Arsenal do not need to sign 10 world class players like the pundits say by Konstantin Mitov
Hello everyone! Take that! Thierry Henry came out bombing Arsenal about how we need a new spine. Excuse me? Thierry has been pretty critical of Arsenal in the media. Not what you’d expect from one of the all time Arsenal favourites for sure.
He said Arsenal need 4 world class signings to create a new spine. Now there’s a statement that’s not true. Arsenal actually have a pretty neat squad. One Liverpool, Spurs and all the other CL wannabe teams would love to have. On paper the squad we have is solid, well balanced and it leaves us with a strong bench.
You cannot argue that a solid keeper would be nice, a new DM to compliment Coquelin and replace Arteta and Flamini is also good. Another CB would also be lovely and we all want that top striker – but you have to agree that Henry went a bit too far.
Giroud will be never be the number 1 striker on the planet, but you cannot argue that he gives his best. And his numbers do not lie. He’s Arsenal’s joint top-scorer in the league with Sanchez, having played 2 months less. He gives us presence in the box and he’s a target for headers. His finishing has also improved over the years he’s been with us.
Adding players just for the sake of it is not always the answer. If we want to improve our strikers, we have to buy something better than Giroud. Do you see too many available? Apart from Aguero, Suarez and Lewandowski not too many clubs have the perfect striker.
Besides, our squad was the only team to make 8 consecutive wins. That happened when our players returned from injury. Injuries which come from the lack of rotation combined with bad fitness preparation. Football has become a lot more scientific than just 22 people kicking the ball around.
Tactical preparation is another aspect we are behind. Wenger still started the season trying to bomb forward against our opponents leading to some silly points dropped. When we reverted to the strengths of the players, we beat Man City away.
What statistics showed is that when we don’t dominate possession we more often than not win games. The Liverpool game was another example of just when the opponents thought they had the game under control, we explode with 3 goals.
Defending as a unit is also something we just discovered, after we let Stoke score 3 goals from nowhere against us. Defending free kicks is also something we discovered very recently and still we are very high on the list of teams conceding from free kicks.
Let’s not get started on playing players out of position. Ozil and Ramsey on the wings? Two of our slowest players going down the wing. And substitutions coming after the 70th minute of every game. I mean if we want to win a game at all costs, why do we leave only 20 minutes to do it?
Let’s be honest, those things are not solved by signings. I’ve been crying out for years to sign some quality, when we’ve obviously lacked players in certain positions. For the first time I actually feel that the problem is no longer the signings.
There’s one man responsible for this. Monsieur Wenger has Walcott and Rosicky who cannot get off the bench. He finally has no excuses. The money is there, the sponsorship is good, we have a great stadium, what else does he need? The platform is set. He needs to provide more than a top 4 finish.
Managers like Simeone and Klopp took average clubs to league titles, in divisions which have clubs like Bayern, Barca and Real. We are competing with top clubs in decline and we cannot do it. We need fresh ideas. Or the script written for the past 10 years will repeat itself yet again.
Konstantin Mitov