Tim Charlesworth
Football journalism is a funny old thing. It’s wonderfully easy these days for people to set up their own blogs and broadcast their opinions to the world. This creates some true gems, but it also creates a lot of click-baiting and crap writing. One of the most annoying features of rubbish football writing is the fashion for: ‘5 things Arsenal can do to win the league’, or ’10 things we learnt from the game on Saturday’. Such things are a sure sign of lazy journalism and have remarkably infiltrated the mainstream newspapers. Of course you would never find such tosh in The Gooner. So here’s ten things that haven’t happened this season:
1. Granit Xhaka has not been sent off
This will happen.
2. Arsene Wenger has not seriously rotated the team
This worries me. The performance against Burnley was flat and, refereeing errors aside, that flatness really should have cost us two points. It was the performance of a team that had played three tough matches in 8 days. The effects of a failure to rotate will increase as the season proceeds. Wenger attempted a bit of rotation and it very nearly backfired against Southampton (selecting Perez instead of Sanchez at CF) After a poor start, perhaps Wenger has been reluctant to sacrifice current performance for future gain?
3. Arsenal haven’t learnt how to prepare for a football season
Not so many years ago, we tended to fly out of the blocks at the start of the season. A 6-1 opening-day win at Everton in 2009 sticks in my mind, but times have changed. Wenger used to take his players on idyllic pre-season tours of the Austrian hills, away from the media glare, and this appeared to set them up well. He was reluctant to accept that these tours should be sacrificed at the altar of the commercial global pre-season tour, and it seems he was right to object. Ever since he conceded defeat, our preparations for the start of the season have suffered. Our last tour of Austria was in 2010, and we have won only one opening day fixture in the following six seasons, including gut-wrenching home defeats in three of the last four.
Wenger’s admission that ‘We are not ready physically’ after the Liverpool game was startling (although the evidence of our eyes suggested that he was right). Some fans found this unforgivable from a professional sports club, although we should point out that Wenger was really making a point about the proximity of the game to the end of Euro 16. Our lack of preparation contrasted with Man City, who really hit the ground running. However, City were forced to take this approach as they had to play a Champions League qualifier in the first weeks of the season. This is a match with enormous financial consequences, that no club can afford to be underprepared for, so City had to get their players ready earlier, whereas Wenger seemed keen to ensure that his international players got a proper break from football. I wonder whether these different approaches will have an effect later in the season. Is it possible that Man City will fade sooner than Arsenal, who effectively started the season later?
4. Giroud hasn’t started a match
This has been a genuine surprise to most. The Alexis as No 9 experiment seems to be a success, and he has displaced Giroud as first choice, for the time being at least. Giroud is not a man to whinge to the media, so we are not really sure what is going on. There are suspicions in some circles that his ‘toe injury’ is more diplomatic than real.
This emergence of Alexis, rather supports the theory that Wenger has been looking to replace Giroud since the day he bought him as back up to RVP. Failed attempts to sign Saurez were followed, last season, by an attempt to convert Theo, and later in the season to drop Giroud for Welbeck. Alexis is the latest in a long line of alternatives to Giroud. So far, he looks the pick of the bunch.
Sanchez clearly lacks the physical presence of Giroud in leading the line, but excels in the role of ‘lead presser’. Modern centre forwards must act as the ‘playmaker’ when it comes to pressing opposition defenders in possession. Sanchez is blessed with speed, agility and aggression, and he is light years ahead of Giroud as the advanced co-ordinator of pressing moves. Centre Halves up and down the land will have noted the error that Sanchez harried Cahill into for the opening goal against Chelsea. As a result, they will all be more cautious in possession and this will make it harder for their teams to retain possession and to build moves from the back
5. Mustafi hasn’t had a bad game
I am really over-excited about this. Like all true Arsenal fans, I adore a good centre half. It is way too early to judge, but there are real signs here that Mustafi is going to be a good player and that he can form a partnership with Koscielny. If so, wow. Really good centre-half partnerships are like gold dust. We see a genuinely good new one at Arsenal twice in a decade, if we’re lucky. This may not be the most glamorous or headline-catching development of the season, but it could end up being the most important.
6. Bellerin hasn’t had a rest
I am worried about this guy. He is still young, and the pace that he runs at puts a lot of strain on his body. If he picks up a serious injury, we will miss him, not only because he is a fabulous player, but because his potential replacements are of a considerably lower quality (Maitland-Niles, Debuchy, Jenkinson, Holding?, [Mustafi?]). Wenger finds it (understandably) hard to tinker with a winning team, but this can result in overplaying and injuries. Wilshere is the most obvious potential victim of this problem, but others have suffered too, and young players who are too keen for their own good, are particularly vulnerable.
Other players that are overdue a rest are Ozil, Sanchez and Cazorla (who will not join Spain in the interlull and will therefore get a rest). Does Wenger have the courage to rotate Ozil and Sanchez? If he does not, what are the consequences in terms of performances and injuries?
7. Mike Dean hasn’t refereed us
This is a bit of a relief to everyone (possibly including Mike Dean). I am not one for conspiracy theories, so I have to accept that by some enormous co-incidence, this guy repeatedly has off-days when refereeing Arsenal and that co-incidentally his mistakes all happen to work against Arsenal.
8. Our captain hasn’t played for us yet
The position of the Arsenal captain is becoming somewhat akin to the cursed ‘Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher’ in the Harry Potter books. For donkey’s years (excuse pun), Tony Adams was our captain, and we became used to a captain being a spiritual leader, as well as a leading performer on the pitch. The next four captains (Vieira, Gallas, Fabregas, RVP) appear to have been given the honour as a kind of wage substitute, in an attempt to keep them at the club (all four left). Under Vieira and Henry, we continued to thrive, but Gallas, Fabregas and RVP were progressively more and more disappointing. Wenger seems to have over-reacted to this problem by appointing captains that he knows will not be coveted by other clubs because they can’t get in the Arsenal team.
The new era kicked-off with Vermaelen, but Wenger’s policy backfired. In their general voracity to acquire as many Arsenal players as possible, Barcelona failed to notice that Thomas couldn’t get into the Arsenal team and bought him anyway, making him the third Captain to leave for Barcelona in 8 years. This was getting a bit silly, so Wenger hit upon a new idea. He was fairly confident that Barcelona wouldn’t try to buy Arteta because they had already got rid of him once, so Arteta became captain. He hardly played at all last season, and was probably the worst performer in the entire squad (Debuchy gave him a run for his money). Wenger’s next idea was to appoint a club captain who, not only won’t play regularly, but will not play at all. The BFG will miss at least half the season with a knee injury and will then have to get past 4 very able competitors for his position (Koscielny, Mustafi, Gabriel and Holding). If Arsene offered me the captaincy (admittedly an improbable event), I know which direction I would run in.
9. Theo Walcott’s form hasn’t deserted him
Many of us had written Theo off after last season. In fact, he was a revelation in the early months of 2015/16, looking like he had finally cracked the ‘striker’s code’. He completely failed to maintain his level as the season wore on and couldn’t even keep his place in the team. This season, he has started on fire again, and once more looks like a ‘new player’ with improved battling, goals and positional qualities. If he can keep it up this time our squad will be much the stronger.
10. St Totteringham hasn’t come (or even booked his ticket)
Look, I’m really sorry about this, but the fact is that Tottenham are really good at football, in a way that they haven’t been in my living memory. I would not be that surprised if Spurs and Arsenal finished first and second this season, for the first time ever. If so, St Totteringham’s 22nd consecutive arrival would have more meaning that all those that went before it. There is still some hope that their squad will struggle with the rigours of the Champions League, but even so, I expect them to do well. Whisper it, but last season the team who had the longest unbeaten run at the start of the season was… Leicester. On a happy note, that run came to an end when we smashed them 5-2 away (Theo was excellent), after which no-one took them seriously for a couple of months…
If you liked this article, you might enjoy Tim’s book “It’s Happened Again”, which is now available on Amazon (print and Kindle versions). Read a sample chapter at www.itshappenedagain.com
