Gunnerblog End of Season Awards 2009
1 comment June 22nd, 2009
It’s been a good few weeks now since the season ended, and the signing of Thomas Vermalen for the 2009/10 campaign seems to confirm that the door has well and truly been closed on the previous campaign. Therefore, it’s fairly pressing that I hand out the obligatory Gunnerblog End of Season Awards.
In some ways, the positive choices were far easier to make than the negative ones. Picking a Player of the Season, whilst not obvious, was a doddle compared to 07/08, when there were so many deserving candidates. Similarly, choosing the worst game of the campaign was a bit like being locked in Hell’s toilet and asked to pick a snack from The Devil’s pooey pic&mix.
Anyway, here we go…
Player of the Season
As I just intimated, there aren’t many contenders for this one. If it was done purely on an average level of performance per game, Andrey Arshavin would walk it. Unfortunately, I don’t think you can justify giving a Player of the Season award to anyone who only played their first game in February.
Manuel Almunia is another potential winner, if only for being able to string together a good deal of consistent performances. He wasn’t exceptional, but he was solid, and in a squad that struggled as much as ours that enabled him to stand out.
My winner, however, is Robin van Persie. Whilst I’ll admit he faded at the back end of a trying season, at a time when the team was suffering blow after blow it was his goals that provided the crutch which enabled us to stay on our feet and lurch onwards in pursuit of Aston Villa.
There were a few months when Van Persie won about four Arsenal.com player of the month awards consecutively. It was a spell in which he donned the armband, provided assists, and scored most of the goals which took his tally for the season to an impressive twenty. Before Arshavin arrived and Cesc returned from injury, the weight was entirely on RVP to deliver, and it can’t be disputed that he shouldered that responsibility magnificently.
Young Player of the Season
At the start of the season, the list of candidates for this award would have included players like Aaron Ramsey, Carlos Vela, and Nicklas Bendtner. And whilst all of those players had varying degrees of success (but success nonetheless in 2008/09), none of them pick up this award.
Bendtner has every right to feel particularly aggrieved, what with fifteen goals to his name and a goals/starts ratio almost identical to Van Persie and Adebayor. He overcame the boos of the fans almost immediately to demonstrate the potential that has some fans calling for him to replace Emmanuel Adebayor in the first team on a permanent basis.
The winner of this award also had to overcome the doubts of the fans. But it took him far longer. To say that some supporters were uncertain about his ability would be a huge understatement, but nonetheless by the end of the season he had dragged himself into a regular first-team spot.
Alex Song is not a great footballer, and never will be. He has limitations to his technique and his speed which I think will mean he is always an auxillary squad member rather than the lynch-pin of a top side. Nevertheless, this season he made huge strides forward, even ending up on Soccer AM’s ‘Showboat of the Season’ for an outrageous chest over an onrushing Liverpool midfielder.
I would love us to improve the squad sufficiently to render Song an impressive substitute rather than a starter, but I’d also far rather see him in the side than any of the other current options to partner Cesc Fabregas.
Worst Player of the Season
Well the fans’ candidates have been made audibly clear with the booing that so sickened me earlier this season. They are: Eboue, Adebayor, and Bendtner.
Adebayor would be the populist choice. I don’t know a single Arsenal fan who wants him to stay. But I’m loathe to label someone who scored sixteen goals (some of them very important) our worst player across an entirely dreadful season.
Bendtner would be a ridiculous selection, and despite Eboue’s flaws he proved to be a decent squad player with some solid performances all across the midfield.
Players who actively damaged our campaign with their level of performance include Lukasz Fabianski and Mikael Silvestre, but I think that is as much down to them being at the extreme ends of their careers as anything else.
My selection here pains me somewhat, but I’m going to go with it anyway: Abou Diaby.
Diaby has more talent in his little toe than Alex Song has in his entire body. And yet he has so little application. Diaby scored two fantastic goals, one at Villa and the other at Newcastle, that underlined his massive potential. At the start of the season he put in a display in Turkey that made him genuinely look like a man who had finally grown into his enormous talent.
And yet throughout the year a consistent lack of application proved to be his downfall. He has the strength, the skill, and the physique. Does he have the concentration and, most crucially, the desire? Next season is crucial for Diaby, and it looks like he knows it.
Game of the Season
We were involved in a few thrillers, though not always for the right reasons.
The 5-2 win over Fenerbahce was exciting but showcased defensive issues which came to the fore again in the horrifically painful 4-4 draw against Spurs: an incredible match but a terrible night for Arsenal fans, and the moment when our season began to look somewhat doomed.
The 2-0 victory over Manchester United certainly stands out, though the way in which they comprehensively thumped us in the Champions League taints the joy of that result somewhat.
Some of the performances of the Carling Cup kids were a joy to watch, and I look forward to seeing more of Ramsey, Vela, Wilshere & Co next season.
My favourite game this season was not one that we won. It was the 4-4 draw at Liverpool. I think part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was because Liverpool were involved in the title race, so it was one of our few domestic games which had some of the drama of the table’s upper echelons about it. Aside from that, it was a pulsating, thrilling affair, which we will be remembered as the night when one little man announced himself in a very big way.
Worst game of the season
Although that sickening moment when Aaron Lennon equalised in the 4-4 with Spurs will never leave me, it was the game that followed that which takes this infamous prize: Stoke away.
The mood around the club was terrible after we had chucked away a two goal lead in injury time. I myself actually travelled to Stoke, hoping for a change in our fortunes. The pundits predicted we’d struggle to deal with their physical approach, and I was determined that we’d prove everybody wrong.
What was so painful was that we proved all our detractors right, with a gutless display that saw us beaten by a side who, at that stage of the season, relied almost entirely on the projectile throw-ins of Rory Delap. We were a shambles, and the mood outside the ground that night was as angry as I can remember during Arsene’s tenure.
The Champions League exit to United was painful, but it was United. Losing to Stoke felt like our nadir.
Highlight of the season
It’s been alluded to in my choice of Game of the Season, but beyond doubt my highlight of the season was the arrival of Andrey Arshavin. Following the story itself was a real rollercoaster ride, culminating in what was (on reflection, at least) a thoroughly entertaining Transfer Deadline Day.
Not since Marc Overmars has Arsene moved to bring in an attacking player at his peak. Arshavin looks like he is capable of having a similar impact. Alongside Cesc Fabregas, he is the team’s outstanding footballer and ought to be an integral part of our plans for next season.
Arshavin’s presence in the team made me excited about Arsenal again. For that, I can’t thank him enough.
Disappointment of the season
Rather than one specific moment, I’ve chosen the feature of our season that I feel defined and caused its horros: Arsene’s failure to replace Mathieu Flamini. Denilson tried, Song improved, Diaby had his moments and Ramsey showed potential, but no-one came close to provided Cesc with the support Flamini had the season before. What’s more, when Cesc picked up the first major injury of his Arsenal career, we were not in any position to cope. The failure to sign Xabi Alonso on deadline day, and the neglect that meant no alternative was lined up were, I believe, the principal reasons for our disastrous form.
———
After some good progress in 2007/08, 08/09 represented a backward step for Arsene and the side. The failure to replace the likes of Senderos, Hleb, Flamini, Gilberto and Diarra sufficiently left us in a very weak position, and it was no surprise when the rigours of the season exposed the inadequacies of those players promoted beyond reasonable justification.
The signing of Vermaelen is a step in the right direction, but if we’re to avoid similar struggles next term, he must be joined by a central midfielder. If that player arrives, then we can begin to look forward.
Till tomorrow.
