 Thursday, 25th Oct 2012 21:23 by Clive Whittingham It’s been a trying week for Arsenal with a heated AGM following defeats to Norwich and Schalke. Arsene Wenger says finishing in the top four every year is an achievement in itself, but is he right? OverviewThe public perception of Arsenal continues to lurch from them being everything that's right with football to everything that's wrong with it. This week – because they've played poorly and lost twice – it's the latter. This is a club that charges the most expensive ticket prices in the Premier League with season tickets at Ashburton Grove available for £1955, and single match tickets for £126 if you've got more money than sense. Even the cheapest seats are £985 for the season. No thoughts of hard up punters reeling from a double dip recession here it seems. And yet it's also a club that has allowed its best players to leave the club: Robin Van Persie, Gael Clichy, Ashley Cole, Kolo Toure, Samir Nasri, Alex Song, Cesc Fabregas and so on are all playing, and winning trophies, elsewhere. Arsenal meanwhile haven't won a pot to piss in since 2005. This week manager Arsene Wenger told investors at the club's AGM that he doesn't see this as a problem as he believes finishing fourth and qualifying for the Champions League is a far bigger achievement than winning the FA or League Cup. Roll up, roll up for your £1955 season ticket at the club that views finishing fourth as a successful campaign. Sit down by the fire, park your grandchild on your knee and tell them about that glorious year you once saw Arsenal dumped out of both cup competitions by inferior teams but rally to secure Champions League football for a tenth consecutive year courtesy of a fourth place finish and preliminary round victory against FC Fuckov of Macedonia. Dream briefly of just how good Arsenal could be if they'd just add one or two players to the current team, while deep down harbouring the knowledge that once the star name departure of the latest transfer window is confirmed you'll need four or five. Tear out your hair as they string together 17 passes and go nowhere – literally nowhere – with a move that culminates in three players ignoring shooting opportunities and Theo Walcott putting in a poor cross. Prior to poor performances and defeats to Norwich and Schalke though, Arsenal were the mutt's nuts once more. They are, after all, a London club that managed to find land close to their spiritual home and fund a state of the art stadium without saddling itself with debt – a stadium that now generates more revenue for them every season than any other ground in the league apart from Old Trafford. Fulham, QPR and West Ham were all looking for new stadiums before Arsenal and are still looking long after the Gunners have finished theirs, and the same can be said of Chelsea who are finding that even the might of Abramovic's wallet is no match for the land shortage in this city. Arsenal found a plot, bought it, built a fantastic stadium, and did it all without plunging themselves into a financial crisis. And if you look past the ticket price news stories you'll see the season ticket waiting list – it may be pricey, they may not win trophies any more, but people still want to come and watch and pay their money; thousands of people paying thousands of pounds. Look at how Wenger lost Cole and found Clichy , sold Clichy and replaced him with Gibbs; out goes Fabregas, in comes Cazorla; Song out, Diaby in; Nasri out, Oxlade-Chamberlain in. This is a club that invests in youth and, unlike others who do likewise, actually give it a chance to play in the first team. It's a club that replaces the irreplaceable, usually at a profit. It's a club that teaches young players to play the game in the right way – taking pride in possession of the football in a way English players and teams simply aren't used to. And while it is correct that Arsenal haven't won a trophy since 2005, they have maintained their position in challenging for all three domestic honours and qualifying for the Champions League each season. They’ve kept pace with Chelsea and Man City who spend vast sums of money, and stayed ahead of Tottenham and Liverpool who do likewise. When you consider the returns Liverpool and Spurs have had for the money spent on Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, David Bentley and so on while Arsenal have stuck to strict spending and wage caps and done better than both of them it's hard to argue with their strategy. While Tottenham are signing Niko Kranjcar and Steven Pienaar because the manager likes the look of "the boy Kranjcar" or "the boy Pienaar" and then finding no use for them at all on their way to missing out on the Champions League again, Arsenal qualify for it even when they've had a bad season. This is a club that is competing at the very highest end of the English game, while refusing to spend the vast sums of money on huge amounts of players that their competitors do regularly. They're usually good to watch too. Quite which perception has the most bases in truth will only be known when the full effects of UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations are known. Should the European governing body follow through with its plan to the absolute letter and actually prevent clubs that are artificially inflated beyond their true level at the whim of a Russian oligarch from competing in European competitions – and not allow them to circumnavigate the rules by getting the chairman's company to sponsor the ground for £600m, Manchester City – then Arsenal are set better than any other club in Europe. They already have a team capable of competing with these big spenders regardless, and if the others suddenly have to hold fire sales to get wage bills under control and are unable to replace ageing stars with big money purchases for a while than Arsenal could conquer the world. But if the regulations fall flat, aren't enforced properly, are easily dodged through cynical sponsorship deals and what-not, then Arsenal will live to regret not pushing that boat out a little bit sooner when the likes of Van Persie and Fabregas were there to be added to, rather than in need of replacement. InterviewThis week we thank Arsenal fan David Hatchard for his time and input on the latest situation with his team. Top fact - Dave once held my hair back when I paid the price for going at a pound-a-pint student night rather too enthusiastically. A good start, but some of the same old problems starting to appear in recent games, assess Arsenal's start to the new season… Before the Norwich defeat I would have said we had made a decent start to the season after having some tricky away matches. But our performance in that match was one of our worst performances in recent years; Norwich had been on a bad run but they fully deserved their victory. It was a very worrying performance as the players didn't seem to have any drive to get back into the game which is completely the opposite to the effort and desire they had showed up to that point this season. The Schalke performance was equally disappointing. Despite long periods of possession the passing was far too slow to cause the opposition any problems and we’ve hardly forced a save from an opposition keeper for two games now. Individual mistakes have cost us as well. The Chelsea defeat in particular seems to have dented our confidence. It was a match where Chelsea didn't create many chances but still managed to win quite comfortably. We have started to concede goals from set pieces just like last season which basically means whoever we play against will have at least a couple of chances per game to score from corners and free kicks. Despite three clean sheets to start the season we now haven't kept one in nine games. What has been encouraging though are the two full backs Gibbs and Jenkinson. Jenkinson has proved an able replacement for Sagna and Gibbs has benefited from a decent run in the team (although he is now injured once again). It has also been pleasing to see how well Cazorla has begun the season as he has been the stand out player so far this season. How has the team coped with the loss of Van Persie? It seems that Podolski is settled and playing well, Giroud less so. The team has coped reasonably well, perhaps better than expected. The players seem to realise that they are all going to have to work together and share the goals around because nobody is likely to be able to score as many as Van Persie did. They seem to be working very hard all over the pitch which is principally the reason for the improved defence as players like Podolski are tracking back to help. Giroud has worked hard but has found it much harder than Cazorla and Podolski. He missed some great chances in his first couple of games which would surely have helped him settle but he is showing signs of being a good player. Nowhere near the standard of Van Persie however. Having seen how well the Dutchman has started at Manchester United it is a little bit sickening to see what we are missing. I can't help feel that after the quality signings of Cazorla and Podolski and the improvement in the defence, we could have had half a chance at the title if he had stayed but it was not to be. What is the team still short of? How many players (if any) are they away from challenging for the league title? There still remains the goalkeeping issue. We don't seem to have great backup goalkeepers for Schezeny. Fabianski (injured currently) has never shown signs of being a good keeper in my opinion and Mannone has been far from convincing. It also remains to be seen whether we are going to have enough firepower to challenge for the title this season without Van Persie. We already have some way to catch up to the leaders. When our first team is fully fit I believe we have one of the best teams in the league. But that is the problem: ‘when they are all fit’. A lot of the usual suspects are currently on the injury list (Diaby, Gibbs, Rosicky) - great when they are playing regularly but unavailable too often due to injury. But I don't want to be too gloomy because there are players coming back from long term injuries that are bound to improve the team in the weeks to come like Wilshere and Sagna. We still only have one way of playing. With no Plan B, perhaps the problem is not that we need a load of new players but that we need to adapt our system when things are not working out. I doubt whether Wenger is ready to compromise on his philosophy. Is the lack of trophies an issue, or are Arsenal going to reap the benefits of sound financial management in years to come as fair play regulations bite into the more extravagant spenders? I think it is an issue, the pressure will always be on until they can get break the duck. It has not been made easier by selling our best players every summer. I honestly don't know if the fair play regulations will have much of an effect on the big spenders of the likes of Man City and Chelsea but I can only hope so because financially, Arsenal are doing the right thing. I like to think that one day there will be a wage cap put in place like in some other sports but perhaps that is a discussion for another day. Who are the weak links in the current team? Who should be getting more game time? When Gibbs is injured (which is quite often) the sight of Santos as his replacement does not instil confidence in me and I suspect in any of his teammates either. But as there are no other choices I can’t really come up with a better replacement in the current Arsenal squad. We don’t seem to know what our best forward line is at the moment with Giroud, Gervinho and Podolski having played as the front striker this season. That is definitely a weakness in the team and needs to be remedied. Walcott clearly wants to have a chance in the role and perhaps he will at some point this season. Scout ReportWell, for a moment there I thought Arsenal had cracked it. Watching them win 2-0 at Anfield earlier this season with Diaby providing a leggy, physical, Yaya Toure-like domination to a midfield that was linked perfectly by Mikel Arteta and supplemented by the vision of Santi Cazorla it seemed like the foundations were finally being laid for a trophy winning season. Behind those three the back four was finally showing signs of filling the boots of the famous Arsenal defences of old. A stalwart of the miserly old days, Steve Bould, has taken over from Pat Rice as assistant to Arsene Wenger this season and the shambolic mess of recent seasons – they conceded 49 goals last term, their worst ever Premier League total - appeared to have been well and truly sorted out. Arsenal looked tight, particularly from set pieces, and at Stoke the week before even Per Mertesacker had looked good against in form Peter Crouch. They didn’t concede a goal in any of their first three matches. It took until that third game at Liverpool to score one – the 74 they got last season was bettered only by the two Manchester clubs but as Robin Van Persie now plays in that part of the world it understandably proved a bit tougher initially. With new signing from Montpellier Olivier Giroud failing to fire through the middle – and commanding such little faith and support from his team mates that at one stage Kieran Gibbs actually shoved him to the ground in fury at him choosing to shoot rather than pass – and Lukas Podolski somewhat isolated in the left channel they didn’t seem to be posing much of a threat. But when Liverpool conceded possession Arsenal were lightening on the break and Podolski finished well to break the duck. The German has since scored three more and looks a good player but Giroud continues to struggle. If there’s a lesson to be learnt there it’s that Arsenal aren’t that assertive and confident in their own skin just yet, so don’t invite them in. Southampton did that repeatedly and went for six. In addition, when Arsenal have the ball down the left wing just the attacking side of the halfway line, watch Podolski make an intelligent run in between the opposition right back and right centre back. Arsenal have fed him into that position time and again when I’ve seen them this season – he’s rarely tracked and often creates a good chance by cutting the ball back from the byline. But just lately familiar cracks have appeared. Diaby may indeed by a new Toure in waiting, but he only played five times last season and when I caught up with the Gunners again at home to Chelsea he was substituted early once again. Wenger replaced him with a very different player, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and in the subsequent confusion Chelsea were able to score a terribly soft goal from a set piece. No sign of Bould’s improvements on that occasion. No sign of Cazorla that day either, totally nullified by the presence of Ramires who was detailed to remove him from the game. Without him and Arteta this is an ordinary team and all efforts should be focused on closing them out of the game as much as possible. This is not the afternoon for Samba Diakite to be getting sent off again because those two will cut QPR to ribbons if afforded space through the middle. But that’s just it, ‘through the middle’. I remember going to Arsenal at the back end of last season and watching a ball-acheing display from them against Wigan where the visitors double marked Van Persie to begin with, and were then able to put four or more men around him because Walcott kept running into central positions from his wide berth, bringing his opposing full back infield with him. And there has been more of that lately. Aaron Ramsey was impressive on the right of midfield in a draw at Man City but more recently has gone back to that strange middle ground that a lot of Arsenal players fall into – Arshavin, Rosicky – of not being quick or skilful enough to play out wide but being too lightweight to play in the middle. Further forward Wenger seems determined to give Gervinho every possible chance to prove he’s a Premier League striker (he’s not) but won’t give Theo Walcott a run there at all, reducing him to wide roles where he is usually pretty poor. Even in the Stoke game, against a team that plays so narrowly they used to alter the dimensions of the pitch to suit them, only Kieran Gibbs provided any genuine quality in wide areas. Diaby is a huge miss from the midfield, but his loss isn’t as keenly felt as that of Gibbs because when he’s out not only do they miss his attacking influence down the left, but Andre Santos comes in and frankly he wouldn’t even get in the QPR side. These problems are all relative of course. Arsenal remain a Champions League team and will more than likely qualify for that again. They’re far better than QPR and probably won’t have much trouble proving that on Saturday. Rangers need to be positive, crowding the central area when not in possession to deny Arteta and Cazorla the space to operate in, and then positive in attack with Hoilett and Taarabt used to exploit weaknesses in the full back areas. If Rangers do happen to get into a winning position then they shouldn’t deviate from the plan that got them there too quickly – Arsenal won more points from losing positions than any other team in the league last season. Links >>> Official Website >>> Travel Guide >>> Arse Blog >>> Arsenal Mania Forum >>> Gooners World Forum >>> Online Arsenal Forum >>> Gunning Hawk Blog >>> Arsenal Land Blog Tweet @loftforwords Pictures – Action Images Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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