At full time on Sunday afternoon in Anfield, I had a sober reflection of what has befallen us this season. Three Premier League games, just three points with a terrible goal difference looming, it has become another terrible start to the Premier League. Just three games and we are in full crisis mode.
How did we get ourselves into this messy situation? One would have thought that finishing in fifth place would have spurred Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal hierarchy to do everything in their power to go to greater strides with the team. The early capture of Alexandre Lacazette was nice and we the fans were hoping for the club to kick on from there with more signings, sorting out the messy contract issues and of course, improved performances on the pitch.
Let me start with the football – the curtain raiser against Leicester was enthralling and exhilarating but the writing was on the wall. Arsenal needed to sort out their defensive frailties and concentration lapses, as well as being more clinical in attack. The game against Stoke was an aberration to say the least. Wenger continued to feature some his players out of position and there was no cohesion in our play. Then there were the Danny Welbeck misses. One must wonder how this lad continues to feature consistently in the team, despite his glaring failings as a footballer. Liverpool drove the nail in the Arsenal coffin with such an attacking display of football, and as you’d expect from a spineless side like Arsenal, they had nothing to offer. The international break couldn’t come any sooner for these pathetic set of players.
Then there’s the contract sagas here and there. Sadly, Arsenal has a shitload of players with a year left on their contracts, and some efforts have been made to offload some of the deadwood. Kieran Gibbs has completed his move to West Brom after failing to agree personal terms with Watford, Carl Jenkinson was shipped out to Birmigham City and suffered an unfortunate injury on his debut and efforts are still ongoing to ship out Lucas Perez and Matt Debuchy. Then there’s the curious case of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, a relatively unknown youngster that received full support and education from the club from when he was a kid but he had the effrontery to reject 180,000-per-week contract and made his intentions clear on leaving. If Wenger knew the Ox was done at Arsenal, why did he continue playing the lad, even to the point he played Hector Bellerin out of position to accommodate the Ox in the first team. Word on the street is that Ox has also turned down a chance to play for the defending champions, Chelsea, with Liverpool being his preferred destination. Let’s hope for a 40 million plus one pound bid from the Merseysiders.
I don’t want to go on about the Alexis Sanchez conundrum because that has lasted all summer. It seems Manchester City are coming with an improved offer that might include Raheem Sterling as part of the deal, but the Englishman certainly has no plans of joining Arsenal. Then there were whispers of Sanchez submitting a transfer request, which has since been denied.
What the hell happened to Skhodran Mustafi? 12 months into his Arsenal career and it seems he’s jumping ship to Internazionale on a proposed loan move with an option to buy. He was benched in the debacle at Anfield and it seems things have gone sour between him and the boss. I’d consider this a shame, bearing in mind that it took us forever to get this deal completed and the fans really liked Mustafi when he finally completed his move from Valencia. C’mon, didn’t you all enjoy ‘He has never lost a game for Arsenal’ memes? If we really let Mustafi go, I would expect us to go into the transfer market to purchase a new defender. Virgil van Dijk perhaps? He’s done at Southampton and he can certainly do a good job for a defense in dire need of real leadership.
We are currently in this situation because of Arsene Wenger and the Board, but he alone must do what is expected of him to salvage what’s left of this sinking ship, jettison the mutinous crew members that not willing to play for him and restore us back to steady waters. It’s evident that new signings will be required to galvanize the team, but when he keeps saying that he’s happy with the team, yet there are some members of the team that are certainly not happy at the club, something has to give.
Let’s see what happens in the coming days.
Sayonara.
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