“I can officially confirm that a short time ago Alexander decided that he will leave Arsenal and join another club. Of course Arsenal and Arsene wanted him to stay but they have accepted the player’s choice.”
“That is his choice. He has understood that the right time has come for him to make a change.
“Alex has spent three good seasons at Arsenal and he wasn’t sure he could maintain the same level that he has been showing if he stayed.
“It’s also true that he felt uncomfortable off the field. Alexander wants a change of scene. That’s had a large part to play in his decision. Alex informed the club of his desire to move to another club.”
“We are not using article 17 of the FIFA rule,” he said. “I can’t tell you anything about where he will be playing yet. Talks are underway, and I don’t have the right to make them public. I think that the issue of his new club will be clarified in the next few days.”
Niki Spilevski, Alexander Hleb’s agent.
So it seems that Hleb has decided to jump ship as expected, while reports today suggest Nasri should be an Arsenal player by Monday. But what does this mean for Arsenal? Is it a step forward or a step back for next season?
First of all, it seems to me that out of three seasons with Arsenal, only this latest one did he really show what he can do, and only then for the first half of the season. But his agility on the ball and superb poise and passing ability has made the football we play sparkle at times solely down to the Belurussian and his loss has to be a big blow for the club surely?
Creativity is often something we seem to have too much of, while the individual brilliance that Pires, Bergkamp, Henry, Ljungberg and co. offered us is something we no longer have. I would say that only Cesc and van Persie offer this sheer brilliance to win games with any sort of regularity, and so will Hleb’s potential replacementoffer us this brilliance that we may need at times, a bit of match winning quality?
Samir Nasri is an amazing talent, and I believe with absolute certainty that he can offer the brilliance that we need to unlock those tight defences, by making more direct running and shooting, instead of playing keep-ball at 0-0 and passing the opposition into surrender, something we have had to employ too many time this season already. But he is only 20 years old, and the loss of Hleb I think requires another wide player as well as Nasri, given Eboue’s inability to score or play as a true winger would, and also Rosicky’s unfortunate injury record.
To show the current problems on the wing, I shall show the goals and assists we have got from wide areas, and then compare it with the (and I hate to say it…) very best - Manchester United.
Arsenal (EPL and CL):
- Hleb: G: 4 - A: 11
- Eboue: G 0 - A: 2
- Walcott: G 6 - A: 3
- Rosicky: G 7 - A: 2
- Diaby: G 3 - A: 1
Total: Goals: 20 - Assists: 19
Man Utd (EPL and CL):
- Ronaldo: G: 39 A: 8
- Park: G: 1 - A: 1
- Giggs: G: 3 - A: 7
- Nani: G: 3 - A: 9
Total: Goals: 46 - Assists: 25
Looking at these statistics, Hleb is esily our best assister, and so someone we can not afford to get rid of, while his goals tally, while being poor, if we had other good wingers as well we would get far more goals from the wing. Therefore, to lose Hleb based on those statistics would be a crushing blow even for our creative side, with only Fabregas creating more goals for the team this year.
When comparing us to United, it is clear that despite our problems, we are only one quality winger away from competing with them on the wide areas, where they seem to be clearly better than us, but when you consider that with their formation the wide players generally get more chances due to the game being based around them moving around freely, and that Cristiano Ronaldo has had an incredible goalscoring season, were we to have another winger who could score 10+ goals a season, Walcott will get moregoals again next season as well, and Nasri has improved year on year and will be surrounded by better players (should he come to us) I believe that we won’t be far off.
But with only Nasri coming in to replace Hleb, and no other wide player following him to the Emirates, we will see the same problems next year.
