Ian Henry
For all those Gooners cheering this morning at our five signings since Sunday, I say this: give thanks to ManU for the 8-2 spanking. If, by some miracle, the patched up team which went to Old Trafford on Sunday had escaped with a draw or an honourable one or two goal defeat, we would not have had five signings – one or two maybe, but not five.
That said, I like the sound and look of all five, not that I have any special insight into Park or Santos, but the Korean captain and a Brazilian international will do fine for me; as will a 6ft 6 German defender with 70+ caps and two midfield players with Premier League experience. With their injury records I don’t think Arteta and Benayoun will last a full season, but nor will Rosicky, so maybe there is a cunning plan to alternate the three of them!
So we have eight new signings in the squad, plus Miyaichi, Frimpong and presumably Coquelin and Miquel promoted from within. Whither the Wenger mantra about not signing more than two or three because of the problems of integrating them all?! Some of the dross remains, Squillaci, Almunia and Diaby, but most of it has gone. I don’t expect to see Vela or Denilson again, but maybe Bendtner will grow up with a year away and come back a better player. And by the way, I’m sure that Park is simply a kneejerk reaction to the failure to get a work permit for Joel Campbell.
I am sorry to see Lansbury go as I would have liked to have seen him become an Arsenal regular; I don't know why he never got the chances that, say, Denilson did, but Arsene knows; mind you, on Lansbury, the Arsenal website says he signed a long term contract in 2010 which is not quite the same as having a year left as some reports suggest; maybe he will come back too. I hope so as he is, by all accounts, an Arsenal boy through and through and you need some of those in the team.
Arsenal could and should have bought these players – or others – much sooner and have had them integrated long before the season started, like ManU and ManCity did with their purchases. That they didn’t and instead went on an atypical splurge suggests that the balance of power – which was entirely with the manager at the start of the summer – has shifted. I am sure that the board said we have to buy and we will buy; I don’t believe Wenger wanted all these players, but the reaction to the ManU defeat forced his hand.
Whether the new players will force a change in team organisation, training regime and overall structure will be interesting to see; the impact Mertesacker especially has on the defensive organisation of the team is something which I will watch with interest, assuming he arrives uninjured from the international break. As Simon Rose pointed out on this site the other day, signing players is not much use if you don’t have an appropriate strategy and structure for them to play in. A back four of Sagna, Mertesacker, Vermaelen and Santos has experience galore, so maybe when this lot are fit they can gel and organise themselves; but Jenkinson, Koscielny, Djourou and Gibbs are callow at best and out of their depth at worst. They desperately need the defensive coaching that a Keown or a Bould would be able to dispense in bucket loads.
Then comes the midfield conundrum; will we continue with the 4-3-3 of recent times, in which case, three questions spring to mind:
1: Who will be our defensive midfield cover in January/February when Song and possibly Frimpong head off to the ACN?
2: Who will play the Cesc role – Arteta? Benayoun? Rosicky? Ramsey? Jack?
And 3: how can we play 4-3-3 with RvP as the figurehead when he drifts deep and wide most of the time?
You have a better squad than you did last Sunday Arsene, now get it to work.
