Our Arsenal Team

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It has been a turbulent week for my beloved Arsenal. However, it has tobe said that the signs were coming as early as pre-season…..

Before the home game against Aston Villa, we have lost to Fulham, Hulland Stock City. The inexperience young team also allowed Tottenham tograb a 4-4 draw although we were leading with seconds left. The talentis there for all to see, most prominent in the 2-1 win over our archrival Man U. After the debacle of Villa at home, we followed up with asuccessive loss at Man C. To rub salt into the wound, Man C actuallyput 3 behind us and we had no reply.

As early as pre-season, we lost so many players that that it easilyadds up to a century of experience. Lehmann, Gilberto, Flamini, Hleband even Senderos left, were sold or sent on loan. These few playersadd up to hundreds of premiership games experience. In addition, theyhad leadership and some were outspoken enough to rally the young ones.The painful part was that they were never replaced. To add to thetrauma of losing so many experienced heads, Adebayor and Fabregas wereduly psyched by the yearly bombardments of transfer interest from theusual suspects. In fact, I have a deep suspicion that Ade would havesigned for Milan if Ronaldino did not sign for them.

After dragging ourselves through pre-season, we started dully and werenever on the same pace as last year. The midfield fluency was gone asFabregas find himself surrounded by new teammates. There was no Flaminito cover his back and no Hleb to do the simple one-twos that he got soused to. Fabregas had to go for his Hollywood passes in order toincrease his tally of assist. The rest of the team struggled as ourmain man suffered. He also had to lead the team as all of the sudden;he is the most experience guy in midfield. Being so young himself, theburden on his shoulders made it difficult to express himself freely onthe pitch.

In William Gallas, we have a time bomb ready to explode anything. He islike a nuclear weapon; extremely useful when you have him under controland utilize properly while extremely dangerous when he goes allhaywire. As great as his reading of the game, scoring of crucial goalsand fierce tackling is important for the team, his lapse ofconcentration, his crazy foray upfront and that bloody big mouth arecauses of concern for the manager. His latest contribution is like anexplosion on an international level. His fierce criticism of his teammates and disclosure of intimate dressing room details rocked a boatalready in troubled waters. Instead of leading as a captain, he made abigger hole in his own boat to sink it faster. True to form, the younggunners were sent to the slaughter house and suffered a mosthumiliating lost of 0-3 to Man C.

The problems are obvious to all, but what are the solutions? These willnot be clear, but there are a few basic things for Wenger to doimmediately:

1) Order has to be restored in the dressing room. If there is any truthin Gallas’s ranting of young brats and in-house fighting, Wenger has tostep in and discipline the boys.
2) Wenger has to decide what to do with our crazy captain. Sell him,bench him, make him apologise to his teammates or just deep freeze him.A decision must be made in order to move on from this episode.
3) Confidence and Morale must be restored. Senior members of the teammust take the initiative and lead the younger ones. There are not manyleft, but we must make do with what we have. Off hand, Toure, Almuniaand even Clichy and Adebayor can do their parts.
4) Team Spirit must be instilled. If it takes a trip to some coldforsaken mountain top to do teambuilding, so be it. Throw the whole lotthere with minimum food and drinks and see how the environment can turnthem into men with a mission. At the end of the day, it is one team,Team ARSENAL. Not team Africa, team France or team Europe.
5) All the players must understand what ARSENAL means. Arsenal is aclub with a fierce tradition to fight, to win and to be passionateabout football. Over the years, how much blood has been spilled on thepitch? How many passionate footballers have graced the pitch in frontof the fans, willing to die for the club? All the players mustunderstand this passion.

After the Man C game, we have already suffered 5 losses this season. Wehave yet to face Liverpool and Chelsea. As we travel to Stamford Bridgenext season, can we avoid a third successive defeat? Only one team canprevent that and that will be Team Arsenal. Wenger must lead this teamout of the doldrums. Go Gunners!!!