for one team to have and still be at the same level. I know it is too much to ask for but what would a team like this achieve?

Lehmann

Lauren Toure Campbell Cole

Ljungberg Vieira Gilberto Pires

Bergkamp

Henry

Would that team even lose a game? I might be going a little overboard but why is it too much to ask for to see our strongest team on the pitch. Every team gets injuries and like I am always told, I shouldn’t be making excuses for having injuries.

There are rumours that Jose Reyes is on our radar and we might be looking to make a cheeky bid for the Sevilla wide man. That is just on Twitter so take it with a pinch of salt unless it becomes official.

Confession

I am guessing that most will have already noticed where I am going with this and also that this was never a dream, well all the rest that didn’t include Megan Fox.

I sent out an image of what potentially is our current strongest team if everyone is fit based on current form and potential quality.

The response was largely the same. It is a team capable of winning the league, a team that would be challenging, a team that could beat anyone.

So what of the 2003/2004 team that I displayed above. I tried to create a similar injury list to our current situation.

Lauren (Sagna)
Hoyte (Jenkinson)
Cole (Santos)
Clichy (Gibbs)
Edu (Diaby)
Gilberto (Arteta)
Wiltord (Henry)
Bergkamp (Wilshere)
Bentley (Coquelin)

Firstly, let me say that I am not comparing the likes of Dennis Bergkamp to Jack Wilshere, I am simply trying to compare injuries and the positions as closely as possible  for that particular team.

Would a team consisting of Lehmann, Toure, Campbell, Keown, Cygan, Wiltord, Parlour, Cesc (16 yrs), Vieira, Ljungberg, Henry be good enough to have won the league that season? Let alone undefeated. If the injuries that we have had to endure in recent seasons would have happened to our 97/98 or 03/04 teams then we would not have had those great memories you can be sure of that.

In a 38 game season have a look at the following.

Lehmann (38 games)

Lauren (30 games + 2 sub)
Campbell (35)
Toure (36+1)
Cole (32)

Ljungberg (27+3)
Gilberto (29+3)
Vieira (29)
Pires (33+3)

Bergkamp (21+7)
Henry (37)

Many would agree that, that team would be our strongest possible side and they had the chance to play pretty much every week, they had the chance to develop that understanding, that confidence knowing that they couldn’t be beaten.

Arsene Wenger has had stick for suggesting that a recent squad was his strongest. Remove the ‘first 11’ from 2003/04 and this is what we were left with.

Graham Stack     

Pascal Cygan     
Gaël Clichy      
Martin Keown     
Stathis Tavlaridis
Justin Hoyte
Frankie Simek
Olafur-Ingi Skulason

Edu          
Ray Parlour  
David Bentley
Cesc Fabregas
Jerome Thomas (Transferred to Charlton in January 2004)
Ryan Smith 
John Spicer
Gio van Bronckhorst (On Loan to Barcelona)

Sylvain Wiltord      
José Antonio Reyes (Signed January 28th 2004)
Nwankwo Kanu         
Jeremie Aliadière    
Quincy Owusu-Abeyi   
Michal Papadopulos   
Francis Jeffers (On Loan to Everton)

Are you still convinced that we had a better squad back in 2003/2004? I am certainly not. But it did not matter back then because Arsene could carefully rotate individual players

Tottenham Hotspurs are the new media darlings, Harry Redknapp is being praised for building a great squad and competing for the title. There is little doubt that he has done a great job for his club as much as it pains us. But at least Harry gets a goodnight sleep.

Brad Friedel (22)

Walker (21)
Kaboul (20)
King (12) / Gallas (7) / Dawson (4)
Assou-Ekotto (22)

Lennon (8) / Defoe (8)
Parker (18)
Modric (20)
Bale (21)

Rafael Van der Vaart (18)

Adebayor (19)

Tottenham have played 22 league games this season and the only issue they have had is who to partner with Kaboul in central defence.

When you look at what Arsene may have seen as his strongest Arsenal team and the games played then it is not difficult to see where our problems lie.

Szczesny (22)

Sagna (6)
Vermaelen (12)
Koscielny (20)
Santos (7) / Gibbs (5)

Song (18)
Arteta (17) / Diaby (0)
Ramsey (20) / Wilshere (0)

Walcott (19)
van Persie (21)
Gervinho (15)

Our midfield and attack is more than respectable in terms of games played but one glance at our defence and that tells you all you need to know. We have not had a settled defence all season and that is cost us a huge amount of points, especially in recent games. Koscielny has almost played twice as much as the player with the second amount of appearances in our defence. Three haven’t even reached ten games.

Luckily back in 2003/2004 the invincibles was real and it was not a nightmare but unfortunately ever since we set foot inside the Emirates we have had continuous nightmares with injury. It keeps us awake at night and you cannot help but fear the worst before you head off to sleep but I cannot help but clutch to the hope that one day we might get the chance to have a season of sweet dreams.

Anyway enough moaning about injuries, check out Hazzaboy’s latest article.

Back tomorrow.