Mike Francis
As I mentioned when we launched this years survey on the site last month, we believe it’s the most comprehensive insight into the thoughts of Arsenal supporters worldwide and having received over 2800 responses from 66* different countries to the 67 questions, we stand by that claim. Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey and we hope the results make interesting reading over the next few weeks.
In this section, we are going to focus on the questions we posed about 2012-13 season and as always we’ll start with the blue riband category of Player of the Season. Our first winner back in 1989 was Alan Smith who had top scored in our title-winning season. He was followed in 1990 by Mr Arsenal himself, Tony Adams, who went on to win it on two further occasions (1993 and 1994) and since then, such legends as Dennis Bergkamp (1997 and 1998), Robert Pires (2002) and five-time winner Thierry Henry (2000, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006) have added their name to the roll of honour.
So, The Gooner Player of the Season for 2013 is… drum roll… Santi Cazorla who was a clear winner and received over 63% of the first choice vote as well as almost 26% of the second choice. There were even three people who got a bit carried away and voted for him as first and second!
When the diminutive Spaniard arrived last year I don’t know how much Arsenal fans really knew about him. Maybe, like me, you were vaguely aware of the name, but as he’d never really stood out for Spain (perhaps not surprisingly) and had not attracted the interest of Barcelona and Real Madrid, you’d concluded he wasn’t going to be as brilliant as he’s turned out to be. However, from the first game, I think we all knew we had a little gem on our hands as it was clear his technique and close control was outstanding, but unlike, say, Hleb, there was plenty of end product as well. There were occasions when his form slipped a notch, but overall he’s a thoroughly deserving winner of our Player of the Season.
In second place was Laurent Koscielny, whose strong finish to the season culminated in that critical goal and display at Newcastle on the last day which I’m sure earned him a few extra votes. He ended up with 22% of the first choice votes and 39% of the second choice, whilst Theo took third spot with 5% and 19% respectively.
Our next category was Most Disappointing Player and whilst there were plenty of names put forward including Gervinho, Squillaci and Chamakh, my view is that if you were disappointed by any of these, you hadn’t been watching them the previous season because I don’t think expectations were high that they were going to suddenly get better. Of course, for the money they earn, we probably have a right to expect better and that’s the disappointing factor, but maybe that should be laid at the door of the person who determines their wages?
Sadly, it was our captain who topped this category as 85% of voters put Thomas Vermaelen in their top (bottom?) two, followed by his fellow defender Bacary Sagna (58%) and our first choice goalkeeper Szczesny (19%). Given the fate of our captains in recent summers, there will be far fewer tears shed if Thomas is shipped off to another country, but recent rumours linking him with a switch to Manchester United are hopefully only that because surely we wouldn’t contemplate selling a player to them again so soon after helping them to the title last season?
Sagna and Szczesny both bounced back from set-backs to enjoy better finishes to the season and whilst there have been suggestions for a while that Bacary, who at the time of writing has only one year left on his contract, would be the subject of a bid from PSG or Monaco to tempt him back to France, his departure would severely weaken our defensive options – remember his outstanding display at centre-back away at Sunderland – and for that reason alone, I think most Gooners will be hoping he is still an Arsenal player come 1st September.
Moving on to the title of Most Improved Played which goes to Aaron Ramsey with 46% of the vote. Aaron has had more than his fair share of criticism during his Arsenal career, some of which at the start of the season was unbelievably harsh and disgraced us as a group of fans, especially as he was often being asked to play in a position which clearly didn’t suit him. It can’t have been an easy period for him, but he never complained and, on the field he never hid. In an area of the pitch where we have regularly bemoaned players who don’t track back, his industry could never be faulted and he would regularly find himself in good positions even if his finishing was often wayward. This attitude was rewarded with some much improved performances towards the end of the season when, due to Jack’s fragility, he was given a run of games in centre midfield alongside Arteta and capped it with a well taken goal against Wigan in the final home game.
The runner-up in this category was Laurent Koscielny (30%) and he also excelled towards the end of the season alongside Per Mertesacker. I think there were quite a lot of fans who thought Koscielny did not have the ability or physique to be a top-level centre-back, but his performances last season have surely dispelled those doubts. Theo finished third (13%) and whilst he continues to frustrate, his goals and assists record cannot be ignored and compare favourably with almost anyone else in the division.
Almost half (44%) of voters decided that the Best Team Performance was the one where we beat the newly crowned European Champions in their own back-yard. Does beating Bayern Munich away make us the best team in Europe? Errr… no, but it did give us a boost after a couple of difficult weeks and we went undefeated in the league from that point onwards. Perhaps it was the best result of the season in terms of who we were playing, but as many commenters on this site have subsequently pointed out, you have to take it in context with the first leg result and the overall outcome was that we lost.
A victory over Spurs is always one to savour and even more so when it’s a second consecutive 5-2 home win in which a player we love to hate gets himself a well-deserved red card after only 15 minutes. It’s therefore really no surprise that this was the match which finished second in the poll with 24% followed by the early season win at Anfield with 17%, which actually was the one which got my vote.
It’s a slightly depressing fact that the category of Worst Team Performance was one of the most hotly contested in this seasons survey. There were votes for 14 different games which tells it’s own story, but in the end it was our two cup exits to lower league opposition which competed for the dubious honour with Blackburn at home just edging out Bradford away by a handful of votes. I don’t think anyone who witnessed those games, either in the flesh or on television, could quite believe how poorly we played. You could argue that the opposition worked hard to contain us, and they deserve some credit them for that, but it shouldn’t have been enough considering the gulf in quality between the two sets of players. Whether or not the managers stated prioritisation of league position over domestic cup glory played a part is debateable, especially when he did field a full strength team at Bradford, but there is no escaping the fact that these two games were low points in the season.
As I mentioned in the piece which launched the survey last month, in order to make things easier for voters I watched every goal we’d scored this season and drew up a shortlist of 12 for the Goal of the Season category. I have to say that I don’t feel it was a vintage season for goals. We’ve been spoilt over the years with numerous masterpieces by Bergkamp, Henry and even… ssshhhh… Van Persie, but this year I felt the pickings were slim and it was quickly apparent which three goals would fill the podium places.
Top of the heap was Lukas Podolski versus Montpellier in November which was voted the best goal by just over 27% of you with a further 20% placing it second or third. A volley which brings together technique and power is a combination which is a guaranteed vote winner and this demonstrated what our German international striker is capable of, even when he is being asked to play in a wider position than he may prefer.
The part Olivier Giroud played in the build-up should not be under-estimated either as the weight of the flicked chip made Podolski’s job that little bit easier and it was something which the Frenchman repeated for Gibbs goal at Swansea in the FA Cup third round, a strike which ultimately finished fourth in our poll.
In second place with a very similar overall percentage to the winner, but far fewer first choice votes was Theo Walcott’s hat-trick goal in the 7-3 thrashing of Newcastle just after Christmas which owed much to his ability to get to his feet quickly after being fouled – something which we had seen previously in the 5-3 win at Stamford Bridge in 2011-12. Third place went to Santi Cazorla (who had four goals short-listed for the award) for his long range strike at Upton Park.
After the derby defeat in early March, there were plenty of people (including some Gooners it has to be said) queuing up to proclaim a shift of power in North London, but as we now know, our noisy neighbours failed to deliver yet again as we went ten games unbeaten to subject them to another year in the Europa League.
Fans of other (usually less successful) clubs queued up to mock us for celebrating finishing fourth at the end of the season (even though it was more to do with beating Spurs in my opinion), but it did raise the question as to whether fans now regarded Champions League qualification as being a more important achievement than winning one of the domestic knock-out competitions. The question was perhaps a bit too black and white for some people’s liking as I know fans who would have put an FA Cup win above a top four finish, but probably not a League Cup triumph. Last year 73% of you put Champions League qualification ahead of domestic cup success, but this year that figure was down to 59% which is perhaps a reflection of how shameful our cup exits were and how frustrating it felt to see teams like Swansea and Wigan lifting trophies at Wembley.
What I don’t think is in doubt is that we are all agreed that a top four finish should not be regarded as the limit of Arsenal’s ambitions, so we asked how optimistic you were at the point you completed the survey about our prospects of competing for the title in 2013-14, recognising that the summer transfer dealings will play a large part in how we actually fare.
