Another great season of football has just ended, much lesser late drama compared to last season but it was pretty much top draw all around. A season of great significance, especially for the Red Devils faithfuls who endured one of the worst heartbreaks in Premier League history, losing on the finest margins ever seen in the history of the 21 year plus league. To regain the title must have been very special taking into account the misery they suffered a year ago. The title was 'sort of' decided by the transfer window, with Manchester United making the decisive move for Robin van Persie, who made the difference. It was a poor year for English football, with no participants in the last eight of the Champions League, not seen for a very long time. The national team also seems to be heading nowhere.
On the other hand, Bayern Munich also redeemed themselves after the worst possible loss in a CL final - on their home ground and it was again very late on (1999 against Man Utd). It must have been a major relief for Arjen Robben, who played a big part in the final.
Before I head to Arsenal, I would like to pay a tribute to Sir Alex Ferguson for his magnificent contribution to Manchester United and football. It is safe to say he is the greatest ever in the footballing world and I say this sincerely as an Arsenal fan. I would have had a different opinion in 2004, but I think it's a clear one now. It has been a great rivalry over the years and there's no argument who came up on top, especially towards to the end. Will David Moyes be able to continue the legacy left by the great Scot? I'll leave that to my season preview in a couple of months.
To North London. Another battle that has gone down the wire, not for the title, but for 4th. How different things have been for Arsenal, with the champions tag in distant memory. A hard fought season for us, especially with the loss of Van Persie and Alex Song, clearly 2 of our biggest stars. A lost of 30 plus goals and a protection to our back four, I would have thought top 5 would be realistic. Having such expectations, 4th place seems like quite an achievement. No wonder we celebrated like that at St. James' Park on the final day (pic). And yes, it's as though we won something (shake of the head). Looking at how we dealt with the loss of our big players, grinding out some marginal 1-0 wins and being against the odds towards the end of the season, it was a 50/50 in terms of 4th placing. Thinking about the games against West Brom (Mertesacker sent off), Norwich (Controversial penalty awarded in the 85th minute), the 2 games against QPR, we won by a really fine margin. What a huge relief! Well, Spurs also had relied heavily on Gareth Bale, to "bale" them out over and over again, right until the last day. One point may be the difference, but the rewards are vast. A ticket to Europe's premier competition differentiates your spending power, "attraction" power to top players and of course the glamour of playing in the UCL. It was important indeed.
So let's have a look what went right, what went wrong and what needs to be done.
What Went Right
If you ask anyone , a top team being trophyless is a failure, and I agree with that. Despite that, we did a few things to save our season. I mean, we must have done more right than wrong to end up above Spurs, right?
The signings were key to me. I think we brought in 3 quality players (although it could have been better) who made quite a difference especially Super Santi Cazorla. Virtually an unknown to most in England, he made his stamp as early as the first game. As early on as that, he made a great impression with a string a solid performances. His intelligence, composure and talent very quickly made him our most important player . When we won our first game of the season against Liverpool, he made it instantly to our good books. His form did turn quite a bit in the middle, probably due to fatigue, but his overall contribution proved very vital to our season. Player of the season and definitely our signing of the season.
Giroud and Podolski were a bit different. They did well about half the time, which meant on some days you felt they were good players and the other days you thought about better players we could have signed. Giroud came with the reputation of being the French league's top scorer so he was a proven player to some extent. He did struggle with the intensity and physical aspect of England but it was a commendable first season. Podolski on the other hand is capped over 100 times by Germany and was already a household name. I think Podolski has a fantastic attitude judging by the way he pumps up the team and plays his part defending. Performance wise, I thought his level of consistency was very average. In some games, I thought he was very lost and out of the game. He has yet to meet my expectations.
I think in terms of defence it gets slightly confusing and sensitive. We did have some good defensive displays with the "new" partnership of Koscielny and Mertesacker. Not much of a positive point here, it's still a big work in progress.
What Went Wrong
For a season that is deemed a failure, this is the most important column. I will separate it into five
1) Transfer Policy
The number one reason why we are not competing for honours, our very own transfer policy. If what is said is true, the availability transfer funds was never a problem. The CEO or chairman always comes out saying "We have the funds if required". This leaves me to conclude we have been disastrous in terms of bringing in players. Potentially our best defensive signing Vermaelen is suddenly looking to be average, which leaves the rest of the signings to be unthinkable. Our most expensive player in history (at this point of writing) Arshavin, has turned out to be a failure. We are clearly doing many things wrongly to end up here. Are the scouts to be blamed as well? Yes.
From Santos, Squillaci to Gervinho, what kind of scouting do we actually have? This has been an outright horror show in terms of spotting for talent. We have gone for players in the range of 6mil to 13mil pounds, that's not going to get you anywhere near to challenging fortrophies. I am not in favour of anything Wenger has said in the last few years because the end result hasn't been up to standard for a club like ours. The cost of these bad transfers is to be blamed our failures regardless of what the people in charge say. The transfer policy needs to change immediately if things are going to change.
2) Defence
This has been an outstanding problem since Sol Campbell moved past his peak believe it or not. The number of disastrous performances by our defence has haunt us every season and this one was no different. From the days of Silvestre, Squillaci, Djourou to Gallas, there is no sign a we could ever find a Mr. Reliable equivalent to the John Terry of Chelsea or Rio Ferdinand of Man Utd (less now). So much of trial and error, even with our current defensive line up. Thinking about Vermaelen, Mertesacker and Koscielny, their level of consistency is certainly not up to standard most of the time. Competition these days are so intense and one bad game will screw you badly. Looking at our Champions League games against Milan and Bayern Munich, one bad game defensively screwed us real bad. How do you expect to come back from 4-0 in the first leg. Games in the league are separated by a few points, throw in a a few bad defensive displays and you're out. Steve Bould was supposedly brought in to sort this problem out but so far we are still very fragile and vulnerable, totally unacceptable! We need a massive shakeup.
3) Under-performing players
Apart from Arsene Wenger, I think many players have let us down. From our lacklustre defence to the player's lack of conviction in games. Time and time again we see Arsenal letting the lead slip by not closing out the match or defending properly, it's been a pure frustration.
On the keepers end, we have yet to see Szczesny become our safe pair of hands. He has shown a lot of potential early on but has failed to perform consistently. I think at times he has become overconfident and things has turned on him. The physical side is still his biggest hurdle on becoming a good keeper. Lots of room for improvement.
For me the midfield has let us down tremendously. Yes we lost Fabregas, Nasri and Song, which is one of the reasons. But players like Gervinho, Walcott, Chamberlain, Rosicky, Wilshere, Diaby and Ramsey. It's either they are injured or they are not performing which is a big problem. Our midfield has relied so heavily on Cazorla and Arteta and I really hope Wenger sees a need to clear out some players. We need to 'extract' more from our current players and this has to be done now.
4) Management
Ever since David Dein left us, I feel like there was no one to support Wenger directly, have a close relationship with him to run the club in its best way. When Ivan Gazidis arrived, he came with a good reputation for his contribution in the MLS which made sense he was going to bring the club to the next level. I actually think he has done a terrible job. I don't think he has done enough in terms of transfer dealings which has caused us to lose out on some top players. Being the CEO, he seems to have taken a less active role by delegating responsibilities to scouts and other personnel. I personally think he should be more hands-on in terms of transfer dealings. To me he lacks the negotiation skills and understanding of the Arsenal fans. That really bothers me. The way the Nasri and Fabregas saga turned out, I really question the competence of Gazidis. We were literally being held hostage in both transfers. We had no "hand to play" when it came to Nasri as it was to sell him now or lose him for free. A ridiculous predicament to be in. As for Fabregas, Barca told us it was maximum 40mil euros and we obliged. Some better negotiation would have got us more. But one thing we did right was the sell on clause, which makes Fabregas very hard to sell for Barcelona.
With Hill-Wood's departure, I still don't see any changes in the management of this club. Is Stan Kroenke being 'Silent Stan' good for the club? I think he needs to do more being a director of the club rather than attend meetings. It's one of the downsides having an owner who owns many more things. Another fascinating thing about the club is we have Russia's richest man as our major shareholder. We know how rich Roman Abramovich is, but this guy is even richer? Yes he is, but he does not play a role in the club. Usmanov gives some good opinions about the club and he's probably the guy we need to drive the club forward. He is passionate about the club and he's very loaded!
5) Not placing enough importance in cup competitions
Throughout Wenger's tenure, he has not lost a lower division club, ever. It is a feat even Alex Ferguson cannot match. But this season was different, not only did the streak finally end, it happened twice. Our lost to Blackburn in the FA Cup and to Bradford in the Capital One Cup made it to some of the most embarrassing defeats ever suffered by Arsenal. You know what the worst thing is, we lost to Blackburn on our home ground and Bradford is a League Two team, which means there are 2 divisions below us! Although the reward of winning these competitions is nothing compared to reaching the next round of UCL or a top 4 spot in the league, but we fans want silverware and we need it now! It has been way too long.
It has always been Wenger's policy to field "weaker" teams in the 2 competitions which I don't agree with most of the time. But coupled with the shocking performances by us against the two teams, it made it look like we didn't take the competition seriously, eventhough we had put out a team "good enough" to win the game. It was a first team against Bradford. Very shocking indeed.
What Needs to Be Done
BUY
We need to buy, seriously. If there's anything we can do for instant impact, we need to buy top players. The youth project has failed and we need a complete change of strategy if we are going to achieve anything. It seems like huge transfer funds are finally available for us to spend and there is no better time to spend big on some quality players who will take the team forward quickly. It might be Wenger's last season, could we see things change, I hope so.
SELL
There is so much deadwood in this team and we are paying some huge wages to these players. Absolutely terrible. If I am in charge I would be in a hurry to sell them as fast as possible, free up our wage bill and bring in some new players.
Players to sell
Abou Diaby, Gervinho, Chamakh, Bendtner, Djourou (loaned out only unfortunately), Park Chu Yong, Andre Santos, Tomas Rosicky, Arshavin (done), Squillaci (done), Denilson (done)
I mean look at the amount of players in this team who are just not good enough for us. We need to sell them NOW and recoup some transfer fees and free up our cash flow.I think we could get back some 20 mil pounds and free up 360k/week in wages.(9 players at 40k a week)
Conclusion
I would have never imagined we would reach such a trophy drought years ago. Now that it has become real, big changes are needed to rescue our history for the record books. People remember teams who won and less of teams who finish runners up or play good football. We need to start winning or people will look back in time to come and see us on par with a team like Spurs (no offence). I also think Wenger's legacy would be heavily criticised despite what he has done for this team if he does not start to deliver again. Some people will point out he transformed this club from average to one of the best. But that cannot be an ongoing excuse for our prolonged failure to win trophies. We need a huge overhaul at our club and the next big question is whether it can come from within.
~deyao~
