Everyone now is jumping on the bandwagon telling Wenger to buy. It came to a point where it really gets on my nerves. Now George Graham says we need three players to charge for trophies again. And he urges Wenger to "think hard" Honestly I think this is stupid. I am absolutely sure Wenger knows where he needs reinforcements, he knows exactly what kind of players he wants and he also knows that the situation is much more complicated than all those pundits with their easy fixes think. He may be wrong with what he does but he knows what he does. I see this season as an intermediate one simply because the loss of Fabregas and all those lessons of the last spring need much more fixing than just a couple of new players. Arsene built all Arsenal play around Cesc, and this is why he was so reluctant to let him go. That is why he said he would not have sold him for any money had it not been the players' desire to go back home. There is no straight replacement for Fabregas. Arsenal need to regroup, develop new leaders, improve mentality, and adjust their style. We see some indications of a different approach to defense. Now we have to understand what to do in midfield where we lost our possession and domination. We have to reshape our attacking options which are not clear at the moment. I am sure Arsene will keep an attacking style but something will change. Post-Fabregas Arsenal will play differently. So there is some work cut out for Wenger. Forget about the Liverpool result - it is almost irrelevant now on the grand scale of things. We are not fighting for trophies this season. Any trophy would be a bonus, for sure, but even dropping out of top 6 for one season would not be the end of the world. Use it to blood the youth - AOC, Campbell, Miyachi, Jenkinson, Miguel, Lansbury, Frimpong, Ramsey, Szszs. We could use this season to play them in more matches, and it is much easier for them to play when they know that every lost point is not a disaster. Use Old Trafford as a training ground this season! We do have a big squad, but this squad is mainly inexperienced. Give them experience and by the end of the season we will know who is who. The clean up has begun - Eboue, Vela and Denilson are gone, I am sure two or three players will follow.Next season Fair Play rules come into effect and transfer market may go down. We can expect that at least 4 of those youngsters break through and join Jack and Rambo as regular first teamers. The rest may be fixed during next summer transfer window, when the shape and style of the new Arsenal is more evident and clear. It would be nice to buy someone of "super quality" this week of course, if Arsene will somehow convince Kaka to come for a season - great! But if Wenger will not find a right player for a right money, I think it is better not to panic and just keep going with what we have, adjusting our style and tactics to the new reality. If we lose to Udinese, it will be unfortunate, but as I said - not the end of the world. We have saved so much money on transfers that we can easily cope without CL money for a season or two. We have a billionaire owner after all. The only danger is loosing more top players - RVP, TV and Sagna, but they look committed so far. So cheer up and enjoy the season - it will and interesting one.
I congratulate you on your intelligent, reasonable article and for a moment you almost made me feel less disappointed and angry about the situation we find ourselves in. I would like to say to you, though, that as Arsenal supporters pay more to attend the games than any other supporters in the land, and possibly the world, then surely they are entitled to see players on the pitch who are amongst the best. For years now Arsenal have bought second raters and prospects for the future, many of whom have not developed as they should (e.g. Walcott, Bendtner, Denilson - there are more). There used to be a philosophy that Wenger wouldn't play players until they are ready but today we see players (e.g. Frimpong and Jenkinson) thrust into the side when really they should be given more time to develop, perhaps being integrated into a working machine rather than to shore up a broken team. It is neither fair on the players nor on the supporters who are paying good money to see the best. I feel the directors and owners have put their own immediate desire to pay off the stadium ahead of supplying the goods to their customers. It's bad business and the customers should be demanding improvement.
****. That. We have indulged Wenger's little youth project for long enough to see that it hasn't worked, and now you want us to wait while he starts again? After the continual disappointments and the now predictable bottle-jobs whenever we had a chance to win trophies in the last 5 years this was the season when Wenger was supposed to alter his philosophy and buy experienced, quality players. He didn't even though he had all summer to do so and now we are suffering the consequences of it. Prehaps I am not as patient as you but I am not prepared to start another youth project which will take years before we can properly challenge for the title again, if we do at all.
This is a really pragmatic article For those of us who've been through the lean times before - a couple of seasons of relearning and redeveloping is no bad thing.
I kind of agree, the young players now, Wilshere, Ramsey, Frimpong etc have already shown to have what the young players of yesteryear were lacking, that determination, grit etc, we never saw denilson etc diving in, fighting for every ball, running around like a mad man etc, but you'll sure as **** see Wilshere frimpong doing it EVERY GAME! I'd still hope to sign 1 or 2 players to get our team to a decent level where we can develop and progress from a good standard but at the end of the day, ------------szneznky sagna-----Koss-----TV------Gibbs ---Song/frimpong---Wilshere Walcott---Ramsey/arshavin-----Gervinho ----------RVP That is a really good team, and capable of atleast making the top 4! and then if we focus abit more on the younger players as backup, ---------Sznesznky jenki---Djourou--Miguel---Traore -----song/frimpong--someone else...i don't think Lansburys up to it Ryo----ramsey/aneke---Oxo --------chamakh/campbell That team is reasonable enough, and it's going to have decent players mixed in with it Although i think a leftback, a midfielder and a striker that can play out wide/in the middle will see us right!
This is akin to 'jam' tomorrow. Wenger needs to bring in a few experienced players to augment the young players otherwise he is risking the future of the club. The fans demand it of him and if he won't do it he should get out and let someone else do it while we have the money.
The difference between finishing fourth and fifth is financially huge, and you can bet ticket prices will go up if we finish fifth.
It's all very well saying we need to rebuild but we have been doing this since the departure of Thierry Henry in the summer of 2007 ( not after the recent Emirates Cup ). For a good part the youth scheme has worked out well and in the past three seasons we seems only inches away from major success. However the same little pieces of magic that we need never seem to be addressed and it appears as though our manager is determined to make it with his way and only this one way. That would be possible in time when all or enough of the members of the youth team reach a level of ability and experience to carry them through the trials of a full season. In an ideal world this may be possible, in real life, one needs to be adaptable and augment the squad as necessary. This does not indicate a failure of the youth policy, rather that one is capable of adapting to changing needs and demands. Today the club is faced with all it's main rivals for honours reinvesting. If in not doing so last season we had lost out badly and to the extent that the confidence and morale of the team would be affected then I cannot see that holding back on investing would be a key to future success especially when the now near mature team becomes depleted as a result of departures of key players. A long distance athlete takes on board fluids in the course of completing his challenge, The same goes for a team. You replenish what you have lost. If not you lose, just like yesterday and if we go by our approach of yesterday, then winning is not in our tomorrow.
I think the problem with our youth policy wasn't so much the policy etc, but the youth themselves Denilson, Diaby etc, while they had the technical skill and ability etc they didn't have what we've always lacked, the "grit" determination, fight etc imagine if instead of denilson, diaby etc etc we had Wilshere, Ramsey, Frimpong, aneke etc etc basically if our youth back then had the fight and desire of wilshere etc, we'd of been ALOT better off
And what do Wilshere Ramsey Frimpong and Aneke all have in common? They're british (or at least eligible to play for a british side)
And they've been through our system 90% of their life (bar ramsey) And maybe that's why wenger is now getting like likes of the english OXO, he's seen something in english kids Then again he's always said it's his ultimate hope to promote skillful english players, the players i mentioned are just the first of his 10 year youth program with all the attitude etc of english players, but with the skill and ability of spanish!
PNEawf- spot on mate, thats the biggest problem along with Wenger having too much faith in his players especially the frenchies
