Jamie Hunt
I must say, you have to hand it to Arsène Wenger. This time last season, and I'm even double-checking this as we speak, it is so ridiculous, we were eight points better off than this year.
Last year, having conducted our summer business with the efficiency of a chimps’ tea-party, we entered the season with around 14 fit players (which included the likes of Lansbury, Traoré and Jenkinson, who had a handful of first-team games for Charlton under his belt), shipped 12 goals at Man Utd and Blackburn, and lost a North London Derby with a spineless, clueless performance.
And THIS team is eight points worse???!!! It shouldn't actually be possible, should it? On paper, at least, this team should be eight points BETTER.
The first thing most people say involves money and spending it. You can put me firmly in this category, but only until recently. This team should be far better than what it is at present. But the man pulling the strings isn't capable of producing anything like a winning team.
Ask yourself this question: if Kroenke gave Wenger £100 million to spend in January (I know, I'm a comedian), would you trust him to buy the right players and, more specifically, create a team to challenge for trophies? I don't think he would, period. He doesn't know how to win any more. He doesn't know how to motivate any more. How would an idiot like me know that? Watch most of this season's games, and you will see a bunch of players that are not putting it in for him any more.
Our defensive squad consists of a 100-cap German, France's right-back and centre-half, Belgium's centre-half, an England international left-back and right-back and a bloke that sometimes plays left-back for Brazil; and we sit there s***ting ourselves when two goals up against ten men?
We have a creative genius like Cazorla, potentially the new Xavi in Wilshere, and one of the world's best uncapped players in Arteta. But we play game after game where we seem to have a football version of dartsitis. Scared to play that killer ball. Scared to pull the trigger.
This is down to the manager. He just hasn't got it anymore.
I just don't understand some of the ways he goes about his business. It’s almost as if he wants to see how bad things can get. Take the Marouane Chamakh situation this year; I'm by no means a fan of his, and if you had told me in August he would never play again for us, I would've been quite happy. But he played in the Mickey Mouse cup against Reading. Ok, for 90 minutes he was his usual ineffective self. But in extra time he scored two goals and must have come off that pitch feeling the best he's felt for two years. What was his reward? He hasn't (correct me if I'm wrong) been on the pitch since and has barely made the bench! Now, I'm not suggesting for one minute that Reading was the catalyst for Chamakh to suddenly light up the premiership. But with Giroud the only proper striker in the first team squad, wouldn't you have just given the bloke a few run-outs, even off the bench, to see if he could carry on the good vibrations? You know, seeing as we aren't scoring many goals these days and the bloke is probably getting about £100k a week? Nope, not a sign of him, and we get Gervinho.
It's the same with Arshavin. I'll be the first to say he hasn't done it at Arsenal, although playing his proper position might have been a decent start - you know, the position he was playing when he scored four goals at Anfield? Fair play to him, he's not moaned publicly, and this year in his brief cameos he has generally looked likely to create something. He dug us out of the s**t at Reading with an uncharacteristically lung-busting performance. His reward? What was it, ten minutes at Villa?
If these players are at the club, why not at least TRY to put them to use? But no, like his pre-planned substitutions, Wenger decided in the summer that these players weren't part of his master-plan so they are effectively a couple of very expensive pieces of furniture.
I don't know why Arsène puts himself through it. He has gone from a manager we were so proud to have at our club to a figure of comedy. His ridiculous excuses and pitch-side behaviour have become painful to watch. He has started to have the feel of a gambler who just wants to stay at the table until he wins his money back. It’s not nice and it’s getting worse. I've long thought that he was a willing part of the money-grabbing cartel that our club has become, but I'm now hoping he doesn't get the chance to spend any of it on players.
