Hello once again friends, hope we are all doing fine? I have been thinking, now that Arsenal have been dumped out of the Europa league, won’t it be a good time for our manager, Mikel Arteta to start building his team? Won’t he like to start using the players he intends using in the future, right now?
I love the fact that our exit from the Europa league generated a lot of reactions from both the fans of Arsenal and Arsenal FC. What this means is that despite our impression about Arteta, we still believe we should be doing better than how we are doing at the moment. Well, we are out but we are not down yet. The only positivity I can take out of our defeat last Thursday is the opportunity dropping out of Europe affords Arsenal.
It won’t be out of place for me to request that we start building for next season, now! We are out of Europe and from the look of things; we may even not qualify to play in Europe next season. Based on this, I feel we should not really kill ourselves over trying to end the season on a high. If we qualify for Europe, then we would have ended the season on a high; but if we don’t, no matter our league position at the end of the season, we would have failed. So what do we do now? Let us start preparing for next season.
Arteta doesn’t really have the luxury of playing with players he feels comfortable with. He came to Arsenal mid season and he was stuck with the same old players Arsenal had during Emery’s time. Even during the January transfer window, he was only provided with two players who came on loan.
Since he finds himself in this type of situation, he would do well to start making use of players he feels he can work with next season. He may start by benching players who don’t really figure in his plans and start making use of those who figure in his plan. The likes of Saka and Martinelli, should start more regularly now, while the likes of Aubameyang should lead them in attack. If he intends keeping Laca next season, he could also give him ample time to blend with the team, by using him often.
The problem that he may encounter by wanting to do this is the possibility of trying to build any player into his team, only for the player to be sold at the end of this season. This can be heartbreaking to him and the only way the club can help him solve this, is by trying their best to tie players who are almost out of contract to a new contract. If they are not sure of being successful in tying down players to new contract soon, then, they may as well inform Arteta and ask him to include such players less in his team, this season. Arteta needs to know those he can work with, and those he can’t work with.
We are Arsenal and we are proud.
Sylvester Kwentua
