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 Arsène’s dream is just that
These players will win nothing
I’m not sure what was worse yesterday: the crushing inevitability of the result once Drogba got the opener or Arsène Wenger’s straw-clutching. If the disallowed goal early in the second half had stood we might not have lost 3-0, but we’d have still lost, not least because we never looked like scoring one goal, (that scramble notwithstanding) never mind two or three. After the ineffectual Eduardo had gone off we had Carlos Vela, a small young player who is best described as ‘promising’, whereas they had Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba, two of the most proficient, powerful and skilled forwards in world football. I’m not sure if there’s a better illustration of the chasm, (plunging canyon might be more accurate) between Arsenal and the best team in the league.
The boss must know after talking up this team’s chances last week that his great dream will never be realised for the simple fact that these players aren’t good enough to win the league. I’m not convinced they’re good enough to win anything, actually, as by the time they get to the latter stages of cup competitions they’re likely to face teams who are better than them. There’s no sense in berating a player such as Denilson – he’s a footballer trying to earn a decent living in the best league in the world. He’s not a bad player, but a team with serious pretensions of winning the league wouldn’t have him in their starting eleven. The same could be said of many of our players. The two obvious deficiencies in this Arsenal team are firstly, a lack of physical presence and secondly a total absence of leadership. At two nil down Chelsea or Man U would be looking to get back in the game, but after the hour mark yesterday there was a palpable sense that the players knew they had no chance of scoring even one goal. My initial instinct on seeing Cesc’s head go down was to shout at him to show some leadership, but on reflection he was just demonstrating the futility of the situation; I’ve said before how intelligent a footballer Cesc is and he has surely drawn his own conclusions about the future progression his career should take. So... we won’t win the league this year and I think the best we can hope is to finish third behind Man U. If and when Chelsea clinch the title next May (or earlier, the way things are going) that’ll mean those two teams will have shared the last six league titles. How depressing. Third place is no disaster in the world at large and would be cause for wild partying at White Hart Lane, Eastlands or Villa Park, but I find it hard to swallow any Arsenal team not challenging for the title and being totally outclassed at home to another London team in the way we saw yesterday. As Kevin says in his editorial, Arsenal cannot go on charging us such exorbitant prices if there’s no chance of winning anything. Ergo, we either see significant player investment in January – some players over six foot and 21 years of age being a pre-requisite – or they reduce season ticket costs next time to acknowledge the sad reality of this team’s limited resources. One final point. Can we employ either some sports psychologists or force the players to go out and get trashed in a good old-fashioned bonding session? Arshavin is moping around like an emo kid sat on a bench in a provincial shopping centre because he’s not going to the World Cup, Almunia looks like he should be in a 1970’s Woody Allen film fretting about his existential state and Eduardo is playing like someone apologising for being born. It’s ridiculous. As they were reading out the Chelsea team yesterday I was struck by just how many thoroughly unpleasant and loathsome individuals they have – Terry, Lampard, Drogba, Mikel, Cole. I’d rather sit down with the devil himself. But while those players are arrogant, bullying and prone to cheating, they are, sadly, winners. In the same way we’ve had players like Vieira, Bergkamp and Keown in the past who helped us win league titles you need a nasty side to win trophies and we need to toughen up or face yet another disappointing season that has petered out by mid March.
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Posted 30th Nov 2009
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