South of Spain Proves Too Hard For Young Guns

The Sun hate us and today they wrote that ‘Wenger was to blame for Arsenal’s poor display after being cocky enough to field a changed 11 from their convincing win against Wigan on Saturday. They only have themselves to blame for not sailing through their group in 1st place’. Then he went on to write about how Ronaldo was a ‘blistering player with the ability to be the best in the world in 2 years time’. The moral of the story is The Sun write a lot of bullshit.

Wenger was not arrogant and cocky, fact is, Wenger trusts his players because he is a manager that has faith in his team. If Wenger didn’t have faith in his team he wouldn’t have played our youngsters in the Carling Cup final last season, he wouldn’t have played our youngsters this season and he would have bought experience in the summer. He didn’t and the wanker who writes for The Sun is obviously jealous of our great run this season, therefore decided to take it out on Wenger. After all, Fergie spent £17m on Hargreaves who let’s face it has been shite for United so far.

Let’s move on; Arsenal were outclassed last night. Arsenal went to Sevilla and played for a draw because we were happy to get a point and coast through the group in top place. Arsenal could have won, but we needed our best team out. We may be able to win the league with youngsters but we cannot win the European Cup with youngsters because experience counts in Europe. Last night proved it. Last night we would have beaten any premier league team because our youngsters have had premier league experience, however we still need to mature in Europe. At least Wenger realised this now rather than later on in the stages where it would have turned out more fatal.

We needed Gallas last night. We needed our commander, our spine, our leader on the pitch. We needed Gallas to be there to help guide our delicate youngsters in the south of Spain. But he was not there and we paid for it. However it doesn’t matter, why? Because Arsenal will finish 2nd and probably face an elite club, but we play best when underdogs. When Arsenal are favourites, we buckle under pressure. When we reached the final against Barca we were underdogs in every match. Juventus were supposed to beat us 3-0, Madrid were supposed to ‘teach us a lesson’ (famously said by Ally McCoist on ITV1 before our match) but they didn’t and everyone was left gobsmacked. That was the year everyone started looking at Wenger as a special manager, something different to any other.

We need to get a big team in the champions league because Arsene is a great motivator. He will tell the players we can win the match and the players will respond to Monsieur Wenger because Wenger is the best coach in the world. Who will we get? I don’t know. Who would I like us to get? Milan. They are an ageing team, they are a team that have been poor this season because their main striker left 2 seasons ago for Chelsea, and ever since, they have lacked power up front. Kaka is class, but one player does not make a team. Flamini can outwit Kaka and deep down Flamini knows it, Flamini wants Kaka because he knows Kaka will be in his pocket when they meet.

Eboue was poor last night but Bendtner was immense. Bendtner can hold the ball up because his physical strength overrides his skill, he is a strong lad. Bendtner is a special player and Wenger knows this, hence why Arsene wants to keep hold of him even though we have 4 other strikers ready to play up front. Will Bendtner take Addy’s place this season? No. Arsene likes Addy but also likes Bendtner. So he faces a dilemma, just like he faced a dilemma when he sold Paddy in 2005 and had to decide whether to buy a replacement or not. In that case he didn’t and we paid the price for 2 years. However, if we bought a replacement we probably wouldn’t have seen a future legend blossom, better known as Fabregas.

To finish this, I came across pictures of our unbeaten record (28 Unbeaten) taken from Arsenal.com. I enjoyed looking at Adebayor celebrating the best goal he’s ever scored and probably will ever score against Spurs at the Lane when we taught them a lesson on how to play football.

Ramin