It has been an historic season for Arsenal. We have earned more points than last year but were demoted from 2nd to 5th for the first time under Arsene Wenger. Also we have finished below our biggest rivals Tottenham for the first time. And Wenger has an opportunity to break the record of FA Cup wins by any manager ever.
So how are the Gunners going to aim for improvement next season? According to Petr Cech it hasn’t been such a bad year and the most important thing for next season is to keep this team together. He said after yesterday’s game: “If you have one off year in 20 years, it’s not a problem,”
“I think the club has a strong foundation, strong organisation and everything to be out for one year and come back straight in, like Chelsea did last season. I think it helped them not to be involved [in Europe] this season, because they could keep all their energy for the league.
“I think next season we need to respect every competition, as we’ve always done, carry on the momentum, trying to win as many games and keep the team together. I think that’s the main [thing], you need to keep the team together and try to strengthen it in areas the manager would like to. Then we’ll be ready to go again.
“Obviously February and March was the period where we dropped some points unnecessarily. I think as well in the big games, last season we got the most points from the top six or the top four, and this season we haven’t done so well.
“We had four more points than last year, so we improved in terms of our points total. But the others had a great season and it was not enough to be in the top four.”
So is Cech right? Do we only need to keep this team together with a couple of additions to do well next season? Will it help us to be out of the Champions League?