By Simon68
March 9 2007

With the press rubbing their hands in glee at Arsenals exit from two cups in a week, and even some Gunner sites in mourning, Simon68 a regular contributor to Arsenal Times asks has it been such a disastrous last 12 days or so for Gunners?

Judging by the number of people who are calling for Arsene Wenger's head, suggesting TH14 be transferred, that the team is too young, there are no goalscorers etc. etc. Even on this site, on the radio and other forums, together with the pundits and other assorted dickheads queuing up to gloat or have a pop at us you would have thought we were about to get relegated and had been knocked out of the cups at the first round. That's West Ham. Not Arsenal.

Look at the thing objectively and you will see it isn't half as bad as it's being painted.

1. Carling Cup Final - we reached the final having seen off WBA (away), Everton (away), Liverpool (away) & Tiny Totts (the last 2 sides we played off the park) and then gave Chelsea the run around for an hour before Diaby was injured. Even then it took one of their goals to be offside for them to win. All this with an average outfield player age of 20 odd, most of them reserves.
2. Blackburn in the Cup - first game only one team in it & denied a clear-cut penalty. Even then we only had half a first team. The replay was the same, including a stonewall penalty turned down and with even more first team players missing (6, I think).

3) PSV - Should have been out of sight in the tie by half time in the first game. We now know Henry was injured & shouldn't have played. Again, a depleted side. Home leg was much the same and Arsenal were missing our principal forwards - Henry, Rosicky & RvP. What other club could have achieved what we did in the CC using hardly any first team players?

What other team would have got through against Bolton away with the team we had out? Winning by seven clear goals wouldn’t have been unreasonable in that game. Blackburn? Always tough. Tougher still with all those players missing and poor refereeing. The results may have been desperately disappointing, I agree, but we played well for most of the time and sometimes quite brilliantly, with the odd poor periods. All we lacked was RvP or TH14 to convert all the chances we created. Of course, we need to improve - more goals from midfield, better at set pieces at both ends.

The point is that there are mitigating circumstances for all the games we lost or drew. I've said it before, what would Chelsea do without Drogba, Robben & Shevchenko, or ManU without Rooney, Ronaldo & Saha? That's what we have been handicapped with for a large part of the season. So please don't jump on the bandwagon no matter how disappointed you are. And for those already on it? Have a good think about it (or they could feck off to Chelsea. The Editor).

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