Amsterdam/Twente/Midfield/Other thoughts
10 comments August 12th, 2008
Hello. I’m writing this from a somewhat dingy internet café in Edinburgh. As the season hurtles towards us, plenty has gone on and I haven’t been able to give much of it any attention.
The first thing worth noting is that we managed to win the Amsterdam Tournament. The first day saw us provide a stirring Emmanuel Adebayor-inspired combaack to beat Ajax, whilst on the second day a Carlos Vela goal saw a young side secure a draw with Sevilla that enabled us to win the trophy.
The tournmanet was notable for the return of Cesc Fabregas, who will probably be plunged straight into first-team action against FC Twente tomorrow. That is indicative of just how thin our squad is. In the past, a player who returned to training as late as Cesc would be eased into the season, probably not starting games until September.
However, take a glance at the squad page on the new Arsenal.com, and the season for our dependency on Cesc is suddenly illuminated. Fabregas and Denilson (all 23 league games of him) aside, we have:
- Rosicky and Diaby, two players who are injured more often than they are not
- Samir Nasri, who has never played a Premier League game
- Amaury Bischoff, who hasn’t played a competitive game in two years
- Two admittedly talented children called Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere
- Emmanuel Eboue
It’s horrifying. Granted Alex Song and Theo Walcott can both be considered auxillary midfielders, but even so. The only midfielder we can currently claim to be able to rely on is Cesc. Arsene keeps talking about bringing in “one body”, but I am not even convinced one will be enough, especially if he shares the tendency to get injured that most midfielders we buy are susceptible to.
Tomorrow night we face Twente, and Nasri and Diaby seem to be unavailable through injury. That means that our midfield will be (right to left) Eboue – Cesc – Denilson – Walcott. It’s decidedly worrying how much weaker that looks than our first-choice midfield last year.
Still, with our defence and strike force seemingly intact, we should be alright. Failing to qualify is not an option. Come on Arsenal.
