UNTOLD ARSENAL » 2009 » January » 11

And so we come to see the solution.  At least the handful of us left who do not occupy their time, supporting professional journalists, writing articles about “Meltdown” and calling supporters who believe in Wenger “extremists”.

I speak of the new process, forced on us by the incredibly awful run of injuries to Eduardo, Theo, Cesc, and Rosicky across the middle.

It is there for all to see, and I think quite a few people in the stadium saw it yesterday.  We saw it too in the much duller game against Portsmouth and it unlocked the stalemate then.  It did it again yesterday.

Put Nasri in the middle and play Vela on the left wing.

In my rambling notes in HIGHBURY HIGH this week I suggested that Vela was one of the ten reasons to be cheerful, but worried that some of his cameos didn’t work too well.  In fact over Xmas and again yesterday he was terrific.  The ball stuck to his feet, he wriggled through defenders and turned them inside out.

After a few seconds of seeing what he could do Bolton Notlob put two defenders on him, which opened up the space in the middle of defence that was needed.  It was reminiscent of something from the dim and hazy past… some guy who is known for scoring goals, going out left, taking two defenders, still finding his way through and then putting in a cross into the space…

Of course it is crazy to say as yet that this is Henry II, but we’ve now seen it work perfectly, twice.  Nasri in the middle is still not all controlling, all dominant, but he is getting the system going, and this system does work when he has Vela on the left to perform utter magic.

I have no idea how long it is going to take to make this something we can do for 90 minutes – and maybe that is not going to be an option, but it is one hell of a development – almost out of nothing.  If you imagine this approach with Eduardo in the middle, then you suddenly see an utterly different team.

Meanwhile the unity found between professional journalists who have built a career on knocking Arsenal, some writers in fanzines, and goodness knows how many bloggers, is something I find frustrating, annoying, worrying, and tiresome.    We are now well into a good unbeaten run achieved for the most part without the heart of our first team.   So clearly it isn’t the results that are causing some people to be so negative.

What it seems to be is that Wenger is doing it his way, not their way.  To attack Wenger so virulently because he is doing his thing, is a hell of an egocentric way to write about the club – to say endlessly, I know everything you know nothing.   Tony Adams could be excused perhaps when he said, on hearing of the appointment of Arsene Wenger, “he’s French.  What does he know of English football?”  After all it was an instant reaction from a man who was a brilliant footballer, but who lacked a global education.   But for writers of fanzines and blogs to join forces with professional journalists to attack every single action of Wenger, in the middle of a decent unbeaten run in the league, which includes matches against clubs from the top to the bottom, seems to me to be, well, daft.

What good can the endless attacks on Wenger do?  In the end it will drive him out, and we will bring in…. who?   One of those managers that the Tiny Totts find each season?

(c) Tony Attwood 2009.