Lance Beauregarde
Right, I don’t want to be one of those Arsenal fans who complain all the time about everything. I don’t want to be the kind of person who, when given a Ferrari, starts whinging about the paucity of cup-holders. However, in the last article I posted here, which was about what a great season I thought Alex Song had had, I got slated by just about everyone, and, on reflection, perhaps I was a little too glowing in my assessment of him. So this time I thought, b***s to it, time to get back to some good old-fashioned complaining.
Having said that, I would like to begin by saying how delighted I am that the Arsenal board has finally shown some ambition by signing exciting, established international players before the start of the season, spending somewhere in the region of 40 million sheets in the process. I think it’s great that, after the débacle of last August, they’ve actually made a conscious effort not to repeat their mistakes. I think all three of the new players are potentially very exciting, and it shows that, at the very least, a top-four spot looks a lot more secure than it did a few games into the last campaign, when we were worse than England.
Okay, here comes the but … I’m sure I’m not the only person to have noticed that the new signings, as sexy as they are, don’t address the real problem with the team, which is a lack of fight in those games where the pretty passing game isn’t working and we have to tough it out for a draw or a one-nil. Scoring goals has never been a problem for Arsenal; even when we were thrashed at Old Trafford last season, we scored twice, which is no mean feat when you are playing United on their own patch. The problem was that we conceded eight. Other matches which spring to mind: 4-4 away to Newcastle the season before last, 3-2 at home to Spurs, 3-2 away to Swansea last season … In short, even when we don’t win, we usually score.
I was therefore hoping Wenger would bring in at least one tough-tackling workhorse to sit in front of the defence, either instead of or alongside Song, to roll his sleeves up, get stuck in (insert more clichés here), and generally make a nuisance of himself. For a while we were, apparently, looking at Yann M’Vila, but interest seems to have cooled. This might be because he is, by all accounts, a difficult character, and having offloaded Gallas, Adebayor and hopefully, by the time this gets posted, that smirking, obnoxious, boxer short wearing Danish cretin Nicklas Bendtner, the last thing we need in the dressing-room is another mouthy bell-end with opinions bigger than his talent. So fair enough, perhaps M’Vila was never the right man for the job. But, having tacitly admitted that we are weak in that area, Wenger appears to have given up on trying to sort it out, and gone and blown his load on three players of a completely different ilk. It’s as if he’s prepared himself for an Everest attempt by purchasing some lingerie after failing to find a winter coat in his size in the one shop he looked in.
Now, I know there are counter-arguments. Wenger himself would say that the way Arsenal play doesn’t require a ‘holding’ midfielder in the traditional sense of the word. When the team attacks, everyone gets involved, moving the ball around and making off-the-ball runs. When the team needs to defend, everyone gets back and helps out. He might point to Spain and Barcelona as evidence that you don’t need that ballsy, wears-his-heart-on-his-sleeve, sixties throwback type of player, but the thing about those teams is that they don’t play in the Premier League, which is far more competitive than La Liga and the international game, and you are always going to have games where you have to put your body on the line, give a hundred and ten per cent, and so on and so forth.
Other people will claim that there’s no point signing those kinds of players if you don’t first sort out the coaching side of things, and the evidence seems to suggest that Wenger is not really all that interested in defending. I completely agree with this, and I definitely think something needs to be done to get the whole team defending as a unit when they lose the ball, but I think signing at least one gutsy, would-sweat-blood-for-the-team, would-shave-his-b***s-with-a-rusty-knife ... you get the idea … type of player would help with that.
Anyway, despite all my moaning, I’ve decided to finish on a positive note. This is the first season since 2005 when we’ve gone out early, spent a bit of money, and brought in some genuine quality, as opposed to mediocre players with massive foreheads who were never going to make the grade, or unknown youngsters who were going to be good, but not for another few years. Even if a certain Dutch forward with unusually square shoulders and wobbly arms does leave, it shows, at least, a slight change of direction, and although we are still a long way short of seriously challenging for the title, maybe, just maybe, we might have a nice shiny cup in the trophy cabinet come the end of the season. Maybe.
