Miami Gooner
Concerning Howard Davies' recent article on Robin van Persie and his argument that we were winning more games with Chamakh around at the beginning of the season than we were with RVP towards the end, particularly because "[the team] had more purpose and more direction at the beginning of the season"... fair enough, but flawed, especially if you look at the stats. We were indeed winning quite a fair bit in the beginning of the season, with substantial margins to boot but Chamakh's contributions weren't all that significant if you look at his stats (click on appearances). In terms of game winning goals and point contributions (i.e looking at the goals and assists which won games or resulted in draws), between Aug-Dec 2010, Chamakh basically won us 7pts (he did score a number of goals but these tended to be in 5-1 or 6-0 victories...). RVP on the other hand, basically put us in the Champions League. If you look at his stats, since February, he has contributed 15pts to Arsenal, not accounting for what he contributed earlier on in the season. Yes, Chamakh's performance did collapse after December and I fully agree that he needs another season to prove himself but he's not the solution all together. Given this collapse in form, if RVP had not picked up the slack to such a great extent as he did, we would be in even more trouble. He essentially kept the team afloat these last few months.
You are being a tad too harsh on RVP. His role in the team is not precisely to be a target man - he plays as a withdrawn forward, a false 9 like Totti used to for Roma and now what Messi does for Barca (as so eloquently discussed here. He drops deep and basically creates such havoc towards the final third allowing the overlapping midfielders/wingers to score - which is why Walcott and Nasri were so prolific in the very beginning before RVP got injured. Chamakh is your orthodox centre forward a la Drogba and Co. who provide an added dimension in terms of aerial ability which is why he was bought. He did this to a very great extent in the first part of the season but unfortunately tailed off. However, I highly doubt he would have scored THAT equalizer against Barca. RVP is extremely skilled (unfortunate curse? really?!!) and is not as weak or as slow as you think (look at the many goals he scored or created on fast, fluid counter attacking moves). He creates as much as he scores and the reason he is so often injured is due to his style of play in which he tends to take on players directly as opposed to shielding the ball with his body as do other forwards. He is a lot better than you give him credit for and a worthy successor to Bergkamp's no. 10 shirt.
We try and emulate Barca who play with a very refined form of what we do but their execution is a lot better of course, mainly because Messi is such a terrific player. Vidic lamented at the end of the game that Barca didn't play with any centre forwards which is an acknowledgement of how effective the system can be. What we need to do is stop trying to walk the ball into the net and instead show more scoring intent (two of Barca's three goals last weekend came from outside the box). We also need to be more effective in recovering the ball once we lose possession. Defensively we have some serious issues and some investment needs to be made in that area but once we settle on a defence, we should keep it that way. This business of playing with a different centre-back pairing every season is a bad idea - Man U have had a consistent CB pairing over the last 5-6 years which is why the defence tends to be so well organized, Chelsea the same (though selling Carvalho somewhat disrupted that last season).
Our problem isn't up top - we do score goals. We maybe need an additional winger and a decent striker but in that area, we are not too badly off, especially with so many different players chipping in with goals. In terms of goals next season, if RVP keeps fit for at least two thirds of the season we should be ok, especially with Chamakh having a full pre-season and now hopefully fully acclimatized to the Premier League. What we do need is a more rigorous and resolute defensive unit. We definitely need someone to compete with Song for that Central Defensive Midfield role, in which he has been lousy towards the end of the season and one or two centre backs. Starting RVP "upfront" next season won't doom us in any way. In fact, not starting him would be concerning given his level of commitment to the club. Starting Squiggles in the centre of defence with Eboue as right back and Denilson or Diaby as a holding midfielder would be a hell of a lot more like a doomsday scenario.
