It’s been almost 3 months since I watch Arsenal’s games. On TV ? No, internet live streaming. This year, specialized romanian television stations chose to broadcast some other country football leagues, probably because buying the TV rights for Barclays Premier League is not cheap at all. On the contrary. 🙁
Just for the record, as I write this post, we are in first place in Premier League (ahead teams like Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool or Chelsea) and also in first place in Group F of Champions League (ahead of Napoli and Borussia Dortmund).
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I don’t know what happened in this 3 months at Arsenal, but I noticed some things.
How many ? Let’s say 14. Until now.
1 – We may only have had one big transfer this summer, but this transfer was Mesut Özil. He is pure class and he is already giving his confidence to all the teammates.
2 – Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshire, players from our Youth Academy, are still young, yet experienced, and can only get better and better.
3 – With the addition of Mathieu Flamini and Mikel Arteta as our central midfielders, we are growing stronger at the back. It was more than obvious in our victory over Borussia Dortmund, when they helped our defence to organise better.
4 – Serge Gnarby (18) is the youngest in our not so young team anymore and he is a very talented player. He can go far, but for now, we really need an experienced player to be in that position. And with Tomas Rosicky (33) performance slowly fading, Santi Cazorla and Theo Walcott must take charge on flanks.
5 – So, with these 9 players + 2 with injuries, we have the most versatile and complete line of midfielders from all the top teams. If we can add constancy and consistency to that, we can be regular titles contenders. And we can start as favourites in every single match.
6 – As our lonely striker, Olivier Giroud is very impressive. He’s strong, with good technical skills, a powerful header and now is becoming more efficient in front of the net. He can definitely raise his bar at his predecessor’s level: Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry and Robin van Persie. He must play smart and try not to get injured, because we only have Nicklas Bendtner, and these aren’t encouraging news. Probably we need to buy a centre forward in the next transfer window, January 2014. Just in case.
7 – Although Arsène Wenger thinks Per Mertesacker is a good player and he trusts him a lot, I still believe that if we’ll play against teams with a lot of pace (like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munchen) Thomas Vermaelen or maybe other central defender should start in the first XI ahead of him.
8 – The other two defenders, Bacary Sagna and Kieran Gibbs, along with polish goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny, are as good as it gets.
9 – When we are in the lead, our players tend to relax and slow the tempo down. Maybe it is natural, but this tendency gives our opponents the time and space to control the ball more. Obviously, if this is happening constantly, we become more vulnerable in conceding a goal.
10 – Maybe we need to cut down the prices on our tickets a little bit. On Emirates, you can find the most expensive ones from all big european football clubs. Even so, the stands are packed, because we have a style of playing football that resemble with an orchestra magic sounds, instruments and musicians. And of course, the conductor. In Arsène I trust. 😉
11 – In matches with great rivals (like Manchester United, for example), we need to use our psyche at its best. With both mental strength and physical strength we can win even before the game starts, just like Roger Federer used to do.
12 – We reached a very high level which only great teams can be capable of: playing poorly and still winning. This can be explained in exactly 3 words: very high level.
13 – Almost all our players are fit and healthy. Hopefully, if we’ll stay like this until next may …
14 – WE CAN WIN 1 TITLE THIS SEASON. MAYBE 2. 🙂