Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Why Arsenal Will Win The Title This Year

Morning all. Not a lot of news following the demolition of Burgenland yesterday. Cesc Fabregas came out and killed off anyone saying that he was going to Real Madrid, in fact saying that he made no statement about Madrid at all. Good work from Cesc yet again. I think he does everything well, football, handling the press, his hair, etc.

Now since there is no news today I want to go on a bit of a rant. Bear with me. I'm going to go over a few things I have learned this summer and in the season past.

Football is a tough game. The English Premier League is a tough league. There are twenty teams and no matter how well all the teams play, only one is going to win the trophy at the end of the year. Over 38 games in a year, you have to be the best and most consistent team. So you have to ask yourself, is Arsenal ready to make that step up with the likes of Chelsea and Man United out there? I think we can be. Arsenal will never be a club like Chelsea that goes out and buys every player that has a good season or superstars that are past their primes. We probably won't be like Man United either, spending money that will knowingly increase the club's debt. So we have a manager that majored in economics, and his job is to keep the ship afloat, WHILE managing our club. Arsenal are the smallest spenders of the big four teams, yet have we ever been considered the least successful? Liverpool haven't won the title since 1990 and Chelsea just started winning win Abramovich came.

The transfer market has changed, but Arsenal Football Club will not. As long as Wenger is our manager, we will be shrewd spenders, with a focus on the future and youth. Has this not been successful in the past though? Tony Adams was made the club's youngest ever captain back in 1988 at age 21, did anyone say he was too young and inexperienced to win a title? Cesc Fabregas is that same age, maybe he is the right man to lead us in that same way.

Do we need a lot of major signings to make sure we win a trophy? Will a Gareth Barry or a Miguel Veloso really be a huge improvement over Abou Diaby? Maybe they are somewhat better right now, but Wenger is one of the very, very best at getting the most out of his players' potential. Imagine if Diaby got a lot of games in the holding midfield role under Wenger's tutelage. I think he could easily be at that level.

Is it a crisis to lose Gilberto, Flamini, and Hleb? I don't think so. Nasri has been brought in to be a new and hopefully improved Hleb, and as I said I think Diaby can fill in next to Fabregas admirably. Who thought Flamini was going to be the player he was before last year? Not one person, I guarantee it. The summer before last season everyone thought he was going to be off to Birmingham for a couple hundred thousand pounds, and now he's playing for Milan. It just shows what the boss' guidance and a run in the team can do for a player.

What is so wrong with Manuel Almunia? I see loads of comments saying he is a rubbish keeper and we need to bring in someone else, but when did he make these awful mistakes that you base these claims on? He played well throughout the entirety of last season. Every keeper allows some goals and he was no different, but he kept us in more games than he lost us. And if we did get a new keeper, who would you have brought in that is so much better? Don't give me Buffon or Casillas or Cech, because it isn't happening! We have a solid keeper right now that gets too much stick and I'm sick of it. Keep up the good work Manuel.

Emmanuel Adebayor is probably staying. While he's messed up badly this summer, it does make us a better team with him staying. If van Persie is healthier and can properly partner with Adebayor all year, we have one of the most dangerous strike forces in the league, if not the world. Hate Ade all you want, but he is a good player. Some people say "well a proper forward would have scored 60 goals with the service he got this year." Remember that he was on his own up front for most of the season and he scored as many league goals as Fernando Torres, who is worshiped as a god almost. He scored a lot of important goals so I don't know why everything thinks he's a terrible player, because you're just dead wrong. Runs his mouth yes, bad player no.

My point in all this is that I never want Arsenal Football Club to be a huge spending club like Chelsea or United or Liverpool. I want my club and your club to stick with what has gotten it this far, dedication, intelligence, and passion. Give Arsene the chance to run the team. He has won lots of trophies before and he can do it again. Remember that Eduardo, van Persie, and Rosicky are all potential starters that were hurt a lot of last year, as well as Sagna's injury at the end of the year. If we can get all those players back and healthy it's like 2 1/2 singings that we didn't have at all last year, when we almost pulled off the title. We are not as far away as people think, we are not in a crisis, we are just Arsenal Football Club, and this is how we work.

So that's all I've got. I hope that made some sense. Agree or disagree, you can put it in the comments or the forums. Cheers.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks man that is an amazing article, i completely agree with it, and i just hope everything you say will come true.

Anonymous said...

definitely the best article I've read in sometime. I agree wholeheartedly. diaby will prove us right - I'm getting my top with #2 on the back this yr!

Anonymous said...

Great Article...you pinpointed the thing that i hate about most arsenal fans when they say if it was any other striker they would have scored 60 with adebayors chances. adebayor gets those chances by his good movement and thats why ferdinand said he was the hardest players to play against. i hare him as much as anyone else right now adebayor is really pissing me off but he does benefit the team lets just hope he doesnt demoralise it

Anonymous said...

gd article.

on d gooner said...

I don't quite agree with you re: Adebayor. No one is doubting his ability as a player nor do we forget he played most of the time for us as a lone striker last season but the latter fact could not have prevented him from converting most of the chances he had last season. He had so many that had he converted at least 80% of these, he could have doubled his goals tally easily!! Yes he was that useless infront of goal as he flunked the easiest of chances at the times you could have easily looked away in celebratory gesture.

Anonymous said...

afc doesn't have the horses or the muscle to compete with the big sides. i expect we'll have a fine season and it should be fun with all the youngsters but it's shaping up to be a blank season again. i look for arsenal to start the campaign very well and play some amazing creative football, probably get a huge lift when eduardo returns and then come up short at the end again, even with one more 'reasonable target' we're just too young and too light to be talking about trophies and titles.

Anonymous said...

u're just the bomb!!!.....extremely impressive......u shld be our next manager.

Anonymous said...

I wish I could share your optimism, but we have too many deficiencies in the back to win the league this year. Gallas/Toure is a partnership that doesn't seem to work. Even worse there will be a big hole in front of them this year now that both Flamini and Gilberto have gone. Diaby may be talented but he is lazy and gives the ball away a lot, so our defenders will be under a lot of pressure. Up front, even were Ade to leave we'd still be good with Vela and Nasri joining the improving Bendtner & Walcott, and when they are not injured RvP, Eduardo and Rosicknote adding class & goals. I hope they are indeed a very efficient attack because it looks like we'll be having to make up for leaking goals.

Anonymous said...

very gd article..i think i agreed with everything said...every1 needs to shut up and let arsene run the club he knws wot hes doin...i also think almunia is a solid keeper..adebayor IS a gd plyer but hes also a prick... i honestly believe we have a genuine chance for the title..

gooner 4 lyf!!!!!1

Anonymous said...

Well said. I agree with most of your article. In a football world full of spoiled millionaires, I am very, very proud to be an Arsenal supporter. Years ago when Roman bought Chelsea everyone hated them for exactly that. Now all the Scousers, United, Hammer fans think that this is great to have forgien ownership. Fuck off. Arsenal stands for everything football should be. Go on and win the title this year boys!! At least one trophy. lol . please.

Anonymous said...

@hello readers and fans i dont quiet figure out why arsen is making a little bit of gamble ,sicerely our manager has assembled the talented youth but for three straight seasons no silver wears.so what makes you think things will change this time arround.look and analyse our mid field it shows you that we might not even finish in the first five.wenger should stop the riggid policies of his and start spending cash like any other big club.

Anonymous said...

gud article but i think ur being too positive over the players especially adebayor...

Anonymous said...

Hey,
You said if those pivotal players were fit, we would have 2 and a half signings. My point is we didnt have enough depth in squad to replace the people we lost. True we had a bad run with injuries but thats the case with almost every other top side. Why should we suffer due to the lack of squad depth? And if there is one, why isnt Arsene addressing it?
Hopefully a year's experience would have helped our bench strength.If not, then we are in trouble again.

Anonymous said...

Hey,
You said if those pivotal players were fit, we would have 2 and a half signings. My point is we didnt have enough depth in squad to replace the people we lost. True we had a bad run with injuries but thats the case with almost every other top side. Why should we suffer due to the lack of squad depth? And if there is one, why isnt Arsene addressing it?
Hopefully a year's experience would have helped our bench strength.If not, then we are in trouble again.

Siddhesh said...

Nice article dude!
I appreciate your faith in the team and no doubt that we will win trophies this season. What I want to point out is even i don't want to arsenal as big spending club like Man U n Chelsea but i want this side to be better mix of youth and experience. Remember Birmingham game last season which took away title from us last season? I think lack of experience made our confidence down and the team could not come out of series of draws. That's why I would appreciate if we spend little more in retaining the experienced players and getting few too. No doubt that 'IN ARSENE WE TRUST' but even he can think about getting some experience to this side right?

Anonymous said...

spot on