The future is...?

For a long time now our season has been over, if not for our position in the table it is evident that our players have long considered the season over by the strong sentiment of “next season” running through many of the players interviews I have read of late.

In all honesty the premiership has been a two horse race this season, we have shown promise in both the cups especially the carling cup but as far as the premiership was concerned we were never going to be title challengers whilst dropping significant points to teams lower in the league.

We have beaten Liverpool three times this season, man united twice and drawn at Stamford Bridge with a makeshift team. This Sunday is the game we have all undoubtedly been waiting for, Chelsea at the emirates, win, lose or draw in this fixture and we will have the highest culmination of head-to-head points between the top four teams.
This proves we have the quality within our squad, so can we really mount a realistic title challenge next season?

I would like to forget the adage of “arsenal playing the most wonderful football” and look at the facts behind our failings this season.
Lets face it, football is simple, you either; win, lose or draw. Saying arsenal play great football is an actual fallacy. How can you be playing great football and lose? Personally, I find nothing great about watching a team play pretty football, have 70% possession, 20 shots on goal and lose 1-0. I think that is terrible football.

In 36 premiership games, we have scored 62 goals from 492 shots, which is a conversion rate of about 13%. We have also conceded 34 goals.

Ali was the greatest fighter ever, he was a showman, it was entertaining to watch him box, enchanting to listen to his interviews. On the other hand, we have, Lennox Lewis. Who was also a great fighter, but lacked charisma, his fights were boring and everything about him just seemed grey. Would we love Ali as much if he had the personality of Lennox?

As great as our football has been at times this season, I feel the entertaining thing for our fans would be to see our team win games more often than not. Of course, we want to see great football. However, a trophy would be nice too.

Bored of the Board

It has been a while since my last post,
since then the media has gone from having no arsenal news to being completely dominated by talk of the demise of our club!

As we ALL know now, Dein has gone, the man that brought 'le prof' to Arsenal ten years ago. The man that publicly stated that Arsene has a job for life at Arsenal. For the past ten years Dein and Wenger have been the Morcambe and Wise of our beloved club, bringing smiles to gooners far and wide!

Sick of all the negative news in the media around the time I was reluctant to comment, but now I feel much more positive about the situation. Over the past 10 years it has been reported that Arsene conducted ALL of his transfers for a measly £50 million, whilst we have seen ch£lski spend in excess of £300 million over the past 4 seasons!

Stevie wonder in the middle of a power cut can see that we need investment if we are going to continue competing at the top level.

Being slightly naive at the time I didn't really care that Dein had left, I was shocked but it didn't shake me up as much as the prospect of Wenger leaving. I have heard crazy reports of Wenger being touted as the next England manager... I dont think all the tea in china and pie's in lampards locker could convince a man as intelligent as Wenger to sip from this poison chalice.

I mean come on, would Arsene really give up working with players such as Thierry, Cesc, Denilson and Clichy to meet up a few times a year with Crouch, Lampard, Hargreaves and Ashley Cole..?

I also see straight threw the reports of Wenger leaving for another club, Italy is currently in turmoil and hasn't been at the cutting edge of European football for the past 4 seasons at least! The only two clubs in Spain big enough for a manager such as Wenger are Barca and Madrid. Both of which could not offer Wenger the stability we know he relishes in.

Ultimately I feel that the REAL reason Wenger will not leave arsenal (objectively speaking of course) is that we currently have the best stadium in England. The wealth of young players we currently have coming through the ranks have all been personally hand picked from far and wide by Wenger.

A few weeks ago I was privileged enough to see our youth team play, and they are playing the same type of passing and flowing football that our first team are playing, which of coarse has been devised by Wenger, the fact of the matter is their isn't a job in world football more attractive than the one Wenger currently has.

Recently Wenger was quoted stating that he will be selecting a new director of football to replace David Dein. My money is on Gerard Houillier, they are both very good friends, it was actually Houllier that recommended Wenger to Dein and introduced the pair of them when the managerial post at Arsenal was vacant.
Houllier also has a wealth of experience, both in the managerial sense and he held a position within the FFA in addition to his UEFA and FIFA posts.

Before I go, I'd just like to add that whilst I agree with Ronaldo being awarded PFA player of the year Cesc should definately have recieved young player!

Your money or your life!

How tempted was I to nip to my local bookies and put £10 on Bolton to win, at 4/1. On arsenals current form and Bolton’s success over arsenal in recent seasons it seems to be a banker!
Whilst sitting at home listening to talk sport, to find out that on the tenth minute Anelka scored against us. I felt like I had passed off my only chance in recent weeks as a gooner for some kind of sporting success.

I’m really starting to wonder how bad the UEFA cup will be…
ARSENAL SCORE!!
…ROSICKY!!! With a lump in my throat I start to wonder why I ever doubted my beloved Gooners!

At risk of putting my figurative foot in it again I’ll finish this post AFTER the match…!

So we won!
2-1; with our Spanish starlet netting his first premiership goal of the season.
(I read a stat somewhere that said he has had the most shots on target out of our entire squad!!!)
All seems to be well again in paradise…however it seems that this is not the case, whilst we won, from what I can make of it we should have still blown Bolton and fat Sam away! With a ridiculous 94% possession at half time! It was only until just after the break that we took the lead and then from then on we were comfortable!
Whilst we won, we still conceded first, which is very dangerous against a team such as Bolton and we still created far more chances than we were able to finish off!


Next up, man city!

Quiet before the storm...

As we gooners patiently wait for the Bolton game to commence, I have done my daily rounds of skysports.com, listened to the various pundits on sky sports news and also checked out a few other fellows bloggers on their opinions of today's game.

Many are calling this the most important game for us in chasing that illusive fourth champions league place, I however see past this game, realising that if we do win here but fall back into our old habits we might as well give Bolton our blessings now; as well as fourth place.

Gooners far and wide have been calling for new signings, but when I look at our current crop of players I see that with all biases aside, a fully FIT arsenal side have enough to contend with any side in the league. Our top striker, centre mid and centre back would walk into any top four starting eleven. but would we have lampard over cesc? ferdinand over toure? or crouch over robin?

What our squad really needs is a summer signing of faith...and possibly Queresma!

Come on you reds!