Greetings from India everyone. Why, you ask, am I in India during the hottest part of their year? Surprise, the answer ISN'T that I'm something of an idiot . Now, I'm not ruling out the possibility that I am in fact something of an idiot but I'm here for work so at least in THIS instance, that's not the reason. So, what am I going to write about after the better part of 48 hours with very little sleep while commuting? The answer as you may have guessed from the title is the recap of Arsenal's 2008-2009 season. What went well and what went poorly - we'll leave what comes next for a bit later in the summer - what you're expecting us to write about CRon-to-Real & Barry-to-Liverpool rumors ALL summer?OK, away we go...
Best Moment - This wasn't a season that featured many great moments to be honest. There were the typical fluid/spectacular goals. There were the returns of EdS and Cesc from long injuries and the brief run of extremely strong play that coincided with Cesc/K2 returning to the line-up late in the season. All that said, the unquestioned high point of the season for me was Arshavin's first kick for the club. Why this moment? The obvious reason is that he's an excellent player and has the potential to be a difference maker with both his passing and his scoring. The symbolic reason is that I and all Arsenal supporters hope this is evidence that Wenger understands that in order to make a serious challenge for the title he needs to buy some top shelf established players rather than continuing to buy kids. Even if the hoped-for symbolism turns out to be not-so-symbolic, I'm thinking this is still the high-point.
Best Transfer - See above. Not even close for second place really.
Biggest Disappointment (injury) - Wow, where do you start on this one with so many to choose from? Seriously, the obvious answer is Cesc's injury. He makes the team go and without him in the middle the attack just seemed lost far too often. That said, injuries to K2 and RvP compounded the problem. Finally, the reliance on Rosicky recovering as the excuse not to sign Arshavin last summer (if that's really the reason) may be the biggest injury-related disappointment of all. My guess is that the state of finances at the Emirates are worse than we are being told so I doubt Rosicky's return was anything but a red herring to avoid having to say that "we just don't have the cash right this minute". If Wenger believed that 'sicky is a substitute for Arshavin even when healthy then, well, I guess he hasn't watched Sicky play anything other than Czech Republic matches.
Biggest Disappointment (non-injury) - I'm sort of torn here between Kolo Toure (a player I really like) and guys like Abou Diaby and Denilson on this one. The argument against Abou Diaby and Denilson is pretty obvious, neither of them live up to the standards of Cesc, Pires, Ljungberg, Vieira, and the rest of the recent luminaries in midfield from the Wenger era. That said, I'm giving them both a little slack because I think that Wenger has done a poor job of managing both players. Neither player really seems to have a position and both are sort of thrown into just about any midfield role at a moment's notice. If you're Ryan Giggs or Stephen Gerrard and you're both talented enough and senior enough to make different positions your own then maybe this can work but for two guys who haven't really established themselves as first team starters, this has to make life incredibly difficult. Heck, even Wayne Rooney seems to be suffering from being lined-up all over the pitch.
That brings us to Toure who seems to have either gotten old or just lost it pretty quickly. Maybe he just doesn't mesh well with Gallas or maybe there wasn't sufficient support from the midfield but more often than not when bad things happened for Arsenal this season, it seemed like Toure was the victim.
Best Start - Most of the remarkable starts happened well into the season. For me the best "start" was the joint return of Cesc/K2 with what seemed like 10 hook-ups for goals in 3 matches (ok, I think it was either 4 in 2 or 5 in 3). Still, it gave supporters a glance of what could have been had we not been mixing and matching pieces for the middle part of the season.
Best Finish - Hmm, can't say that too much positive happened down the stretch between the beating by ManYoo in the Champions League, the draw to them in the League, and the losses to Chelsea in the FA Cup Semi and in the league. That said, Bendtner ended May with 3 goals bringing his total in the league to 9 which isn't so bad given that he only started 17 matches in the league. Throw in 2 goals in 3 matches in the FA Cup, 2 in 2 in the Carling Cup, and 1 in 4 in the Champions League and you'd have to say that despite his less-than-ideal personality, he's had a reasonably strong season for a 21 year old.
Biggest Achilles Heel - Hmm, do you go with having players who are too-frequently injured? The inability to cope with set pieces? Or the misfiring in front of goal that sabotaged the season in January? I'm going off the board and suggesting that the biggest Achilles Heel is Wenger's inability to copy his "buy young and really talented" philosophy on the defending side of the ball. Really, it seems that every year we buy a bunch of forwards, wingers, and attacking midfielders who are 16, 17, and 18 years old. Sure it will take some time for them to mature and some will make it (Cesc) and some will just become assets (Bentley, Pennant, Larsson, etc.). That said, other than Djourou and Senderos, Wenger doesn't seem to spend much time finding potential stars for the defence. Obviously it would be great to have the cash to go out and buy a great defender in his prime but if that isn't the case and the philosophy is to buy young and hope these guys BECOME great defenders in their prime in a couple of years, shouldn't the philosophy be consistent for attackers and defenders? (OK, Clichy, Sagna, Gibbs, and even Eboue fit the mold so I guess I'm really talking about central defenders - is it possible that Wenger just isn't any good at evaluating talent at the position?).
I hope you enjoyed that - we'll be back later in the summer with more on what Arsenal needs to be doing to make themselves relevant again...
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