“the old Arsenal failing of not scoring enough”

That is a quote from today’s Observer (21 Sept 2008).  The paper says, “…but it also hints at the old Arsenal failing of not scoring enough goals while the going is good.”

Of course during the wonderful first half spell when the side repeated the torture of Blackburn Thugs last weekend it would have been nice if one of those post-hitting shots had gone in, or one of the keeper’s saves hadn’t quite come off.  

But it ignores something else… the simple fact that Arsenal are (at this moment at least) top scorers in the league with 11 from five games and a GD of +9.   WHAM have the same scoring record although their GD is only +2.

So if you are the top scoring club, is that really a realistic vision of what is happening?  Not least following a trip to the Ukraine where the spirit of old Blackburn and Bolton lives on. 

Those who still complain bitterly that Arsenal should have bought and bought midfielders in the summer will say that as yet we have not played the other Big Three sides, and come to that we haven’t played Liverpool Insolvency either.

That of course is undeniable.  But it is also true is that after just one goal in the first two league games we’ve got 10 in the last three with just one against.

And it is true that in the game against Notlob Wandering we played without Nasri, without Rosicky, without Eduardo, without Diaby, without Van Persie, without Bischoff, without Silvestre, without Theo for 75% of the game and without Clichy for 50%.  It rather suggests that we have something going here and if we ever do get a full squad we are going to see quite a bit of rotating.

It also suggests that Denilson really is Gilberto II.  Now that is hard for Denilson, for two reasons.  First Gilberto was captain of Brazil which is quite a monument to live up to, and second for quite a bit of his time at Arsenal he was not popular.  In the time leading up to his year long injury he was the centre of complaints against the team (presumably from the same people who in the summer wanted us to buy every defensive midfielder under the sun, and it was only during that period of absence that many fans came to see exactly what Gilberto gave to the team.

Denilson, to me, goes further.  He scores (which Gilberto did less often apart from in the first season at the Ems) and he assists, (Gilberto tended to lay off the simple pass letting others do it).

All in all it was a good day, and one can only hope for 22 sending-offs and a ground closure for racist chanting in today’s “game” between the Bankrupts and CSKA.  That would complete a good weekend.