Arsenal play a lovely, silky game of football and, when they are in full flight, their Premier League fixtures show them as a team that can match Barcelona. Unfortunately, they don’t match the Catalans in terms of finishing or defending. In fact, in both of those areas they themselves can be matched by quite a few of the ‘lesser’ English Premier League clubs.
It’s such a shame that a team that has the passing ability in it that this Arsenal team has somehow seems to come up short time and time again. Players with the ability of Fabregas, Arshavin, Van Persie, and Walcott should surely have won something in the past few seasons.
So where has it gone wrong? Or maybe it hasn’t gone wrong at all – as some Arsenal fans are bound to argue it’s just a question of time. Or economics. Or something else.
There are three things that stand out: the first is that thinking back to that truly great Arsenal team of a few years ago it’s not just their quality of passing that is remembered. Yes, Pires, Henry, Bergkamp, Ljungberg, etc could pass the ball – but the whole team had a solidity and physicality about it that just doesn’t seem to be there in the present one. When you remember Patrick Vieira, you remember his hardness as much as his undoubted skill. So often now when you see the two teams lining up for pre-match civilities the Arsenal team looks like a junior side compared to the team they’re playing against. That so-important spine running through the team doesn’t seem to be quite right.
Secondly, when you remember Ian Wright, Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp you remember their ruthless precision in making almost every chance count; something today’s strikers are a long way from achieving.
The final thing is that thhis lack of winning trophies has coincided with moving to the new stadium. It’s wonderful to watch Arsenal fixtures at the the stadium – but Arsenal left Highbury in May, 2006 and haven’t won anything since. In the current economic climate with so many clubs having suffered, has the cost of the stadium affected the budget for new players?
Although Arsene Wenger can take players of whom we know very little and make them into superstars, is it possible that this policy has rather been forced on him because most of the money is tied up elsewhere? Find out in the 2010/11 season by reserving your Arsenal tickets now.
