A bit of a break before the Monday FA Cup third round tie against Leeds United. After a hectic last one week of football, it’s a welcome breather for the team. Seven out of 12 points from our last four games is not ideal but it isn’t bad either. Could’ve been more had the team not collapsed in the last part of the Fulham game.
The best way to go away on a substantial period of break from competitive football is to win the last match. Now the players have 10 days to mull over what happened at Craven Cottage, and to recover from their holiday exertions. The next game is at Liberty Stadium and it won’t be an easy place to get maximum points.
If the latest news is to be believed, that match comes just a week too early for Bacary Sagna. The Frenchman has been penciled in to return just in time for Manchester United’s visit, seven days after the Swansea game. Should that assessment be accurate, it is very good news indeed. To say we’ve missed the right-back is an understatement. If there’s one Mr Consistent at Arsenal over the last three – four seasons, it would have to be Sagna.
Sagna’s absence is felt more keenly due to the injuries suffered by players on the opposite side of the field. Playing with a natural full-back has hurt Arsenal’s game in the last month or so. Without them, we lacked support from the deep and there has been no overlapping, with centre-backs playing in that role. The role requires a lot of energy and I now have newfound admiration for the way Sagna goes about his job.
Of course, this being January and with the transfer window on, we get linked with a whole host of full-backs. Not surprisingly, all of them are left-backs and not right-backs. Wayne Bridge, Taye Taiwo and Kieran Richardson are just some of the names mentioned. Why it is so is up to anyone’s guess. I believe it’s because Andre Santos is out for the longer term while Kieran Gibbs’s fitness is always suspect.
Of the three mentioned above, Richardson is probably the only one I want us to get close to. Given that the options we have now are out injured and not being transferred out of the club, it would suggest a loan deal being the only option. That said, I’m not entirely sure that Martin O’Neill wants to part way with the former United trainee, even if for the short period of six months. There will be no adaptation period needed for Richardson and it’s not like he has never been in the company of technically sound team mates.
Theo Walcott is another in the news and he has plenty to say about the state of Arsenal’s dressing room. He’s quoted as saying how the atmosphere inside the Arsenal camp has been healthier for the departures of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri. It is an assertion that has not gone unnoticed among Arsenal fans. The team spirit does look better in recent months that it has been for seasons before.
He doesn’t talk about being a striker in this interview and that itself is refreshing. It doesn’t mean that he’s abandoning the idea of playing in his favored position but perhaps serves to show his growing maturity. That he’s accepting it for now that he’s a wide attacker and his contribution can come from other positions. Or maybe perhaps, this time around, no one asked him that question.
Walcott’s form has been very good this season. Consistent run of games and lack of injuries are real reasons why he has played so well. It’s never easy to come in and out of a side and be expected to play superbly each time. One can see the improvement in his game and how he has matured as a footballer on the pitch. There’s more variation in his game and his control/touch are getting better.
The last two games may not have looked very good on his CV but that’s part and parcel of being a footballer. Every one of them goes through it. The dry spell or the lack of form. I’m not too worried about it at the moment. If he continues to be this dire in the coming three-four games we can start to question him, but for now, let’s give him a chance to turn it around.
By his own admission, he knows that he has to keep improving. Of course, it is not only him, it applies to the rest of the team as well. That they need to take some of the goal-scoring burden off the shoulders of Robin Van Persie. It’s no surprise that whenever we’ve won the league title under Arsene Wenger, there’s always been three or four players who got 10 goals or more. The likes of Walcott, Gervinho and Aaron Ramsey have to progress to contribute to that level. By having threat from all over the pitch, it also makes us harder to contain.
The rebirth of Marc Overmars, Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg. Imagine that.
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