Arsene Wenger claimed that his current range of options up front are better than that of his Invincibles squad which dominated the Premier League back in 2004, but are they?
The Frenchman claimed that the likes of Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry, Robin Van Persie, Sylvain Wiltord and Roberto Pires could not live up to the battle with the current crop.
‘I think certainly numbers wise and quality wise, this is the best attacking unit,’ he said ahead of Wednesday’s Premier League clash with Watford.
‘We never had so many players who could perform and score goals – certainly never.
‘[Dennis] Bergkamp, [Thierry] Henry… and [Robin] Van Persie [came] behind them. [Sylvain] Wiltord, [Robert] Pires, it was not bad.’
The squad of 2004 obviously hold their place in history, and I cant foresee any English side ever repeating what we did in my lifetime.
The game has evolved somewhat over the past decade, and the standard of the division has strongly enhanced from the bottom side up to the top, but that has not stopped our current crop from scoring heavily.
This season we have already scored 50 Premier League goals, after only 22 matches, whereas our previous side only mustered 73 goals in the entire season, equalling less than 2 goals per match on average.
On the flip side, Theirry Henry scored 30 goals in that season, one less than the record of 31 which is held by Luis Suarez, Alan Shearer and Cristiano Ronaldo, while our top goalscorer Alexis Sanchez sits on 15 goals after over half of the campaign thus far.
The Chilean is of course sharing his role with Olivier Giroud, and will now face further competition for the centre-forward role following the return of Danny Welbeck, who marked his full return with a brace at the weekend.
Giroud has also been in top form this season, scoring in five consecutive matches in recent weeks, while Theo Walcott has also been a huge threat going forward, also chipping in with an impressive eight league goals thus far.
Are the current options worthy of being compared to the Invincibles?
Pat J
Not at all. Defending back then was a much higher standard, the game back then would snap these players in two. Rules were a little different too, back then off-side is off-side. Today the bottom few clubs sit in trying to make it a bore-fest, back then the bottom sixteen teams done that because we were just too good. I will say though, the pace of today’s game is allot more even than it was back then, down to Arsene no doubt.
Nostalgia really did a number on you. Defenders have gotten worse (also, tough tackles are somehow indicative of skill and not lack of control, precision, and getting into bad positions in the first place)’ linesmen have gotten worse; back then the bottom six defended for 90 minutes because they feared us, but now they defend for 90 minutes because they don’t fear us.
they are not that worth.. we have numbers now but few world class strikers, we had few strikers but world class, that’s why they won many titles including the ones we always fall short for 13 years now and completed the whole season scoring for fun
Let’s compare. How many of this side would have replaced anyone in that team. Not fair to even ask, is it. For me only Sanchez could shine a light, but I couldn’t put him in ahead of Pires or Ljungberg. But I feel optimistic and with a couple of good results we could be in with a squeak. We’ll know soon enough.
true
off topic..
Ramsey Coq Ozil
or
Coq Oxlade
Ozil
witch midfield three you Gooners will go..?
If Arsenal somehow overtake Chelsea to win the League, regain the FA Cup and get past Bayern Munich in the Champions League then we can start comparing. Until then zip it!
The big problem we have we this current crop is taking our chances and shutting out teams,if we can do that then we would start comparing. So far this season we have allowed in more penalties than any other club in the top six,that’s not good enough for the club vying for the league crown.