Coach

By Billy The Kid
January 27 2009

Boris Mellor: The idea of previewing the Everton game bores me to tears, it's impossible to preview this Arsenal Team; besides Myles Palmer has done a perfectly good review on ANR so what could I add? This will be a tough match for sure, Everton have drawn twice with Liverpool away in a week. So hopefully the team knows it will be tough and turn up for it, unlike the first half at Cardiff.

Anyway I said I wouldn't preview so let's stop right there. Instead I want to highlight a post that appeared on my forum after the Cardiff debacle. A short time ago critics of Wenger claimed that they were the real iconoclasts swimming against the stream. That they were being cruelly held down by his supporters, today nothing could be further from the truth. Just about everyone is a critic, and it's pretty hard to find arguments to support him.

I don't necessarily agree with the post below, I can see quite a few problems with it, but nonetheless it raises some interesting points about what is going on for Arsenal and Gooners at the present. So without further ado here is the post that Billy the Kid put on the forum:

A few weeks ago we were 13 points off of the top, now its 6 and all of this with a team that by Arsenal's recent standards is below par in the eyes of the supporters and I am one of those supporters.
But the truth of the matter is that not one of the top clubs is playing sensational football this year, everybody is scraping results and dropping points and the thing that makes me hopeful is that all of the other teams got their points early on in the season and are dropping them now with their first teams players mostly available and we are winning ugly.

Its been a long time since we could say that and yet, our CM are playing wide attacking positions because most of our wide players are injured, our pit bull terrier got malaria and was out for a long time and is probably still recovering, our maestro got ligament damage, our dynamo broke again and needs repairs back at the depot and we lost 5 games early on in the season because the young players filling in were still adapting and had lapses of concentration in games that cost us dearly.

But we have not lost in what is it 15 games now ?! I don't know I think that I'm seeing a pattern or maybe it's a learning curve?

The youngsters are growing now and have tasted the disappointment, they know what it is to lose and how that makes you feel and how the fans react when they are unhappy with the levels of commitment shown or not.

I think this is what has pulled recent games out of the fire and believe that one or two world class signings and returning players will give the younger ones even more confidence, God knows they have some of the experience now.

If we don't get A DM player in the window it will be a disappointment we need a monster in there that can dance and the problem with them is that they are either tied into contracts with big clubs or still undiscovered in the wilderness.

But we do need to get Arshavin and I can't state that enough.
That player attracts so much attention on the ball that he creates space and has the ability to be able to beat two players so no matter what defenders do he just makes things happen like Hleb but quicker and with a finish.

Teams fear us less on the break, (they won't if he signs) that is why we've had a lot of defensive issues, because the wide outlets have not been there for the players to use.

Arshavin could turn it our way, I'm sure of that and so as to be clear I am talking about winning the title. I don't know maybe I'm just trying to balance out the mid table obscurity argument being made in other threads, someone's got to draw a line when those statements are being made and are unqualified.
I said 5th preseason when we only signed Nasri and lost all of the key players that we did and I'm hoping that I'm proved wrong!
Mid table is just being silly now, isn't it ?!

Posted by: Billythekid

Date: 26 January, 2009 22:02

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