Pills, thrills and bellyaches – My Arsenal season review

Date: Tuesday 6th March. Location: The Emirates. Victims: AC Milan

An honourable mention goes to our 3-0 victory over Milan. 4-0 after the first leg and with the world having written us off, Arsene preached ‘Making the impossible, possible’ and very nearly pulled it off.

Date: 2011/ 2012. Location: The Premier League. Victims: The Premier League

Seven points from seven games to 70 points from 38 games. 17th to 3rd.

Arsenal were written off by all after 7 games. The United mauling was a desperate low. The defeat to the Spuds was apparently the ‘changing of the guard’. But we are The Arsenal, everyone hates us, but we don’t care. We have survived before and we proved we will continue to survive. Our run in March/April, from The Spuds to Wolves, shows we have the backbone and ability for the fight. We just need to do it for a whole season.

To be fair we stumbled across the line in the end, but at least it showed we can do it when we absolutely have to (or we are just the best of the bad bunch?).

Early Morning Bellyaches:

The obvious were Brand United and AC Milan (away), but the results that hurt the most were failures to the ‘lesser teams’.

Blackburn, QPR, Wolves, I could go on. As stated before, we proved we can raise our game when we need to, we don’t do it for 38 games though.

It just comes down to which Arsenal turns up?

Free flowing, all conquering or free falling, all faltering?

Special mentions:

‘Va Va Voom’ revisited:

You can’t make this Sh!t up – The second coming of Thierry Henry was a tabloid headline writers wet dream. Coming off the bench and scoring the winner against Leeds in the FA Cup was a red top premature ejaculation. His previous 226 goals for The Arsenal made him a legend, his 227th made him immortal.

The Ox:

Many question Wenger’s mental state at spending £10m+ on another teenage prodigy, but this one works. Physically up for the fight and probably at Theo’s ability level already, The Ox (alongside Jack WIlshere) is the future of the team and the base it should be built around.

Onto 2012/13 and what lies ahead.

The elephant in the corner needs to be slain. seven years is a long time and it’s really beginning to itch.

In an ideal world the squad would have two players for each position, who would seamlessly interchange with no effect. Personally, I believe we are two players away from this:

• Szczesny/Fabianski

• Sagna/Jenkinson

• Vermaelen/BFG

• Koscielny/?

• Song/Coquelin

• Wilshere/Rosicky

• Arteta/Ramsey

• Walcott/Ox

• RvP/?

• Podolski/Geo

With the addition of two more players (Clint Dempsey and Jan Vertonghen would be my choices) then the 22-man squad is up there with the best and with the likes of Abou Diaby (if he could last 90 minutes) Emmanuel Frimpong, Ryo Miyaichi, Ignasi Miquel waiting in the wings, this team would be the envy of many in the Premier League, if not Europe.

As was shown this season, the conundrum is the right mix of youth and experience, and with Jack and The Ox on the rise, Arsene just needs to find the missing pieces of the experience puzzle and prove we are not just Robin reliant.

And finally, a season engulfed in self gratification, I quote some humility from Henri Lansbury:

‘I play for the name on the front of the shirt and hope they’ll remember the name on back.’

See you all in August.

TheSundayMorningGooner, looking forward to a lie in!!!

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