Arsenal fans are apprehensive
You know why.
Manchester United are the first big visitors to the Emirates this season. And they are third, a point above Arsenal with a game in hand.
United are champions and now have Berbatov.Their squad is far stronger and far more experienced. They are equipped to deal a crippling blow to Wenger’s season. Some Gooners fear that if United score an early goal, Arsenal will collapse.
Sir Alex’s attack is very strong through the middle of the pitch, where Arsenal are weak, even when their best eleven is fit. Ronaldo arrives in front of the D at high speed, looking to shoot. Raging bull Rooney fires fierce shots, not always at the corners of the goal.
Berbatov’s composure and strategic sense are quite uncanny.
He is a flicky player but not a fancy player. He is serious, so there is very little showboating from him. Everything Berbatov does has a purpose, a meaning, a creative intent.He’s just joined the world’s biggest club and he’s pulling out all the stops to keep Tevez out of the side.
And Tevez is a small lion, a pocket battleship, always working, always moving, always thinking, always ready to pounce and score from two yards. Tevez isn’t complacent. He remembers growing up in Fort Apache, lying in bed as a nine-year old, hearing gunshots in the satellite town that was created for the indigenous underclass by the dictator who had invited the world to Buenos Aires for the 1978 World Cup.
Like Rooney and Ribery, Tevez is pro-active, a player who will go and win the ball in the front third and make something happen.
We don’t know yet whether Sagna, Gallas, Silvestre or Walcott will be fit to play. I hope Sagna is makes it because he’s the most natural defender at the club, as well as being a very good attacker.
The 4-4 draw against Spurs was very disappointing, the 2-1 defeat at Stoke was more controversial than it should have been, and the 0-0 draw against Fenerbahce showed me that Fabianski can be an Arsenal goalkeeper.
Yesterday I went to the gym to get away from football and the first guy I see is a friend who is an Arsenal supporter. He’s lying on his back on the big mat where I do my stretches. I’m already listening to my iPod, so I just give him a hand-signal and sit down and start do the stuff that my osteopath says I have to do every day, while my younger friend is doing some exercises I could not do.
After about 15 minutes, we have a chat on the mat. He’s a season-ticket holder but hadn’t been to the Fenerbahce game or seen it on TV.
I asked, “Do you think Wenger’s lost the plot?”
“Yes,” he said, “and he’s got to admit it. He’s got to admit his kids experiment has failed. If anybody could make that work, he could. But it hasn’t worked and he’s got to admit it, which he’ll never do because he’s so bloody stubborn. If he won’t own up, he’s got to go. Everybody who sits round me thinks Adebayor is crap, even last season. They never thought he could do it again this season.”
Last night a friend phoned and says my author pal Alex Fynn is on talkSPORT at 9pm.
Host Danny Kelly had told listeners that Alex has been talking to Wenger in recent days.
Alex is succinct and therefore a good broadcaster, so I tune in. He says that Brian Clough was also a dictator but had a good No2, Peter Taylor. Arsene has no No.2.There’s nobody to challenge him and that where he’s come unstuck.
Alex said, “He thinks he’s got enough good players to finish fourth.” and “He knows he had a problem in defence. He had his eye on someone in particular but he couldn’t get him.” He also said, “There were two defenders he was after. Nobody else was an improvement on Toure and Gallas.”
I reckon Arsene Wenger’s No.2 was David Dein.
And I don’t think Wenger will go, or change his ideas.
I can’t see into the future but I do think he needs help. The board, from whom there is a deafening silence, have allowed Wenger too much power and he’s dug himself into a hole.
This is by far the biggest of Arsenal’s 38 league games. The proper football season has recently started.We have now been given enough hard information to sort out the contenders from the also-rans, although, at the same time, we must remember that every match is different and it’s always unpredictable.
Manchester United’s 1-1 draw at Celtic, where they were behind for most of the game, took a lot out of them.
If you like ANR, you’ll love The Professor.