I do not mean that Arsene Wenger is planning on supplementing his Arsenal manager’s wages by taking up tightrope walking with the circus. And I do not mean the balancing act that the Frenchman has been forced into while having very little money to spend as the club paid off the debt of building a new stadium while needing to keep the fans happy and the team in the Champions League.
This time the balance that Wenger is looking for is in the team itself and he thinks that he has found that after a couple of clean sheets in a row, as an Arsenal.com report explains, helped in no small measure by the return from injury of Laurent Koscielny at the heart of our defence.
The Arsenal boss said, “The team is not only made of strikers, the team is made of a balance between strikers, midfielders and defenders and that’s what you want to get right until the end of the season.”
Last season it was our solid defence that was keeping the Gunners going, while we struggled for goals at the other end, especially after losing Podolski, Walcott and Ramsey to injury problems. But the addition of Welbeck and Alexis Sanchez to help Olivier Giroud up front has sorted out our striking problems and Walcott’s return will boost us further up front.
And while our midfield has almost always had plenty of craft and guile, it has often been seen as a bit too lightweight, although Mathieu Flamini and now Francis Coquelin have certainly given Arsenal more bite in the middle. So has Wenger finally got the balance right? Arsenal’s away game at Man City today will surely put that to the test.