We had a great team between 2003-2005 and since then we appear to have been undone first by Chelsea's mad buying spree and then in not having enough in our squad to see through an entire season. Not enough really lends itself in at least two ways. Not enough depth and not enough experience. Yet it was all so deceiving for a while. We had come close in later years only to succumb by late February. Our best chance of the EPL was last year when Utd and Chelsea had terrible spells and yet we were unable to capitalise on this. We really should have done so. It was all so different back in 2003/2004 when we swept the board. I believe the problem arose when Arsene Wenger decided that the youth policy would take the place of the experienced players of our Invincibles squad. Thus when they left, this experience was not replaced. In fact if my memory serves me, the only two key players with some experience who was sourced to cover the period of transition between the Invincibles and the youths were RvP and Gallas. I refer to the period of 2006/2007 to around the 2008/2009, excluding Nasri. Please do correct me if I'm wrong. Thus as experience goes out the door we have only been pressing into service the youngsters who as have been shown have been caught by injury and unpreparedness of life in the EPL. What should have been done was to have brought in more experience for a few years since the departure of Flammini, Henry, Pires et al to maintain the overall strength of the squad until the youngsters were ready. It is this omission that has lead us to our plight today which has only been addressed by the signing of Mertesacker, Arteta, Gervinho and Santos. A case of Too little as in not signing more experience earlier Too early as in pressing into action the youngsters and probably Too late as in only just sourcing experience of which more is needed It may not necessarily be too late but that depends on what we do in January. What do you think pals?
I actually think we had the balance of youth and experience spot on in the 07/08 season and we should have won the league that season. It still annoys me that we never, in my opinion we have the best team in the league that season and played great football. Unfortunately that was when the bottling started to happen, the players used the eduardo injury as an excuse, ever since that season we have been let down by the players, and was the catalyst IMO for what has followed every season since 07/08. We had 2 experienced centre backs who had won titles, leahman in goals, hleb who I think had won the league in Germany, rosicky who looked a good player, and ade, RVP and eduardo up front. It was the best squad in the time since the invincible. However it was the players themselves that were to blame for that season, there was the gallas sit down protest after chlicy stupidly gave that penalty away, think it might have been the season ade and NB52 were fighting on the pitch at white heart lane. Ever since then things have just gone from bad to worse, constantly bottling it when it counts and players using every excuse under the sun, a good example is today in one of the papers, arshavin was saying it was a catastrophe that we sold nasri and cesc. I really wish the players would shut up, take some responsibility for their own failures and stand up and be counted. . Arshavin has already got his excuse in early in the event that we and he has a poor season, they will just blame the sale of cesc and nasri, when in reality we were not good enough to win anything with those two in the team eather
Well, it's been a pretty crappy start to this season. But at least we've addressed some problem areas in the transfer window. Let's see where we are at Christmas to make a judgement on this team.
I agree with Mr E in that the players need to look at themselves as well. There is so much Arsene and the coaching staff can do although having said that, there possibly could be some changes in respect of our tactics and strategy. 2008 was a perfect example of missed opportunity and that sit in by the then-captain was just such as self-centered display. Of Cesc and Nasri much has been said on this board and while one was distracted, the other lost the plot after 4 months and both as you say were not good enough to help the team win. Thus really as Piskie has suggested, it is worth waiting until December to see what this squad does. Injuries though are a worry and that is another thread altogether.
