Arsene Wenger is still hopeful and confident that his Arsenal team can have a good run in the Champions League this season, but he also knows that we need to get going as soon as possible, starting this evening with the visit of Galatasaray.
The game marks the 18th anniversary of the Frenchman taking over as Arsenal manager, a very successful spell with one notable exception. Despite a UEFA cup final in 2000 and a Champions League final in 2006, Wenger only has domestic titles to his name and he thinks that the way modern football has progressed makes it even harder for that to change, as an ESPN report reveals.
The Prof said, “Maybe it was more open 15 years ago than it is today. The concentration of the big players in a short number of clubs is much more than it was before.
“The Champions League is much predictable today. It’s harder to win it. If you make a poll tomorrow and say to people; ‘Give me four clubs who will win the Champions League?’ Then 80 or 90 percent will say these four clubs [Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Chelsea].
“I don’t think that we are one of the four who will be favourites to win it, but football is strange, and not always predictable. Let’s first qualify from the group stage and see.
“I would say this season is that this team has huge potential and it has to come out. At the moment I am more worried about that.”
If the Guuners are to give ourselves the best chance, we need to win the group and to do that we need to get going with a win over Galatasaray at the Emirates. And the key to that, in my opinion, is to keep a clean sheet. Only Aston Villa and Besiktas have failed to score against us this season and that is costing us points.
Even when we were awful in Dortmund, Arsenal were only undone by two bits of shocking defending and we would have been more than happy with a draw. Not just for tonight but throughout the competition, Arsenal need to start shutting teams out and that could just see Wenger’s hopes of a better run come true. What do you think Gooners?