Arsenal Fans Let Their Voices Be Heard

Morning all. What's crackin? Not a whole lot of news to go over today regarding Arsenal, except that Gareth Barry reportedly really wants to come to Arsenal. So nothing we haven't heard before. Would you rather have Gareth Barry or Xabi Alonso? That's a tough question. I'd certainly take either but I do wonder who most of you would take if you could pick one.

So yesterday I asked you all to fill out a survey about the 08/09 season for Arsenal, and the responses were really interesting to me. So today I think I'll just go over the survey results and talk about what they mean for Arsenal.

The first question was simply, how do you feel about the season as a whole, and 40.9% of responders said they were disappointed, probably online betting people. 27% said it was acceptable, while 18% said it was neither acceptable nor disappointing. So very few people were REALLY happy with this season and not many were VERY disheartened either. I'd say that's probably a pretty accurate reflection of all of the Arsenal fan base. While there were some positives, like reaching the semi-final of the Champions League and the FA Cup, winning zero trophies yet again makes it disappointing for me.

The next question was about the player of the season, and this one really surprised me! With 31.8% of the vote, Robin van Persie was selected as Arsenal's player of the season over Andrey Arshavin and Manuel Almunia, who placed second and third. I may get bashed for this one but I think Robin van Persie gets a lot more credit than he deserves. He's a great player no doubt but if you're never fit than how useful are you really? He did a better job of staying healthy this year but if I'm asked for my personal player of the season I'm taking Almunia or Alex Song, who I thought really made a breakthrough.

A whopping 95.5% of responders said that Arsenal need to strengthen the squad before next season, so no debate there really.

50% of fans said we weren't too far off from Champions Manchester United, while 40% said there is a noticeable gap between us and the league winners. I think when you look at the squads as a whole, the gap is possibly wider than it appears. When you look at our bench on most league games, you see players like Eboue, Diaby, etc while on United's you see Tevez, Berbatov, Giggs, Nani, and others that I think are better players. Our first eleven can play with anybody, but I think we lose out in squad depth.

For the question asking which position needed strengthening the most, unsurprisingly the top answers were center back and defensive midfield. I think everyone agrees with that. Even with Song's emmergence, we could still use an experienced player like we got with Arshavin that could really lock down our midfield.

82% of fans say that Cesc Fabregas is our most important player, and he damn well is. He's our Xavi and Iniesta all rolled into one, and when he's gone our team isn't half as good as it is with him.

A really interesting one asked if it was more important to play beautiful football or to win trophies, and amazingly, the vote was split 50-50. I have a follow up question for those of you who said beatiful football is more important. Are you saying that you would rather Arsenal always be able to play good football and not ever win another trophy? Personally, I'd rather have the trophies. Arsenal used to be a 1-0 team forever but winning still felt nice.

100% of fans said that Arsene Wenger is the right man to take Arsenal forward as manager. That's right, 100%. So that should put that debate to bed. In Arsene We Trust, that's right.

So the survey did provide some interesting results, and I think most of them really showed that Arsenal fans have very similar opinions about most subjects regarding the club. We still have faith in our manager, and we know where are main weaknesses are, so let's get them fixed. Come on Arsene, if Barry wants to come, then let's bring him in.

If you have any thoughts, share them. If not, thanks for reading. Cheers.