Don’t get it twisted, I want to see quality additions.. erm added. But the mentality of the current squad would give us a bigger boost in my amateur opinion

The season countdown is ticking louder and louder, we are now approaching the final stages of preparation before the players walk out to ‘you’ll never walk alone’

Arsene Wenger has said that we need at least four center backs, so another will be brought in before the start of the season.

Wenger said:

“I wouldn’t like to give you any names, There are plenty of names that we consider and we analyse. We look at the financial possibilities and the technical potential. But it is impossible for me to come out with a name.

“We are still on the search because at the moment we only have three centre backs and we have seen last season you needed five. I believe we need at least four because we have some other players who can fill in this position but overall we are still on the search.”

Sol Campbell’s ambitious move to high flying Newcastle United has meant that Arsene has little choice but to enter the transfer market and fill in that position. Ignoring my Sol sarcasm for a second, I can understand his decision to go to a club where more playing time is likely to be on the agenda rather than sitting on the bench at Arsenal, even if the level is obviously higher.

I was hoping that he would stay around, more because of his desire to win than actual playing ability but it is not to be. The only names that have been bouncing around the airwaves has been German duo Per Mertesacker and international team mate Serdar Tasci.

Mertesacker is a player of very good qualities but I have my doubts if his style would suit our system. There is no getting away from the fact that we play an offensive style, a system that means our back four play high up the pitch, allowing our offensive players to be situated in areas that suit their game and can hurt the opposition.

Mertesacker is a good defender, who wins plenty in the air. Great for teams who bombard us in the penalty box. Perfect player for us you would say. If that was the case then Philippe Senderos would have been a guaranteed success for us.

I am not saying that if the player did join, then he would be an automatic failure. I am just saying that I could understand if Arsene wasn’t interested in the player. I know very little about Serdar Tasci. I have never seen him play and don’t know what type of central defender he is.

Love him or loathe him, William Gallas was fantastic for pretty much all the games he played last season. Thomas Vermaelen being the new boy got plenty of the plaudits but in my eyes William Gallas was the more consistent performer in the games that he played.

I just cannot see us being able to find a player as good as Gallas was last season, no matter if the new player is a freebee or a £45million ‘showing we mean business’ type signing. I cannot see said player complimenting Vermaelen and our system as well as Gallas did. Having said all that, we conceded far too many goals last season even with the impressive combination at center back so perhaps the individual isn’t so important. It is the team organisation and desire to win the ball back over the whole pitch that should be the priority for this coming season.

It looks as if Havard Nordtveit will not be the fourth choice defender as Wenger does not see him as being ready yet.

The goalkeeping situation has been the talk of the town during the summer months, according to the Daily Fail Mark Schwarzer has said that he wants to leave Fulham and join Arsenal. Surprisingly though, they forgot to include the quotes. They obviously wouldn’t have just gone and made it up to sell papers so I take it they made a genuine mistake… again.

I am getting the feeling that our goalkeepers will remain the same come the start of the season. Like I have said many times during these summer months, I would like to see an experienced goalkeeper to come in to challenge Almunia for the number one shirt but I would also be happy with the Almunia of two seasons ago. The Almunia and Fabianski of last season would be a slight concern. I am sure that Arsene would bring in a goalkeeper if one is available and is better than what we already have. Judging by the world cup, top quality goalkeepers in the mould of Seaman, Schmeichel and even Lehmann do not seem to be growing on trees.

If an external glove wearer does not join our payroll then the players we have at the club need to pull their socks up and prove their doubters wrong. That is all they can do, improvement from within should be the target of the collective squad every time they take to the field in our special shirt that means so much to so many.

Arsene believes that the squad is ready to improve and compete against the big spending clubs in the Premier League.

Wenger said:

“I am very confident [we’ll do better than last season], We know in England that the Premier League is the biggest league in the world and everybody invests a lot of money. We invest in our work, in our beliefs, in the quality of our behaviour and I am confident that will pay off. We finished third last year and we hope we can improve on that. But the race will be tough.”

The benefits of having a younger squad is that the players will have scope to improve, more so than squads such as Chelsea who have many players passed their peak, still very able and contain plenty of quality but past their very best.

Another hope is to see any previous failings corrected and improved upon. Whilst the fans yearn for new signings, this is usually the most important step to take for a squad that is challenging but not quite having enough to win.

This was apparent when an Arsenal squad finished five points behind Manchester United in season 2002/2003, Arsene spent just over £1million on Jens Lehmann and then finished the next season unbeaten, 15 points above the team that were crowned champions nine months previous.

You cannot say that Jens Lehmann was the difference of twenty points. He was an astute signing and made a difference, a difference that many Gooners are calling for but I can bet my bottom dollar that most of the work was done on the training pitch and in the early hours of the night when Arsene was looking back at tapes, figuring out how each player as well as the collective squad needed to improve.

Don’t get it twisted, I want to see quality additions.. erm added. But the mentality of the current squad would give us a bigger boost in my amateur opinion.

Away from Arsenal for a second, I have to mention the ridiculously hypercritical Sam Allardyce having the cheek to complain about dangerous tackles from the opposition and the referee not protecting his players.

Are you having a laugh? you pulling my plonker? you having a bubble bath?

This coming from the man who sets his players out to hurt Arsenal players, I don’t care what anyone tells me. That is what this man does and he has the cheek to complain when the boot is on the other foot.

I know we have more class than most but if I was in charge I would employ a random dude for £100 a week, add him to my playing staff (he better be homegrown I guess) bring him on in the 89th minute at Ewood Park, his mission is not to get the ball down and create chances or win the ball back. It would be to do kick ups with any of the Blackburn players who decided to purposely attack our players. When he gets his inevitable red card, his next mission is to get in the face of fat Sam and let him know that he is there. Suspension? Never mind, we’ll get on with it and next time Blackburn Rovers, Stoke City, Birmingham City may decide to play by the rules a little more.

Childish? yeah I know, but who cares. I am sick and tired of these people in our game making the rules up and these rules being applied differently against us.

Rant over, until the next wild lunge on a ‘fancy dan Arsenal player who needs to get used to the rough stuff of the English game’

*Remember count to ten and breathe, count to ten and breathe*

On a much more light hearted and down right hilarious note our good old friends from down the lane got a spanking by Villarreal at Shite Hart Lane last night. It finished 4-1 but could have been double that apparently. I was coming back home late last night and I saw many Tottenham shirts around Euston station, I had a smirk to myself watching all their faces after finding out the result on Twitter.

I have been hoping that the Spuds get knocked out of the qualifiers but it might even be more enjoyable watching them get through to the group stages and take up the role of group punch bag.

On a technical note, I would like to apologise to anyone who has sent in any Your Vision articles or who have contacted the site in the last few weeks (it appears) I am not getting any mail through via the contact pages. I think Gmail have decided that everything from this site is spam and it is not even hiding in the spam folder.

Please can you send anything to arsenalvision[at]gmail.com obviously replacing [at] with @. Hopefully the new look site will be up before the start of the season, therefore this problem will be eradicated.

Back tomorrow.

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