Well, the season has been awful so far. The Gunners have only collected 7 points from 7 matches, scoring 10 goals, but notably, letting in 16. Worst of all, though, is that we are sitting down in the bottom third of the table in 15th position. The future does not look bright for the Gunners or for us fans who love this team and cheer for them week after week. Well, I am a Gunners fan, and I say no! the future does look bright for us.
“How is that,” I hear the pessimistic bunch among you say? Well let me tell you…
First I would like to point out the league title race. We have to be realistic that it’s out of reach with four defeats already. I think all we have to do is focus on winning most of our coming games and hopefully the other teams will drop points, this way we can secure a Champions League spot for next season and who knows how things may turn out.
The way I see it is that we should focus on the Carling Cup and FA Cup this season. The Champions League is still too far for us, the best I see us doing is reaching the first or second knockout stages, and for me this will be a good result.
Now, back to our topic how will we get back on track. We have a decent squad, an excellent coach and a lot of injuries. I think that this team has a lot to offer, the only problem we have is consistency… let’s face it, this has been a problem at The Emirates for the past five or six years. The departure of our star player(s) only affected the team’s confidence and put them under pressure both from the media, as well as from us fans.
With players like Vermelean and Diaby coming back soon, and Wilshere and Sagna after Christmas, I think the squad is actually pretty good. What we need is a change in tactics and the way we select the players who play the matches. For example, if you watched the Spurs game last week we had many players on the field who were not performing at all. For me, Walcott, Ramsey, Sagna, even Gervinho did not play well at all, but yet no change in game plan happened and no change in personnel.
I suggest a change in formation before anything else. Obviously, neither Ramsey nor Arteta posses the creative passing that Fabregas gave us. It’s not a matter of replacing Fabregas, it’s a matter of playing the best football we can with the players we have. Switch it to 4-4-2, push someone alongside RVP so that when he tracks back to get the ball, he’d still have someone in front of him keeping the defenders busy. Try playing the players in new positions. We might discover that they fit in there. Walcott wants to play up top, so let him. Try Santos as right-back or winger; try Arshavin in a more central role so that he does not waste all of his energy running after the ball on the wings… we know he can pass the ball but more importantly he can shoot from distance.
I think that the cure for this Arsenal team is to forget the Fabregas era and build a whole new game-plan, involving the actual squad, not trying to paper over cracks.
WTTGT Writer: Khalid Sunbol
