I’m going to go early in my predictions for next season, if Arsenal lose both Xhaka and Partey this summer we will again come up short in the title race.
It’s believed both have personal reasons for wanting to leave London and Mikel Arteta has enough respect for both not to stand in their way, if that’s what they have decided with their families. What the dressing room will lose though, especially in the case of Xhaka, is two of the few leaders we have.
I’m not sure Partey is a leader?
I was amazed at his lack of composure when the pressure increased last campaign. He should have at least had the experience where his younger teammates could look to him and trust him to do the basic things right.
He was so bad he was eventually dropped, and I can understand that his manager might look at his age, his injury record and question is he going to get any better?
Yet whenever I was asked my prediction on who would be Champions, I always picked Man City.
I questioned would one of the youngest squad’s in the division have the mentality to cope with the pressure of a title race, when the majority of the same group the year before were crippled by the fear of failure just to reach 4th?
We smartly recruited individuals with experience of winning. The likes of Jesus, Zinchenko and Jorginho walked straight into a new locker room and became the main personalities.
Watch how all three communicate during games, ordering their peers where they should be and almost teaching them game management.
In the end though it wasn’t enough compared to Pep Guardiola’s team, who have years of knowledge of dealing with must win conditions every few days.
Don’t get me wrong, there were signs of our mindset improving, grinding out wins away from home in a manner that previous versions of Gooners wouldn’t have been able too.
Yet we needed more.
The quality is there, we showed that in our points total and how long we were top of the table for.
Yet in football the margin between success and failure is so small. You could argue the difference between us finishing 1st and runners up could be we just needed a couple more senior professionals around the place.
Even if they didn’t play every week, just to have their influence in training.
So, if you’re like me and believe a lack of experience was key to our loss of form in April and May, how does losing 2 of our oldest players help?
Surely that’s a massive step back?
I believe that even if we make the signings we want to make.
I wouldn’t call Havertz a character or mentally tough, I saw him numerous times get bullied at the Bridge and go missing when things were going wrong for Chelsea.
Rice is a Captain at West Ham so has leadership qualities, but can’t at 24 do it on his own. It would again be putting a huge responsibility on young shoulders.
Odegaard leads by example but is not vocal, Zinchenko and Jesus perhaps are too emotional at times?
One of the biggest takeaways from Amazon’s All or Nothing Series was how vocal Xhaka is and how people listen when he speaks.
I passionately hold the view that in sport talent gets you so far.
What decides the good from the great is who has the mentality.
That’s why Arsenal are good not great.
When it mattered the title race was too big a step.
Every single youngster should be better for that experience and can use adversity to inspire them.
They need help though from senior pros.
You don’t win titles without them.
It seems we are more likely to lose experienced players than add them to our squad.
I’m truly shocked that a manager who claims to sit down and analyse every department of the club and assess where things went wrong, hasn’t come to the conclusion that he put too much faith in youth.
I have heard several ex-players claim, ‘you’re only as good as the senior professionals around you’.
These are the individuals who set the standards on and off the pitch. Who lead by example, setting principles and an ethos.
They are the link between players and coaches.
They have seen enough never to get carried away when the team is being hyped, but also don’t get too downbeat when things are going wrong.
I can’t think of too many winning teams who didn’t have senior pros.
Think about the Invincibles; Lehman, Lauren, Campbell, Vieira, Silva, Bergkamp, Henry, etc, were all experienced.
Even the squad players had know-how; Keown, Parlour, Edu, Wiltord, Kanu, etc.
It’s ironic that in a year where we honour the 20th anniversary of when we last lifted the Prem, we haven’t learnt the key reason how it happened.
Arsenal didn’t have enough senior pros last season.
Can we really afford to lose two at the same time?
Dan
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