Arsenal are slipping under the radar

By 1970’s Gooner

 

I am finding myself giggling with satisfaction when I hear all these TV and Radio so called experts when they all, without fail, do not consider Arsenal as a genuine title contender. The latest example is the verdict of the two distinguished guests of MOTD, Murphy and Shearer.

You see these people are afraid to stick their necks out in case they are ridiculed. Arsenal after all have not won anything for a number of years now. Why would it change they think.

And long may it continue I say, because they are all doing us a favour, helping reduce the pressure on the players and also making them put that extra effort in every game to prove them wrong!

They do have a point of course. We seem to be light on the center forward and on the ‘Flamini’ position. But in response to this there are three arguments to be made.

Firstly our competitors have more or less their own dependency on a high class center forward.

Man City are not the same if Aguero is not playing.

Man Utd the same if RVP is out.

Chelsea don’t know who their best forward is. Is it Torres, Demba Ba or Eto? Are they good enough?

You might say that these teams do have an alternative if any of those players is out injured. Arsenal do have Podolski to come back but more importantly we can go out in the January window and buy a centre forward.

Secondly Flamini’s position was very adequately covered by Arteta in the Liverpool game. And of course we didn’t have Flamini last season but ended the last ten or so games of the campaign with a much much better record than the eventual champions! So even if we do not buy a defensive midfielder we can cover for that position well enough.

Thirdly and more importantly it is the overall performance of the team that wins games and not individual performances or weaknesses.

When the team is collectively working well, keeping the ball, dominating possession and defending throughout the pitch then, as happened against Liverpool, we have nothing to fear.

Imagine of course if we did go out and bought cover for these two positions.

Then we will no longer be under the radar!