I haven’t been able to post since the Chelsea game for one reason or another, so I won’t bother with a match report or even the match ratings - that game is in the past now.
The most pressing issue at the moment for Arsenal fans is to find out what has gone wrong, and how we will rectify it for the rest of the season to come. Below I have identified the key points as far as fans are concerned, and have pointed out the reasons why they are or they aren’t right.
The players have bottled it - Now this is a very interesting point to raise. By “bottling it” we mean that the Arsenal players have got to the vital part of the season, when every game is important, and they simply haven’t managed to step up to the plate. But I honestly don’t think this is the case. I know we can’t keep mentioning the “luck” element, but the way that events have unfolded have contributed to the poor performances without a doubt, and I’m not too sure whether the other top teams would cope with it that much better than we have, although I do believe that if we’re not right at our game mentally, the style of football we play does hinder the effectiveness more than a direct style would, because there is less risk in a more abrupt way of playing.
Our beautiful football - So perhaps, then, it is the style of football that we praise our team for so often that has come back to haunt us at the most crucial time of the season? I think that throughout this season we have managed to alternate our way of playing pretty well to meet the circumstances, a prime example being the game against Everton at Goodison Park, a game where we would have lost pretty easily last season. But recently we haven’t done this. Against Boro’, a game that I saw live, we continued to pass it around throughout the game and that perhaps was what lost us the 2 points.
Lack of squad depth - I think this has been the main problem at this stage of the season. We needed to buy a couple of players, whether it was in January or last summer, because we have easily the most delicate squad in the top four, and bar Aston Villa possibly the smallest squad in the top ten. Now I know we have plenty of players on pro contracts, but most of these are nowhere near ready for the first team. We needed back up on the wing and at left back for this season, and frailties in both positions have costed us a good number of games, in particular the thrashings at Man Utd and Spurs. We can’t afford to classify Rosicky as a first teamer until he provves he can play for the first team for a whole season.
Poor decisions have let us down? - Another valid point is that officials have given us terrible decisions at crucial times. Last weekend against Chelsea the first goal was a shocking decision, while the refereeing against Middlesborough was also dire, as we could quite easily have had a goal and a penalty given, not to mention a slight confusion over Boro’s goal. Against Wigan and Villa though there was no injustice that can be blamed, we were simply not good enough, and I think a reliance on brilliant refereeing shows a desperation really. We should win the games, not the officials. But I think that when a last minute penalty was given when it shouldn’t have been against Birmingham in the last minute of the match on a day when Eduardo is carted off to the hospital, the blow that that makes is a hard one to recover from.
Bad leadership - William Gallas has allowed himself to come across as a very debateable leader over the last month or so, from his angry outburst against Birmingham followed by him sitting down on the pitch as far away as possible from the football itself as the penalty was taken, to reports of him having a go at Theo Walcott. But I think that since he did start crying against Birmingham, everything he has said has been taken out of proportion in a negative way, and if this has had a negative effect on the team it is not entirely his fault. In fact, if misconstrued comments have led to our downfall, we may as well sell half our squad and rebuild, because there’s no way if they’re that mentally weak we’d ever win anything. Thankfully, I severely doubt that’s the case.
As ever, it is almost certainly a mix of all of these points that have contributed to a bad run of form that has dumped us out of the title race almost certainly, and with the Champions League tie against Liverpool looming large, I sincerely hope that we will be able to re-invigorate the team enough to ensure that our season does not end within a fortnight.
