Farewell Nic Bendtner. It wasn’t as bad as some make out « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. 800,000 visits last month

By Walter Broeckx

After my rant at Uefa about the fine they gave to Bendtner for exposing the wrong underpants I now want to take a look at his future at Arsenal. Or maybe better said: his lack of future at Arsenal.

The player himself said last season he wanted to leave and after a loan spell at Sunderland the door for a final departure seems to be open. And if the rumours that are getting stronger and stronger about Arsenal signing Giroud are true, the door will be very wide open I think.

In a way I always find it a bit sad when a player couldn’t really bring what was expected. I think Bendtner will be one of those. The opinions are very much divided on him amongst the supporters. But his mouth hasn’t endeared him with many fans. Saying you never want to return to a club is maybe what you think but for a player it is not always sensible to say what you think. Being a bit diplomatic can help you in your relationship with the supporters.

I think a wise player will never go public with such things. He can say this to the manager when they are talking about his personal future. As we all know that Wenger will not say anything bad about a player while at the club and he keeps this most of the time even when a player has betrayed him. So saying to Wenger: ‘I want to leave’ is fine. Going to a newspaper saying: “I don’t want to go back to Arsenal” is….the best way to burn your boats.

Just imagine that on 1 February last season suddenly RVP, Chamakh, Park and whoever can play upfront got injured for the rest of the season… And we would stop the loan – as most of the time such an action is stipulated in the loan agreement. Would he then come back and take on the challenge to prove himself?

Now the disaster didn’t happen but still you better think before you open your mouth is something that the old folks tell their children.  Don’t they have that saying in Danish?  Did no one ever tell this to Bendtner?

For many Bendtner will have been failure. 99 appearances and 22 goals don’t look that much for a striker. But many of those appearances were as a sub so it could well be that his ratio goals/minutes play is not that bad at all. But he is not the fancy striker with the skilful feet who can twist and turn and dribble his way to a goal. No, with his height he is more the powerful target man up front who can score with his head or give assists to other players.

And then we see an amazing difference between the Bendtner who played for Arsenal and the one that plays for Denmark. As I said 22 goals in 99 appearances for Arsenal and for Denmark he had 52 appearances and 20 goals. That is almost the same amount of goals in half the number of games. And his Denmark statistics are really impressive for a 24 year old striker.  Just to give you some comparing numbers Ronaldo had also scored 22 goals when he was 24 years old for Portugal. But he had played in 67 games to get the same number of goals.

Now I’m not going to suggest that he is as good as Ronaldo but still the numbers are what they are and just saying that Bendtner is not good at all is a bit silly.

So why couldn’t he produce what he can for Denmark when playing for Arsenal? Well I think he just is the victim of being a good striker but not in the Arsenal system. And the fact that due to circumstances he never really got his chance to play a few months in his favoured central striker position for Arsenal. Well he did the season before for a while when he got his chance when some other strikers were injured. Scoring a few vital goals and giving some assists. And then he got injured again if my memory is correct.

But to be a central striker for Arsenal you do need to play along with the rest of the team and that is where the big difference is between Arsenal and Denmark. The Danes play a different style of football much better suited for Bendtner. A system Arsenal rarely uses, maybe even better said never uses.

The final things that maybe have been detrimental for his career have been a few out of pitch exploits. We know Wenger is very loyal to his players and rarely comes out in the open with things they do wrong but I can imagine Wenger losing some hair when Bendtner was at it again. Being caught on camera with his pants down, a car crash, an arrest,… not really the things Wenger likes to see or hear from an Arsenal player. And maybe some signals that at times Bendtner himself did not always live like a 100% professional should do?

He also maybe was a bit unlucky by the fact that always in his career he had another striker who was delivering the goals so he couldn’t get playing in his preferred position. Adebayor for a while, Robin Van Persie… Sometimes you need a bit of luck in your career with another player getting injured but for some reason the other player for his place just seemed to play on a high level.

Some will call Bendtner dead wood but maybe his presence was contributing for the other player to step up his game? If so then I don’t really want to call him dead wood. Maybe more a young tree that couldn’t fully grow because of an older and bigger tree keeping the sun away?

So apart from a big turnaround it seems that we are seeing the last of Bendtner as an Arsenal player. It  surely wasn’t his confidence that has caused him not to succeed or maybe more the fact that he was over-confident that made him not make it. I remember some great moments in his Arsenal career like when coming on against Spurs and scoring the winning goal with his first touch. His goal in the CL against Dynamo Kiev. His and maybe our saddest moment was when we lost at Barcelona two seasons ago and when he had the equaliser in front of his foot only to miss his control of the ball. Maybe in that game he made a mistake that cost him the rest of his Arsenal career?