I have great faith in Arsene Wenger. He has a method of playing football that I totally endorse. Although I have absolutely no allegiance to Arsenal, in fact quite the opposite, I love watching them play. I think that football should be played the Arsenal way.
Likely to lose?
Having said all that, it can be no coincidence that Arsenal have lost to Fulham, Hull and Stoke already this season. Which of the other top four sides are likely to lose to those three teams. That’s right. None of them.
Arsene Wenger has packed his team full of young clever ball players, but when a team is prepared to battle, quite simply the Gunners go missing. Manchester United, Chelsea and even Liverpool, this season, are prepared to win games by getting stuck in. They play great football but if they first need to win the battle, they are quite prepared to do so.
Wicked long throws
Nobody should be shocked that Stoke are going to get the ball into the box as much as possible aiming for their two big, powerful strikers Ricardo Fuller and Mamady Sidibe. Nobody should be shocked by the fact that they are most dangerous from the wicked long throws of Rory Delap. Despite this, Arsenal were totally unable to cope.
Centre halves Kolo Toure and Michael Silvestre were totally dominated by the Stoke front two, and you would have thought that the battling pair were a couple of world beaters. For a side with Premier League and Champions League ambitions, it was not much short of embarrassing.
Rotation policy?
Arsenal went into the game with Theo Walcott and Robin Van Persie on the bench. Was this Arsene Wenger adopting a Rafa Benitez style rotation policy or was it simply an attempt by the manager to put more of his physically strong players on the pitch to try to match Stoke?
Shouldn’t Arsenal let Stoke be worried about them rather than changing things because they are worried by Stoke? The fact that both Stoke goals, predictably came from Delap throws, shows that whatever Wenger was trying to do he failed miserably.
Capitulated
The fact is that Arsenal totally capitulated under the pressure Stoke exerted on them and in those ninety minutes Arsenal showed why they cannot win the Premier League. Wenger constantly talks about the promise of his team, but with a few trophy less seasons behind them, they have got to deliver now.
Throwing a 4-2 lead away in injury time against Tottenham and allowing themselves to be totally dominated, bullied and overrun by Stoke City, both go to show that the alleged promise is unlikely to come to fruition for another season.
Petulant
When Van Persie did get a chance of the bench, he needlessly barged into Stoke goalkeeper Sorenson after being on the pitch for just twelve minutes and got himself sent off. It was a petulant act by a petulant player who should know better.
With Cesc Fabregas looking like a shadow of the player that we saw in the first half of last season, it was difficult to see how Arsenal could create enough to make Stoke worry about defending rather than driving forward towards the Arsenal goal.
Things got even worse for Arsenal when Theo Walcott, after coming on as a substitute, was carried off after a lengthy delay.
Time to deliver
So is it right that Arsene Wenger continues to talk about his side being so young and having so much potential, or is it time for the excuses to stop and the team to start to deliver?
Let’s look at yesterday’s starting line-up. Manuel Almunia, aged thirty one. Sagna, aged twenty-five, French international. Toure, aged twenty-seven, forty-five international caps. Silvestre, aged thirty-one, forty caps for France. Clichy, aged twenty-three, French international. Denilson, aged twenty. Fabregas, aged twenty-one, thirty-six caps for Spain, European Championship winner. Song, aged twenty-one, twelve international caps. Diaby, aged twenty-two, French international. Adebayor, aged twenty-four, thirty-eight international caps. Bendtner, aged twenty, twenty-one international caps.
So with the exception of Almunia who is over thirty, and Denilson, who is a genuine prospect, the whole team are international footballers. There isn’t a teenager amongst them and there are four players of twenty-five and over.
Producing the goods
I’m afraid it is time for Arsene Wenger to stop talking about potential and start producing the goods. This team should be good enough to beat the likes of Stoke but they simply are not. Instead of talking about doing things the right way, Wenger should be looking for a goalkeeper, two centre-halves and a midfield player in the January transfer window. If he doesn’t, Arsenal may struggle to get fourth place and although it seems almost unthinkable, Arsene Wenger may struggle to keep his job.
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