UNTOLD ARSENAL » Blog Archive » Arsenal: not quite the end of the world.

We’re not playing well, it was a lucky escape, and we’re further behind Aston “if you fall over hold your head” Villa.

So all bad news then.  Except…

• It is  nine match unbeaten run which has included games against a number of clubs near the top or at the top
• Three of the four players that you would expect to feature regularly in midfield have been out for ages
• A brilliant centre forward who would provide extra relief to the regular strikers has been out for a year
• And to repeat the regular phrase, it is an astonishingly young team

Actually I thought it was an enjoyable if nerve breaking game – there seemed more life in it than against Cardiff.  At Everton I never know what to expect… Wayne Rooney scoring to end our unbeaten away run, or slaughtering them four-one.   In the end we got neither, but the goal was certainly worth waiting for.
I guess if I had been manager at the start of the season I would have thought my midfield would be Theo and Rosicky on the wings and Cesc and Denilson in the middle.  With Nasri as the relief – particularly until Rosicky came back.

To cover for injuries and tactical issues I’d have thought… Song, Diaby, Eboue, Ramsey…

Yup, looks fair enough to me.  But of course it is not if the first three names on your list are all long term injuries.

And so we are 8 million points behind the Bankrupts and heading for the Southern League (at least that’s how some blogs seem to read).  Or we are holding on in terribly difficult circumstances and should be celebrating 9 unbeaten with half the team missing.  You take your choice.

But let me say the unsayable.  Supposing we end up 5th this season.  Then what?  Does the world end?  Does Russia set up a nuclear strike (as per the last episode of Spooks last year)?

Not really.  We get to play in a smaller cup competition, where there is less show and less pressure.   By next season the players are older and wiser, and let us hope, our dreadful two year run of injuries must surely come to an end.  The financial strains on other clubs will be stronger and the cracks will appear deeper.   Arsenal’s finances are not based on full houses and the Champions League each year, so we’ll be ok on that front…

Even that scenario doesn’t seem too awful to me.   Last season we were four points from winning the league, and that doesn’t seem so dreadful.

One final thing.  If you come to this site via Goonernews or Arsenal News you probably just see the article and any responses.  If however you type in www.blog.emiratesstadium.info you’ll get the full flavour of the page with all the extra bits down the side.   I mention this because I’ve managed to add a few bits to the site over the months, and I think they add a little something.

The injury table which I added last week is quite neat I think, and as the numbers go down, a bit reassuring.  Natarjack, which brings this site to you via your mobile, for free, has been amended and improved so it is just Arsenal now.   Arsenal News is a recent addition allowing you to vote on the quality of stories (do give me a vote if you find anything I do of interest), and there’s more to come later in the year.

I do hope you’ll have time to have a look.  Thank you for reading.

(c) Tony Attwood 2009