Same Old Arsenal. Always.... In Transition?

As those who know me would attest, I am an unashamed lover of the Arsenal. My love for sports in general can only be matched by my love for this football club. I have supported them since I was a boy and I am a proud season ticket holder. In many ways it’s the reason why up till now I have avoided writing about them. I fear my biases will spill onto the page and instead of being objective I will simply find myself defending the team, the coach and the club in general.

After watching the Dortmund game and analysing what went wrong, I was inspired after a conversation with a good friend of mine to talk about my pet peeves with this Arsenal team. The problem is my pet peeves with this team have pretty much been the same for the better part of a decade; that is in some areas of the pitch we have consistently been undermanned in terms of world class talent as compared to other areas such as upfront or attacking midfield. During our well documented barren run Arsenal have always boasted highly rated (and highly sort after) talents at the top end of the pitch particularly under Wenger. If there is one position that has suffered during this period it is undoubtedly in the defensive midfield.

If I am being totally honest, I think that since the days of Patrick Vieira and Gilberto Silva (basically the invincible era) we have not replaced either of those two players with anyone with a natural sense of positioning and discipline required to play in front of and adequately shield the back four, not to mention the physicality to break up play and the power to drive the team forward. The likes of Mathieu Flamini, Alex Song and now Mikel Arteta all pale in comparison with the players that patrolled the heart of our midfield in that fabled 2003/04 run. Conversely Arsenal has always been blessed with great technical attack minded players post 2004. Players such as Fabregas, Van Persie, Nasri, Walcott and even Adebayor blossomed into outstanding talents during their time with the club (and painfully moved onto pastures anew). But crucially no such talent emerged on the defensive side, there were no new defensive rocks to replace the Campbell's, the Toure's or the Keown's or a new goalie to replace the Lehmann's / Seaman's until Szczesny eventually took up the mantle (Almunia and Fabiansky weren't good enough frankly)

I raise the point about defensive players because this has been Arsenal's and Arsene Wenger's issue for quite some time. He has always had a gift for nurturing attack minded players but I can't think of too many examples of great defenders that have blossomed under his tutelage. If we take centre-back for example the best Wenger era CB's have been:

• Inherited from his predecessors such Adams, Keown & Bould
• Bought ready-made. Sol Campbell, Thomas Vermalen and Per Mertesaker come to mind and to a lesser extent Laurent Koscielny
• Developed internally such as.... errrm Kolo Toure and that's about it (although I wouldn't argue against Kos belonging in this category)

Considering this is over the course of 18 years that's not very impressive. Wenger has of course tried to bring in top quality defenders over this time but there have been a number of duds. For ready-made Wenger has opted for the likes of William Gallas, Pascal Cygan, Igor Stepanovs and Gilles Grimandi. When developing players internally we've seen the likes of Matt Upson, Phil Senderos and Johan Djourou fail to make the grade. Now I understand that it’s not an easy thing to do, but I still expect more especially when you consider the number of attack minded players who've done well under our manager. Out of all the names above, only Gallas was a proven entity and I'd be hard pressed to call his time at the club a success.

The frustrating thing is Wenger is still repeating those same mistakes; to this day we lack the requisite quality in the same areas of the pitch. And when the quality is there, we seem to lack the depth to compete. Having only two senior / experienced centre-backs at a club the size of Arsenal is just not good enough. We do have young Calum Chambers who in fairness does look a very good prospect but that aside we are woefully short in defensive numbers. Unfortunately Wenger has always been biased towards offensive players.

In fact Wenger went on record to talk about the need to beef up the attack due in large part to the glaring disparity between ourselves and the jet propelled attacks of both Man City and Liverpool. Both clubs scored over 100 Premier League goals last season and finished first and second respectively. Arsenal by comparison were well short of that number with a relatively modest 68 goals scored in the league (for context the 3rd highest scoring team was Chelsea, with 30 goals less than the top two). I think beefing up attacking options was the primary focus of both London clubs this summer for very obvious reasons.

However Arsenal's back line was also in acute need of reinforcement, something the gaffer did acknowledge but has not adequately covered in the summer transfer window. Mat Debuchy came in for Sagna and Chambers came in initially as cover for the right back slot but has morphed into our de-facto 3rd choice centre half after Vermalen's expected departure to Barcelona. So in essence Chambers is our 3rd choice CB AND our 2nd choice RB. With no experienced cover behind him... it’s quite scary especially when you consider Arsenal have traditionally always had an injury crisis or three every season!! We as fans have to hope no further injuries are suffered in this department (Debuchy is already a long term absentee).

This obviously begs the question, why doesn't Wenger invest in more proven talent in positions one could argue have been his "blind spot" over the years? He hasn't really been able to successfully develop them so surely one would be expected to buy a ready-made solution to shore up a team that has been known to have a bit of a soft centre for the best part of a decade, right?? There were rumours of the likes of Sami Khedira and William Carvalho signing but nothing has materialised. Surely this has to change if Arsenal is to be taken seriously as competitors for major titles.

Now I don't want to be too negative about my club, as I know it is a lot easier to say these things than to do them. We all know that there have been severe financial restrictions on the club for a number of years and honestly Wenger has done a masterful job in consistently guiding the club into the Champions League year after year with increasingly stiffening competition. But the fact remains that those financial restrictions have lessened and there is money to spend on improving the squad. I just wish we'd finally replace Gilberto and Vieira. I think it’s been long enough. Don't you?

You can follow me on twitter: @kwamberto