What does Arsenal and Wenger need to do in order salvage our season by Vishaad Pillay
Well fellow Arsenal fans, I’m sure we are all disappointed and upset about the state of our club’ and the turmoil that it has been plunged into. Every one of us has conflicting feelings about Wenger’s tenure at Arsenal, some would still want him to stay and others feel he should have stepped down with dignity 5 years ago. Unfortunately Wenger does not care about the feelings of the masses of fans and is completely oblivious to how dangerously close this club is to becoming irrelevant in the Premier League. Wenger won’t accept advice from anybody with regards as to how this club needs to heal itsel f- so as fans what can we do to help?
Wenger stating in the post match conference that we fans need to stick by the team in these trying times, which I agree to a certain extent, but when a manager is so clueless that his team is falling apart and his 21year tenure as a manager lay in ruins due to pride then I have no sympathy or encouragement to extend. There were rumours yesterday of a bust up in the dressing room an hour before kick off, which would explain the lack of cohesion and lacklustre performance on the pitch to a degree.
So we have a manager that has lost the belief of certain players as he has given too much attention in satisfying the needs of a select few individuals who frankly don’t deserve it. Ozil, Sanchez, Xhaka and Ramsey seem to be the favoured players that will get away with murder in this squad without any repercussions .
So what do we need to do in order to salvage this season? Wenger won’t leave and the Board wont get rid of him unfortunately.
1. Address the problem in defence i.e. revert back to 4 2 3 1 or 4 3 2 1 .
Purchase two centre backs to galvanise the defence or give a chance to Chambers and Holding with Mertesacker and Koscielny for guidance (recipe for disaster)
Sakho, Van Dijk, Evans or Tyrone Mings ??? Or Kostas Manolas, Benadekt Howedes, Jerome Boateng or Koulibay?
2. Sort out the issue with no central midfielder to anchor the team. Ramsey and Xhaka love to play out of position which leaves us exposed in the counter attack. Renato Sanchez is available from Bayern. tough tackling defensive player who can pick a pass and knows how to maintain the team shape.
3 Change the toxic atmosphere in the dressing room and get rid of the complacency that has set in. Too many of our players aren’t held accountable for their mistakes. As stated by many ex Arsenal players Wenger would say something philosophical on the bus and not lay into the players or play the match again on the bus drive home to expose exactly who was at fault and show these bunch of prima donnas how pathetic they performed.
4 hange the tactics for each match by analysing your opponents and anticipating what their game plan would be as Liverpool did to us. Wenger and the team trained all week for a team that presses high with no time or space to play in, yet they did the opposite which led to the clueless Arsenal players left dumbfounded.
5 Get a psychiatrist to work with these fragile individuals to make them believe we can actually win titles as well as not to bottle it against the big teams.
Would that be enough to save our season?
Vishaad