Not many Gooners could imagine Arsenal being as high as second in the League right now after our disastrous start to the season. Our usual horrendous injury list also disrupted the first half of our season, but since then we have gradually got our act together.
Our CEO Ivan Gazidis (like Wenger) regrets the early season problems, but sees things improving drastically in the next campaign. “We are happy with the way the squad has developed and we are very focused how we can make a positive end to the season,” Gazidis said in the Telegraph.
“After that it will be a question of how can we progress the team further so that we can have an even better season next year. We have a squad that’s clearly coming together. It’s a relatively young squad so it will continue to improve.
“We had a lot of new players this year who are beginning to gel together,” he added. “We had a lot of injuries at the beginning of the season as well. Also coming off a World Cup year there are a lot of complex issues.
“We were trying to put the jigsaws into the right places at the beginning of the season. I think everyone can see those pieces are now beginning to fit. It gives us great optimism for the future.”
Having said that, Gazidis also believes that the new Premier League TV deal will make the League even harder to win as the bonanza gets spent by less cash-rich sides. “I think the league is going to get more and more competitive,” he continued. “I do think that is a long-term trend. People talk about Financial Fair Play inhibiting competition.
“I think it’s completely the opposite because what it means is, you are going to see more Southamptons, more challenger teams coming in because revenue has gone up.
“Most of this new revenue is shared very, very equally around the league,”
“We are going to have teams … who will to be able to sign top class players. There will be teams that do it very, very well and they are going to be challenging for those top four places.”
Arsenal, as always, will be up there challenging as well. Just a couple of tweaks to cover players leaving, and perhaps one more marquee signing 🙂 and we will be good to go…..
With our team gelling together nicely. I would like us to focus on the EPL and UCL next season. Lets sent Wenger off on a high should he call it a day.
I’d love to head into next season and look at other teams thinking, ‘we will beat them’ as opposed to ‘if we’re lucky…’.
Beating the likes of United, City and Liverpool (and hopefully Chelsea in a couple of weeks) has really given the squad, and the fans, a lot more confidence. No drubbings this season, losing 2-0 to Chelsea away was our worst result of the season. Yes, we’d have all loved to have won, but as a worst result that really isn’t bad. United got battered by Leicester, Chelsea by Spurs, City by United and Liverpool by us.
Coquelin has given us confidence in facing the big teams. We know we can score, now we know we can defend too. Big powerhouse Yaya Toure couldn’t deal with Fellaini today, but Coquelin did. Heart of a lion that boy.
I didn’t expect us to finish so well. We have found a good form playing all these attack minded midfielders. Coquelin has been key for me this season. I think beating Chelsea and finishing second in EPL and fa cup win would be huge. Those are my hopes. I wish for Memphis Depay transfer,but I’m sure Van Gaal has that locked down.
Next season im looking forward to the gunners, being stronger and challenging for everything on all fronts! We are currently in 2nd place, just think if we didnt have set backs earlier in the season by getting poor results, who knows we could have been sitting at the top of the pile, looking down at our rivals! Coyg!
Another key to improving next season is always to remember and think Monaco at home. Its because of the fact that when we we’re drawn against them, we had this feeling of euphoria from the outset that they are not going to be a difficult team to best and we all know what happened. But when we changed our mentality when playing them away, we see a different Arsenal team playing. This, I believe is key to our improvement next season.
#team to beat
Not saying we’re going to win the league next season but I sure hope so, I think Wenger deserves that at least 1 more time. In my opinion the key to doing so is shifting the right players in and out. Selling Jack is complete nonsense by the way and he will be a major part of Arsenal soon enough. Off the top of my head there are others that needs to be sold or released way before even considering Jack. Podolski, Flamini, Sanogo, Diaby (might be harsh), Jenkinson, Campbell comes to mind…
You know, that Manchester City loss may really have helped us. Why? It gives Liverpool something to fight for again. They’ll only be 4 points behind City if they win tomorrow. That means they’ll be more motivated when they play Chelsea, and more likely to get a result.
Do I honestly believe we’ll catch Chelsea? No. Not a chance. But it’s something to entertain ourselves with until the end of the season. The stress of being top 4 has gone, we’re in second already so we have no one else to chase. Looking down at United and hoping to pull away is no fun, so why not look at Chelsea? It’s something to do! Being an Arsenal fan I’ve learned to love the stress at the end of every season. Like Stockholm syndrome. I need it!
lets hope chelsea lose vs us,united and liverpool. Then its a 3-horse race to the title.
after chelsea leave the emirates stadium in two weeks, they will know who is the better team,
Arsenal CAN improve next season IF Wenger does not go stupid in the transfer season by selling the best players or by doing something else stupid (like not getting defensive backups).
But during this past season Wenger has done something fantastic. He saw his mistakes, he swallowed his pride, he changed his tactics as needed, and he addressed some of the problem areas. I know this was not easy for him but he did it. (For example, getting Gabriel in January was a complete admission that he had failed to complete the sumer transfers).