At this moment this is written before transfer deadline, though I highly doubt we will be making any new signings, I'd like to be proven wrong, but whatever. As things stand, how good is our squad? Have we made the needed improvements to this squad, to make us stronger than last season, and to propel us to success? I don't think so, fact is, our squad is big, but it's still littered with average players, and major risks. Let's start with looking at our goalkeeping options, our number 1 is Shezny, and he's a top quality goal keeper deserving of the number 1 jersey. But what about the back up? Say what you like, Mannone and Fabiasnki are not good enough back ups for a team like Arsenal, yes, they're good goalkeepers, but not good enough to be at Arsenal. Nobody ever has any confidence in these 2, everytime their name appears on the sheet, people shake their heads, and get worried. So no matter how you look at it, our goalkeeping situation is very light, yes, we have 3 goalkeepers that add to squad 'depth', but 2 of the 3 are no good, and shouldn't even be at Arsenal. Now let's look at defence, for the most part, I'm happy with the defence, but as Wenger himself said, we needed one more defender, for me personally I think we need more back up for our right back position, it would have been very good to sign a versatile defender who could play central, or on the full back positions. At the end of the day, Jenkinson isn't a bad player, but he shouldn't be our second choice right back when we have to face the likes of Barca, Madrid, Manu, Chelsea etc. Now to midfield, our midfield has looked paper thin in creative options ever since the loss of Nasri and Fabregas, now you can add Song too, who was our highest creative midfield assest last season (who would've seen that one coming). So Arsenal have lost their 3 main creative midfielders, so the question is, have they been replaced? The answer is a clear HELL NO. We went to some lengths in getting the problem solved by signing Cazorla, which was great, but we needed another top quality midfielder who could make things work from the middle, Sahin would have been great for us. At this point, we have a lot of average midfielders, Diaby, Ramsey, Coquelan, and Frimpong, are not going to excel us to great heights. In our last 2 games we lacked a creative spark from midfield, and what options did we have? We had to bring Ramsey on, who in their right minds believe that someone like Ramsey, or Coquelan, are the midfielders we require to change things around in midfield? To find that killer pass, or to make the play that leads to a goal. Wilshere's coming back, but he's been out for a year, so it's a MAJOR RISK to think Wilshere will come back and just provide that attacking threat we need from midfield. Even Rosicky is a risk, he's injury plagued, and is hot and cold, you never know what type of performances he will give you. But at the end of the day, I'm sorry, a midfield consisting of Diaby, Ramsey, Coquelan, Frimpong, an injury plagued Rosicky, and a Jack Wilshere coming back after a 1 year lay off, is NOT AN ADEQUATE MIDFIELD for a big club that has any realistic ambitions of winning major trophies. At the end of the day, we need another world class midfielder at this club. As for our striking options, we have Podolski, and Giroud, they are quality players, but they're new to this league, so at this point, nobody really knows what they will do for us. A strike force of RVP, Podolski, and Giroud would have been amazing, but we lost our best striker, and now have to rely on 2 new strikers who will take their time to find their feet, that to me, doesn't count as improving your striking options. There's no way to ever spin this one and say we have improved our attacking options when we just sold our best striker, Giroud and Pod would have been great compliments to RVP, to share the burden, but now, they have to take on the entire burden, and as Wenger himself said, that's a major risk. When everybody talked about improving our striking options, it was improving our attack with RVP in the squad, not selling RVP and buying new strikers. So all in all, sorry to say it, but our squad doesn't look world class, and it isn't world class. This isn't a squad that will realistically challenge for the title, or win the Champions League. It will be the same old story from Arsenal, a fight for 4th place, which simply isn't good enough, unless you're a fan who's pleased with low ambitions and are content with simply getting 4th spot, and viewing that as your trophy, which really shows how far back this club has regressed. Imagine back in the days when we were unbeaten, and challenging for trophies, somebody said that hey, simply challenging for top 4, and getting 4th spot is good enough, and is a trophy for us. Losing key players, and buying some replacements, does not count for improving the squad. What Arsenal need, is to build on our squad, to build on the quality players we have, not sell them, and buy some other players to compensate, that does nothing for us, but keeps us stagnated. Podolski, Giroud, and Cazorla, should have been added to build on the strengths of last seasons squad, with Song and RVP in the team, now THAT would have been a huge improvement to the squad, with quality depth. If we need to get rid of players to balance the books, then why don't we get rid off Chamakh, Arshavin, Squilachi, Fabianski, and Mannone? (Park and Bendtner have already been shipped out)
I think the club and the board can dress it up as much as they like, but the club is slowly sinking further from the front of the pack. The fans are being conned.
The answer is no, only a fool would consider our squad good enough to challenge for any trophies this year, we are also in real danger of not making the Champions league next year. The real question is why, if the building of the Emirates is blamed, then why did we do it, more likely is we are contributing even more to Stan's already obscene wealth.
It's a strange one, I'm actually less confident than I was last season, even after we lost Fab and Nasri, I still thought we'd end in the top 4, but now looking at the squad, I feel we're weaker, and littered with more average players.
The sale of RVP couldn't be helped as he was determined to leave. Song's departure looks to me a clear example of book balancing, in the same fashion as Adebayor. The " attitude " stories seem a little contrived & odd in the face of RVP's One Season of Wonder & very public criticism of the Club. Stranger still was AW's assertion that we had many options in CM, then unsuccessfully attempt to sign another CM. Baffling but the unique way we fund our transfers line is tiresome.
sadly i fear the arsenal cupboard is bare, good luck this season which i fear may not be as successful as last year. floreat salopia! anyway. you need jamie collins, our former lad who scored at the emirates last october in our narrow 3-1 defeat, the lad is now at swindon and put 3 past stoke last week. get arsene to put his name in the january diaryif i was arsene.
Providing Wilshere comes back we will be stronger than last year but strong enough to win a 'major' Cup?.. ie the Premierleague or Champions League??..No. 1. We dont have an experinced defensive midfielder in our squad. 2. Our fullback options are not the best. 3. Second/Third choice goalkeepers are terrible. I personally feel that our Season is heavily reliant on Wilshere - A player who has been out injured for over a year.
Because last season we got trounced than bought and people thought we have fixed the problem. This season we bought early and have actually seemed to try and address our defensive issues as well, but started with 2 draws. If we had one both games 1-0 with a scrappy goal people would start predicting we would win the league. It is 2 games in ffs Liverpool should be better indication as the New boys have had more time and Liverpool won't park the bus especially under Rodgers.
The problem is that we didn't win both games 1-0 and never looked like achieving a win in either. Just how long shall we give the new boys? Maybe Jan/Feb, by that time we will be out of the running
Stoke? Maybe, it's one of the top 3-4 toughest games for us out of 38. Sunderland? We did enough to win the game 9 times out of 10. You must have been watching a different game.
So Stoke is tougher than Man City, Man U, Chelsea Newcastle, Spurs, Liverpool, home or away, are you being serious. Against Sunderland we had lots of possession, we should have won that game, and with a top class finisher we would have done, and bear in mind this is against SUNDERLAND at home.
I think we have more options in attack than last year. If RVP had got injured last season we would have been ****ed, at least we have two good strikers this season. The fact that we relied on Song for most of our attacking midfield flair last season shows how threadbare we were. Cazorla is a great signing and we potentially look more dangerous than last year going forward IMO. In a few weeks time I would go for Arteta - Cazorla - Rosicky in midfield which looks far more inspiring than Arteta- Song -Ramsey. Arteta can play the holding role and judging by the game he had against Stoke, he looks far more responsible in his defensive duties than Song, he has a better engine too. The defence looks very promising as well. If we carry on improving defensively I think we can become a very strong team indeed. Remember the infuriating propensity we had last season for undoing the good work RVP did by conceding stupid goals? I'm very disappointed that we didn't bring in anyone else before the transfer window shut but overall I think we look stronger than last season.
The fact is - we depend on our two news guys -Podolski and Giroud. They have to start scoring and they do not have much time to adapt. At least one of them must hit the ground running, and fast. Cazorla has already shown he is up to it. And he can even score. Other than that I can not see where our goals could come from. So it is all a big gamble for us this season.
Over the years it has proven to be, yes... We play better against those teams away than against Stoke, over the last couple of years. Man U away last year was just a freak example of what happens when you leave all your transfer activity for the last day. Our "top class finisher" last season scored once in the first 5 games (and that was in a 8-2 game where it didn't matter). Podolski played his first competitive game for us that day, and Giroud moved well and had 1 chance on his wrong foot for the few minutes he had. (Because RvP has never missed sitters with his right...) It's stupid how much you guys are reading into our strikers out of 2 games.
Every team has some dependence on their 2 main strikers, and besides Man City and Man Utd, I don't see any other team that has more quality depth there. In 2007/2008 we relied on Adebayor to score most of the goals, the next season he didn't hit form, the goals were spread through more players with mostly the same team there. The following season he went away, and the goals were still spread among more players. As long as we play well as a team and create clear cut chances we have plenty who can score.
The reason the goals were spread through the team is that the other players were good enough to score. Clearly we will disagree on the potency or otherwise of Stoke and Sunderland. However I would like to ask you and Toledo Trumpton, and the others who think we have a better squad than last year one question. Given that we finished 3rd last year, and we have a better squad this year, where do you think we will finish?
