 |
| The Final farewell: Merci Thierry |
Thank you King Thierry Henry for the memories. You have cemented your place in the Arsenal hearts and history as the greatest.
Now coming back to the present, it is rather sad when you look at a player like Henry and compare him to what we have at the club at the moment. I have raised this question before and allow me to raise it again: Who in the current Arsenal Squad would grace the first eleven of a top European team right now? And I answer; Van Persie, Song, Sagna, Vermaelen, Koscielny, Wilshere maybe even Gervinho. The rest of our players are good footballers. And thats it.
Our mid-fielders are either too young or past their peak. We lack quality in this most important area of the pitch. The fact that we keep blowing hot and cold just goes to illustrate this. At his worst, Fabregas was better than some of our current midfield at their best. I mention Fabregas because he is our most recent top-quality departure whom many of you will clearly remember.
What of our attack? Well, we all know of a certain Robin Van Persie. What of the others? Walcott, Arshavin, Chamakh, Bendtner, Vela... decent footballers. But what they have in skill and talent they equally lack in effort and application.
Nomatter how good your defence, when you have 5-6 players ahead of them who are not willing to put in the hard work when the team does not have the ball, you are going to concede goals. Worse still, when the players ahead of the defence are not scoring goals, then conceding goals results in losing games.
So who does one blame for this state of affairs? Well the manager. It is his team, his players, his tactics, his planning, his training methods... etc... If these players are not performing, then you have to question the manager's ability to motivate the team. That the same team can be good one day then crap the next really is a problem of application. Yes we lack quality, but really application would atleast make us competitive. Application or lack thereof is the manager's responsibility. Yes, the players have embarrassed themselves, but ultimately the manager has embarrassed the club for failing to get the best out of his players.
Why won't Arsene heed the veiled, diplomatic criticism from his own former players and do something about his squad? Did not Einstein say that insanity was doing the same thing over and over yet expecting different results? Arsene keeps refusing to strengthen the team when it is clear this is required. Again and again he is proved wrong but he insists that the squad is strong enough. Even the squad know otherwise.
Reading through the Arsenal website, the players are talking about how they need to work harder, how they need to repay the fans, how they need to defend better, how they need to learn from this experience... Heh!! Szczesny even says he believes we can still qualify!! Huh!! Talk of saying what people want to hear!!!
Honestly, Arsenal FC should employ me to write excuses for each player after every disappointing performance because I pretty much know what each of them will say. It is the same stuff said after every defeat. You could take comments from 4 years ago then just cut and paste. I won't even bother to link to it.
So AC Milan deservedly thumped us 4-0, ending our campaign in this year's Champion's League. I expect them to come and beat us at the Emirates in the return leg.
Next up we face Sunderland in the FA Cup, in what is our only hope for winning a trophy this season. I expect us to crumble again then be told about how we shall finish in the top four.
Is this what Arsenal has been reduced to? Sad really.
Have a good weekend gooners.
Backwards march the Arsenal!!!
.....................................................................
@the_afrogunner on twitter
No comments:
Post a Comment