Arsenal crippled by Wenger's incompetence

It was meant to be the coming of age of Arsenal's young guns. The day that would install a winning mentality in a very gifted Arsenal team. But it turned out to be a giant leap back in the development of this squad, and a further delay in Arsenal's six year wait for a trophy.

In the 89th minuted Ben Foster, the man of the match, launched Birmingham's umpteenth long ball to the giant Zigic who flicked the ball into Arsenal's six yard box. £8 million summer signing Laurnet Koscielny distracted Wojciech Szczesny by trying the clear the ball. This comedy of errors let the ball trickle to Obafemi Martins who rolled the winner in cooly.

This mistake underlined the reason why Arsenal have not won a trophy in so long. The club that in 2010 announced record pre tax profits of £56 million, have a manager at their helm that will not lavish this money on a more experienced central defender and goal keeper. What about Thomas Vermaelen I hear you cry. Yes Vermaelen is a brilliant centre back and is currently near the end of a long term injury, but he is only one half of a centre back pairing. All the best teams across Europe have a settled pairing. Vidic and Ferdinand at Manchester United. Pique and Puyol at Barcelona. Wenger needs to buy a world class centre back in the summer to partner Vermaelen.

Arsenal fans have also been crying out for a top class goal keeper but Wenger is still not listening. Szczesny is very confident but also still very young. And after the howler today a lot of questions will be asked of him. Arsenal have been linked with many shot stoppers such as Lloris, Reina and Akinfeev. One of these would be a brilliant capture but will not come cheap, and I fear this will inevitably scare Wenger away - again.

This is a major summer coming up for Arsenal with defensive additions surely on the top of the transfer list. If not then this beautiful footballing team may never come of age.

1 Comentários

Adicionar Comentário

Por gunnerjimmy

09.03.2011 21:01

Why do people hate Wenger so much that they are blinded from the facts. Szczesny made a mistake but its rare for a keeper not to, he still has the backing of most Arsenal fans, the good ones anyway. In his 8 league games this season he has only conceded a freak goal at Man u no one would have stopped, a blatantly offside goal against everton and the one 4 goal game at newcastle, 2 of which were pens, and the other 2 weren't being stopped by anyone. Sure hes young but its not forbidden to have a young keeper and hes made some great saves. As for defence, Djourou and Koscielny have shown enough to indicate either of them could partner Vermaelen. Djourou is a strong candidate only conceding that offside goal against everton in his last 9 starts.

Relatório de Abuso