I have a feeling that there will be a lot of Arsenal fans out there; as well as a much bigger percentage of the football media, who I think have got an unbalanced dislike of the Gunners and a strange wish to see Arsene Wenger and his players fail, that will see the signs of confidence at the Emirates stadium as being misguided and having no real basis in reality.
You must be joking they will scoff, you were miles behind Chelsea last year, you blew your best chance in a decade the season before and you are a bunch of bottlers when the going gets tough. Well I for one disagree and it seems that our brilliant young Spanish right back Hector Bellerin feels the same way.
The 20-year old has been speaking to Arsenal Player and he made it perfectly clear that he has no doubts about the ability of the Gunners to mix it with the best in the Premier League and even the Champions League. In fact there is no club that he feels Arsenal should fear.
Bellerin has not suffered the same disappointing blows as many of his Arsenal team mates like Theo Walcott who has now been a member of the first team squad for longer than any other, nearly 10 years. And I think a lot of his confidence comes with his own personal experience of breaking into the starting line up and doing well, as he admits himself to it being one of his goals already achieved.
Bellerin said, “My goal has always been to improve, work hard and fight for a place in the starting XI. Last season I got the minutes that I was hoping for and I hope that next season I can do the same.
“I’m really, really excited for the new season. The way we finished this season, the team have really come together and we’ve had some great performances, especially since the New Year.
“The team really feel like we can beat any team in the world with the performances we’ve had, so we’re all really, really excited to hopefully start the season with the right mindset and with the right results. Hopefully by the end of next season we can win some more trophies.
“We need to start with the confidence that we finished this season with. That’s going to important for us, to keep pushing and start where we left off at the end of last season.”
The thing is, Gooners, that although some may say this confidence is misplaced, it is also a real bonus. We have all heard about how half the battle in professional sport is in the mind. Positive Mental Attitude and all that, so if Bellerin wants to believe that Arsenal have the strength and talent to beat the very best and win any competition we enter, what is so wrong with that?