- How much should Arsenal pay to cancel the shirt deal, and who’s leaving in the summer
- Why do journalists dislike Arsenal so much?
By Tony Attwood
Now, of course, the only Arsenal story doing the rounds is the level of injuries to the first team squad and how Arsenal have not built in cover for each member of the squad.
This follows Martinelli getting a hamstring injury against Newcastle United and Jesus out for a long spell with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament.
Saka however is with the team on its latest warm-weather training session, although of course he is not yet ready to play and no one will want to risk his return too soon. He’s been out since 21 December.
Of course, the arguments are that Arsenal should have filled up the squad with replacements, but that itself brings a problem, for if there are no injuries players don’t want to sit on the bench all season, and a good prospect might well then be tempted to move through lack of experience. Or worse, be less than ready if the call comes suddenly late in the season.
And all this has happened at a time when there are some dodgy fixtures on the horizon. The first two – away to Leicester and at home to West Ham should not prove too difficult for Arsenal even with backup players in the squad, but Nottingham Forest away on February 26 looks more troublesome. And then on March 12 we have the first leg of the first Champions League knockout game — although at least we can be grateful that we have not to play in the extra round that started last night.
In that round, as you may have seen or heard, ManC lost at home to Real Mad. Although of course, the media don’t like to make too much of such affairs it was the third ManC defeat in the last six games during which the club has scored 13 thus allowing the media to keep up the rhetoric about them, while conceding 15 – a negative goal difference that some journalists don’t like to mention.
Unfortunately for Arsenal, although they have missed out on the pesky extra two games for the Champions League, we find the journalists can go on and on using the phrase “coming thick and fast” when speaking of seven games in the next month. But then if a club is successful in the Champions League, it goes forward – that’s what happens.
The Champions League games come in March, and although there are tales of Arsenal having a bundle of games, in fact in the next month – that is between 12 February and 16 March Arsenal have four league games: Leicester City, West Ham United, Nottingham Forest and Manchester United.
The extra games are those which come about because of Arsenal’s excellence in the Champions League in which Arsenal came third out of 36, above such luminaries as Inter Milan, Atlético Madrid, Aston Villa, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, AC Milan, PSG and Manchester City. It is a shame – but a typical situation, that such an achievement from a club that just four seasons ago finished eighth in the league and thus didn’t qualify for Europe, is not recognised. Instead, all attention is on the fact that Arsenal may run out of centre forwards.
So although of course as soon as we start predicting anything, we can all come unstuck, but at least if we look at either the Premier or Champions Leage, table that can’t be called going over the top with positivity.
The fact is that although the squad has suffered injuries we do indeed still have a forward line: Trossard, Havertz and Nwaneri. And although people will always say we should have brought more, players are often not willing to come to a club just to be a backup playing little more than League Cup games against lower league teams, and maybe the odd Champions League game (although given the need to finish in the top six and avoid the current round, that is not always to be recommended).
Certainly, I am sure that Manchester C would sooner be in Arsenal’s position and not had to play Real Mad last night – and again next week.
As for Arsenal, let us not forget that Trossard has shown he can play both on the left and the right, having previously been a striker late last year, playing alongside Havertz. How would he or other players indeed have felt if Arsenal had followed media advice and filled up the squad with backup players for every position?
Of course, having a smaller squad is not ideal, but I still think it is better to have a smaller squad and use adaptable players since these players will stay, and get games.
