After the fun of yesterday’s final pre-season friendly in which Arsenal faced recently relegated German side FC Koln and ran out 4-0 winners with all three summer signings looking rather good indeed, the time has come for attention to shift back to the real business. A new season is only five days away, and we will be facing Sunderland at the Grove with a weight of expectation on the team.
Last season we clawed back an awful start to the league campaign and managed a very respectable third place finish in the face of a wide array of problems, some of them of the club’s own making. Expectations at the start of last season were lower than ever before under Arsene Wenger and so when a third place finish arrived, it was greeted with some acclaim by most Arsenal fans.
Now, I know some people look at us being pleased with that performance as a sign of diminished status of the club, but I think there’s room to be pleased with what we did last season (and particularly with what the manager accomplished) and also to acknowledge that we want to achieve greater things than a third place finish.
What our achievement of Champions League qualification last season does mean is that this summer the club have had a secure financial footing to strengthen the team, and strengthen they have. Certainly, some question marks must still be resolved before the end of the transfer window (and really, what is the point of the window carrying on a couple of weeks into the season? As soon as major European Leagues start getting underway it ought to be closed). The fate of Robin Van Persie now seems more unsure than ever though my gut feeling is that he will still leave the club. Theo Walcott’s contract situation is precarious as there’s the familiarly annoying scent of Barcelona in the air as they hang around the training ground gates like a besotted teenager hoping for a glimpse of Alex Song. But nonetheless there’s no denying in my opinion that Arsenal are stronger now than they were at the end of the season.
How much stronger? That’s really the question on which Arsenal’s chances of winning silverware hinge. There have been no defensive reinforcements, although I would argue that our defensive problems have not been an issue of personnel but rather a fault with Arsenal’s approach to defending as a unit. This summer we’ve seen the addition of Steve Bould to the first team coaching staff, and perhaps he might bring with him the eye for detail that good Premier League defending requires, certainly the interviews during the summer with the players seems to suggest that might be the case. Man for man, our defence is probably on a par with the other top teams in the league, I certainly don’t see that Wojciech Szczesny is any worse than David De Gea, or that I’d rather have Commander Worf of Manchester City than Laurent Koscielny. We even have a bit of depth in the form of Per Mertesacker and Johan Djourou (I sense some rolling of eyes there, but as a squad player we could do a lot worse). The battle for the left back place between Santos and Gibbs can only do us good as well so I don’t see a lack of signings in this area as a major problem. As I said before, it’s all about how the team functions as a unit as to whether we improve defensively this season.
It’s tempting to treat the midfield and attack as one unit as that is how it sometimes appears to operate but of course there is the crucial link with the defensive positions in the form of Alex Song and the defensive midfield role. If we were to make one more signing before the end of the window then this is the position I’d like to see strengthened. Song has been fairly reliable and I think the chance of us actually selling him to Barcelona is fairly small but there’s no denying that when he’s out of the team there is no obvious replacement for him. Players might fill in but nobody has the same capability for the role that Song does. Therefore if I were the one calling the shots transfer wise, and the club were looking for one more addition it would be a defensive midfielder. It’s not a new problem for the club, it’s just that since last summer and this summer have seen strengthening in the defence, the attack and the more advanced midfield positions, I just feel this might have risen to the top of the priority list.
In the midfield, well, the question mark for me is the ability of Jack Wilshere to return to full fitness and restake his claim for a place in the team after missing the whole of last season through his achilles injury. He’s a wonderful player whose absence was felt by the team (and by England in the summer), but I think as with all recoveries from long term injury his road back is going to be a bit bumpy and I would be surprised if he managed any more than half of our games this coming season. His current return is projected for October, who knows if this will be the magic prediction that comes true. After all, the 74th time is supposed to be the charm.
It appears from pre-season signals that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain may find himself in the centre of midfield this season, and I’m sure many fans who struggled to understand his stop-start presence in the team last season, what with him being one of our best players and all, will be pleased to see him so central to Arsene Wenger’s plans for the coming season. He’ll have the reliable presence of Mikel Arteta next to him and there’s a little bit of depth there too with the presence of Tomas Rosicky and perhaps a recovered Abou Diaby. Our midfield options do look decent.
In the forward positions there appears to be much to be excited about. Even with Andrey Arshavin on his way out the door (and I’m quite convinced he will be gone when September 1st rolls around) there are options with Podolski, Walcott, Cazorla and Gervinho capable of filling the wide striking positions. Podolski of course also has the ability to play centrally backing up Olivier Giroud and maybe, maybe, Robin Van Persie. I’m also interested to see if young Ryo Miyaichi will again go out on loan after a decent showing for Bolton in the Premier League last season or whether he might be deemed to be better served learning and training with his fellow Arsenal forwards. There’s no doubt the young man could get some games with us, but which games and how many?
I think it’s only fair to surmise that there is strength and depth in this Arsenal team, maybe not as much as in a team such as Manchester City or Barcelona but then we’re not dealing in the same resources as those clubs. I don’t think two or three injuries would necessarily derail our chances of success this season. Five or six on the other hand, well, most clubs would struggle. We have quality all over the pitch and the options to change things up if the situation calls for it. We have, essentially the tools for success.
I suppose then, that although I’m loathe to make too many predictions that it only seems right to conclude a season preview with an estimation of our chances for success. I’ll take it trophy by trophy for the sake of simplicity. The big question has to be can we win the Premier League title? The experience of the last few years has to lead toward the answer “no”, our last serious title challenge where I felt we had it in our hands to win the league was in 2008, we came somewhat close in 2010 as well but I never felt we were quite as in that race. There’s no denying we have a strong team capable of beating anyone on their day, but consistency is where the league title is one and consistency has been a big problem for us in the last few years. A change in mentality, learning from our mistakes is of course not impossible, but I do feel there are other clubs with significantly better chances than us. I wouldn’t totally rule it out, but I do think that for us to win the league requires all the stars to fall into alignment for us and for our rivals to under-perform as well.
The Champions League however, I do feel we have a chance of winning. Chelsea winning the competition last season (excuse me whilst I vomit at the memory) demonstrated something that has always been true about the competition – the best team does not always win. That’s not to paint us as rank outsiders at all but the Champions League, much as UEFA like to sell it as the showcase of footballing quality in Europe, is not just a battle of quality (and frankly it would be astonishingly boring if it were) but a battle of tactics and discipline. You can win the Champions League without having the best squad, or even the fourth, fifth or sixth best squad. You win it by getting it right against the opponents the draw gives you. Now, we are a better Champions League side than we’ve shown in the last couple of years. We went out last season owing to a complete anomaly of a performance in the first leg of our tie against AC Milan. Typically the Champions League sees the best of Arsenal even when the squad is depleted and resources are thin, but last season we showed the worst parts of our game in a big European tie. The blow to our pride was somewhat recovered by the near-comeback in the second leg but I think there’s a point for us to prove and we have the capacity to prove it. I’m not saying we will win the Champions League, simply that I believe we can.
As for the domestic cups, the Capital One Cup as it’s now known has finally inherited a sponsor name so ridiculous that it has become completely impossible to pretend to care about so I won’t bother with that. As for the FA Cup, I sense that we will continue to treat it the way we have done the last few years, as a cup we’d like to win but won’t go all out to, and that will be reflected in team selections. I think with that attitude the chance of us winning it is pretty small. Maybe if we get some kind draws and advancing to the later stages gets the smell of winner’s medals in our nostrils then we might shift gear a bit. It’s a shame because I love the FA Cup, and I love Arsenal winning the FA Cup, it’s the oldest and greatest cup competition in the world to my mind, and I think winning it needs to be rewarded with Champions League qualification so that Premier League teams can no longer take it lightly.
So there we go, 2012/13 in a nutshell. I think we could be in for an enjoyable season and there is the tantalising prospect that maybe, just maybe we might lift a trophy this season. And if we’re very lucky, it won’t be the Credit Card Cup.
