Squad depth and rotation is the key to Arsenal’s season

Hot on the heels of Alexis Sanchez explaining why he thought that Arsenal could “win all” yesterday, we now have another of our Arsenal stars explaining why the Gunners are so much better equipped this season to go one better than our second place in the last campaign.

Petr Cech believes that we have far more quality than in previous seasons. “I think the first [quality we have] is the strength in depth,” Cech said. “When we were unlucky with long-term injuries last season, we had to use the same players in so many games and you lack energy in certain parts of the season.

“We dropped points because we couldn’t rotate. This season we have strength in depth, you could see in the Champions League and domestic cup [games] and for the Premier League we keep using different players or can use the same players.

“The manager has this choice and I think we are benefitting so far. Everybody looks fit and ready to go game-by-game.

“Last season everybody was talking about how far we can go, where we can go and we knew that we had a lot of qualities, that’s why we finished in the best position Arsenal had finished in a long time.

“But we missed a little bit to win the title, so this season we go step-by-step, we try to improve and then I think we are on the right way.

“I think we are as strong as anybody else in the league. The league is very competitive but I think we are one of the teams who has all the qualities to compete for the title and we know that.”

Knowing we are one of the best teams and being overconfident has worked against us in the past, but now the players know they have competition for places and could be replaced at any time if the Boss thinks they are not playing at their best, and that goes for Petr Cech as well.

Right now our only problem is (as usual!) the centre-forward position. If Alexis’ injury proves to be serious, and with Danny Welbeck, Lucas Perez and Chuba Akpom also on the treatment table, we are left with only Olivier Giroud as an out and out striker. But the Frenchman is fresh and keen to win his place back and we can only hope that he will pull us through until we get some cover back from the injury list.

Unless of course Wenger calls on Sanogo, who is still on our 25 man squad list….

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6 Comments

  1. This injury curse scares me, no matter how much depth we have, this injuries just seem to attack one area of specialty at a time, for instance, some time last season we had a period where almost all of our midfielders were injured (santi, coq, arteta, wilshere, ramsey, rosicky) all at the same time. Now it looks like we on the verge of having only 1 striker out of 4 fit. At some point some seasons back, there was a time when the backline was compromised to the point where the likes of debuchy and monreal would be improvised as cb’s! Sometimes I feel bad for Wenger you know. no matter what he does, injuries always do him.

    1. i can remember a time when literally our whole back line was out or at african cup of nations, think it was around when we had clichy

  2. Ughh. With Trump winning, now I desperately need a win against United and to win Trophies this season to ease the pain

  3. All was going well until you called one name (Sir No Goal) I rather see Ozil up top than that waste of squad space.
    Beside there’s theo Walcott who can also play there.
    Hope Alexi is OK anyway.

  4. Wouldn’t ya know it, the one player who is probably hardest to replace ups and gets injured. In Nov when we have tough games none the less. I wonder if this would have happened still if Arsene had rested him more like some of us wanted. There were a couple of good opportunities to rest him and still pick a squad capable of beating opponents. Also this Nov thing, I wonder if injuries regularly begin to occur usually around this time, we lose first game then get a streak going then afraid to unsettle it by making changes, and finally a big player or two begin to feel effects. Liv are pushing hard, but they don’t have CL, and Klopp is known to be a juggler of injury problems himself. If we had Welbeck and Perez to help keep Giroud going, but no not us we aren’t that lucky. I worry that our wingers wont look nearly as dangerous without Alexis there. Giroud is easy to mark, Alexis kept defenders busy. Iwobi hasn’t got confidence yet, he’s a very down to earth lad. Walcott, allot maybe riding on Theo’s shoulders, we need him to get straight back into form, I liked when he almost scored that screamer, showed he had concentration. And Giroud, we need him to make his presence felt.

  5. Squad depth yea.. but no matter how deep ur squad is, there still some players very difficult to replace almost impossible.. they might not even be the best player in the team in some cases.
    these players might have replacements positionally but the style of play and impact to the replacement is wide.
    for Barca it’s MSN
    for Madrid it’s Ronaldo,Casemiro,Modric
    for Chelsea it’s Hazard n Costa
    for City it’s DeBruyne
    for Bayern it’s Neuer,Lewandowski
    for Arsenal it’s Cazorla,Bellerin,Alexis (esp. upfront)

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