What a strange, strange season.
For a long time, it seems as if all of the Top Four teams are weaker than ever before. Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool are losing a ridiculously high number of games this year, and as a result teams like Aston Villa, Spurs, Manchester City and even Birmingham aren’t a million miles away.
Last season, the Champions lost 4 games and runners up lost 2. The year before, the title-winners lost 5 games and second place lost 3, and it was exactly the same the season before that.
But this year, Chelsea have lost 3 (and should have lost today at West Ham), United have lost 5 and Arsenal have lost 4 games. And Liverpool, have amassed an amazing 7 defeats.
And we haven’t even reached the halfway point of the season yet.
The fact is that for whatever reason, the Premier League is there for the taking this season and no-one is taking advantage. Chelsea’s excellent start has stuttered slightly, and the ageing squad seems to be feeling the effects of the campaign, United have struggled with the absence of Ronaldo and have significant injuries, and Arsenal haven’t played well since Van Persie got injured. And the size of Liverpool’s problems are surprising even to me.
The infuriating thing is that Arsenal are just about still in the hunt and you feel that if Arsene addressed our problems then we’d be top of the table and be taking advantage of the rest of the leagues collective problems. I firmly believe that if Van Persie was still fit then we’d be a good 6 points better off this season.
But that’s just one of the problems this season. Despite his match defining penalty save yesterday, Almunia is simply not good enough. Lehmann had his critics but the bottom line was that he was a damn fine goalkeeper, and his performances in the 49 game unbeaten run were magnificent. You can’t argue with that. The problem with Almunia is that he just doesn’t have that consistency that our previous goalkeepers had.
Alex Ferguson has gone on record saying that once Peter Schmeichel moved away from Manchester United they struggled to find a proper replacement until Edwin Van Der Sar joined in 2005. Arsenal seem to have a similar problem.
I hate to bring up Van Persie again, but his injury for the rest of the season is just massive. Firstly, his goalscoring and assist contribution is priceless – the goal and assist ratio he had before he was injured was sensational. Another, and equally important asset he had was his desire as well as the impact his presence had on the team. He is such a motivated player and you can see how much winning means to the guy – every time he scored a goal he’d celebrate by going crazy. And you can tell his passion rubbed off the on others – since he’s been out we’ve been lethargic and sloppy and there just isn’t that desire to win. Against Sunderland, Chelsea, Liverpool and Burnley the effort was woeful. There just isn’t that urgency anymore.
At Anfield, it took a stupid own goal and a piece of magic from the Russian to take home all 3 points. We can’t rely on Arshavin again and again to save the day.
And yesterday against Hull, it was another slow and sluggish performance, and not enough players were up for it.
But amazingly despite our failings, we currently sit in 3rd spot in the league, 6 points behind Chelsea with a game in hand. In any other season, we’d be trailing by a much larger margin and would be completely out of the race.
So Arsene needs to sort it out, because the league is there for the taking.
When you think back to the 2007-2008 season when we had Flamini, Hleb, Fabregas, Rosicky, Adebayor (and later Eduardo) in top gear, it’s obvious that team would have cruised to the title this year.
We’ve thrown points away against Burnley and Sunderland in the last month, so we need to get our act together and play as if we want to win the league.
If that means bollockings by Wenger every week then so be it.
Because Chelsea and Manchester United aren’t going to be slipping up every week until May.
Miserable, whining little man.
So many positives to find yet your brain just can’t work that way.
Diaby has proved he’ll be outstanding over the next few years.
We won comfortably with a tired team and without Cesc or VP amongst many others.
Almunia saved a pen, which everyone has ignored.
Verminator and Gallas continue to be outstanding.
Eboue had a great game and seems to get better all the time.
Played with out 4th choice left back.
Song continues to be outstanding, week after week despite never being rested.
Eduardo scored and will take another step towards fitness and confidence.
Nasri has unbelievable technique, just take a look at him when he’s on the ball. And he’s still so young. Was also up for a fight which is always good to see.
Denilson scored direct from a free kick. This could encourage him to try and do it regularly, adding possibly another 5-10 goals to the team.
Arsharvin looks more and more up for it every game despite suffering with niggling injuries.
Theo has unbelievable speed and pins teams back into their own half as they can’t play a high line with him on the pitch…..despite what he may or may not achieve with the ball. That will come…he’s still young. Learn your lesson from Songs rise into a top top holding midfielder.
So many positives, yet you focus on your fears and whining. Try and have courage. Every squad is stretched at this time of year because of the fixture schedule. Look at Man U for god’s sake. Chelski without Essien can’t get a result. Liverpool are all over the place and should sack Benitez but can’t afford it!
Stop being so damn negative!
yeah gallas and vern were amazing against burnley wasn’t they hambi
Wow, and here’s me thinking we were talking about the Hull game.
BTW – do you know the meaning of the word ‘supporter’?
Hambi,
I agree with you entirely. I find it strange that some people spend all their energy and time looking for or imagining weaknesses in our team. They must be pretty miserable. Win or lose is the same with them! Supporters support the team regardless! All the whining about weaknesses in the team when the team is proudly seated third in the table, 6 points behind Chelsea and with a game in hand is frankly misplaced.
I love fans who say ‘you don’t support the team’, as if a supporter isn’t allowed to make observations and must blindly support the club whatever happens.
The fact of the matter is Arsenal haven’t won the league for the last 5 years now, and haven’t looked close to doing it since. What if, hypothetically, Arsenal somehow managed to do a Leeds United and collapsed into the depths of the lower leagues (again, I’m not saying it’ll happen, but hypothetically) would you all be happy with that?
I laugh when people seem to thing their club is somehow is exempt from criticism and get all defensive. People criticise religion but the completely blind faith some ‘fans’ display is a million times worse.