Post Mortem

 

So the season has died. It looked on it’s last legs in Milan but finally flatlined in Sunderland. The fat lady has sung. (She sang, “Spend some f*cking money!”)

So I thought I’d have a careless stab at a post mortem. Why have we failed to challenge for a trophy yet again? And why are we out of all four competitions and it’s not yet even March. The reasons are many;

• Dithering with summer transfer activity

While other teams wrapped up their transfers early we pissed about and waited for the last minute before bringing in our players. It cost us hugely. The opening games were a joke and it took us until October to get any sort of form together. By then we’d lost to Liverpool, Utd, Blackburn and Spurs. Undoubtedly it was influenced by the Fabregs saga and Nasri situation but we needed to be clear and assertive with both, not let it write off most of our summer transfer plans. Then there’s the Mata situation, again we dithered and allowed Chelsea to offer a better package and lost out.

• Failure to replace key players

We’ve looked toothless and lacking in any creativity for a while and I feel in part it’s because 2 of our most creative midfielders were sold in the summer and not adequately replaced. Arteta has been industrious and hard working and I’m a fan but he hasn’t created enough and his set pieces are consistently poor. Lets not forget that we sold Clichy too and left back has been a huge problem for us. Gibbs can’t stay fit, Santos is suspect defensively. Enrique was available, can’t see why we didn’t try and get him.

 

• Lack of quality cover for RVP

RVP had been fantastic this season but Chamakh has been woeful. His complete lack of impact seen clearly against Leeds where Henry showed that a bit of quality and some decent movement was all that was needed to create a goal. Park. Bench. 2 words clearly meant to go together. Henry did very well in his short time with us but we all know RVP has had to carry the attacking threat for this team most of the season.

 

• Inactivity in the January transfer window

The loan signing of Henry aside we did nothing in January. Wenger deserves credit for his acquisition of Henry and the contribution he made but it’s not nearly enough. How did QPR get Taye Taiwo on loan? A left back of reasonable quality who could have done a job for us, if only temporarily. I’ve written at length about Gibbs’ injury history, AW knows he only had one left back that could potentially be relied upon…until he got injured. He acknowledged it would be foolish to drop points due to a lack of left back but that’s exactly what he did. The reason was meant to be that our left backs were close to return in January but it’s now February 18th and we still didn’t field a left back today! We desperately needed a striker. There was little movement in general this transfer window but some strikers did move; Jelavic joined Everton and both QPR and Newcastle grabbed themselves a Cisse.

 

 

• Underperformance from key players

Chamakh. We know he can do better. Has been truly awful. Theo is unbelievably inconsistent. He can be excellent and has a reasonable amount of assists but he’s also had some dreadful performances, failing to beat his full back or deliver any type of cross. Arshavin’s sulky funk continues. His lowest point being the non-performance against united and his lazy defending that lead to their goal. Some people might add others to this list, I know Ramsey has had a lot of stick this season but for me it’s his first real season and he’s needs more time.

 

• Injuries

No one who follows Arsenal would expect all key players to stay fit. No one accept Wenger perhaps. His reliance on players with dreadful injury records is bordering on delusional. At the start of the season you could already rule out any involvement from Diaby, question what Gibbs might offer, worry about Vermaelens calf, Djourou’s knee and Rosicky’s hamstring. You might also expect to lose Theo and RVP at some point. And let’s not forget the odd bonus injury you will undoubtedly pick up – Wilshere this season, Vermaelen last etc etc.

So you’d think with injuries being a common part of our team you’d have a plan B in place? Several areas have no quality replacement. We’ve mentioned RVP but what if Szczesny got injured, or Song? The reason Ramsey has struggled is because he’s had to step into replace Jack because we had no other decent options.

 

There is so much that we could have done better, but my feelings are now that this way has become the Arsenal way. Reluctance to spend on established talent. Reliance on injury prone or underperforming players and failure to deliver when it counts. It’s what I’ve come to expect now. I think the board are happy as the finances look good and aren’t looking to change manager. Wenger won’t change either. I’m sorry people but I think this may be the way things are for some time to come. Don’t bank on a host of new faces in the summer to revitalise our squad I’m just not convinced it’ll happen. All we can do now is get behind the team as much as possible and hope they can hold on to that vital fourth spot.