What are our wishes for this season? by Brian Tole
Nothing to be happy about. I am worried, disappointed and flabberghasted at our current state.
I am extremely struggling to pick out a single lightest of all positives from this season. Nothing is working our way. The stats are telling a very harsh reality about us. We are as poor as we have ever been for years, decades, or even major parts of our entire history. Our squad has severe limitations. Let’s see….
The goalkeepers
Cech–
While he may be good at saving one on ones and saving us the embarassment of extreme humiliations.
He has been more than shocking this season. It was his fault we lost against Swansea and has never ever saved even a single penalty for us.
Ospina-
Height and lack of concentration seem to be his major problems. Can be a decent keeper on his day but we need better.
Defence.
Hector Bellerin –
He has been all talk this season. Criticising fans, criticising Sanchez for being a winner and he does nothing on the pitch. Shocking defensively, shocking crosses, shocking passing and shocking haircuts. Only has speed and dribbling as his qualities but he needs to improve his concentration on the pitch.
Mustafi –
Our worst defender this season. Gets tormented far too often. He has looked levels below his previous club Everton.
Koscielny-
He has not delivered this season. He has committed many defensive errors which have led to goals. We need him to improve exponentially.
Monreal –
He has been one of our best performers this season but has at times been inconsistent.
Nothing much to speak about our reserve defenders apart from that they are not good enough.
Midfield.
It was once our biggest strength but has let us down this season. Our play has been so poor in midfield, constantly losing balls, slow passing sideway, passing undetectable in defense and attack.
Elneny and Xhaka are our worst midfielders. Ramsey and Wilshere are just slightly better. Ozil is nowhere to be seen since he signed his new contract. Mkhitaryan looks worse than Iwobi and that really is saying something since Iwobi is Championship level.
Now lets move on to attack.
Aubameyang looks a very limited type of attacker. His only qualities look like pace, movement and limited finishing. Lacazette had been a fan favourite at first but like many in the current squad has deteriorated badly after settling with the team for a while. Welbeck looks nothing special with his only weapon being pace and physicality.
Our manager is a also one that is really regressing badly with age. The results so far have been shocking. An unknown team like Ostersunds almost produced a miracle against us. And almost in this sense being a very close call.
The tactics have been poor.
The squad has been incomplete.
The gameplan has been shocking.
Maybe the one positive we can take from all this is that Kroenke is reportedly seeking to be in the Champions league next season and maybe even, though it is far fetched, he might be willing to bring change before the season ends, should it look unlikely we are to qualify for the Champs league under current setup.
Brian