Written by Mean Lean on Friday, 17 June 2011 11:16
We have had a taster of the new season with the publishing of the new fixtures this morning and the rumours that we would be facing Newcastle away on the first day of the Premier League season has proved to be correct.
As long as we can avoid Phil Dowd as the referee then we should be ok with that as a start. Dowd can do things with a game that Messi can only dream about.
The rest of August is a bit of a nightmare.
Now those league games are all tricky as it is but when you add the Champions League qualifier sandwich to the rest of the filling then it all becomes a little too much to digest.
I just want to thank the FA for sticking very difficult league games around such important CL qualifiers. Thanks.
It will be a difficult start but I would like to think that the players and manager can use these games to get the team to focus nice and early and prepare themselves to hit the ground running. Quickly.
We will start the season playing every few days but at least the squad will not have the excuse of being tired and not only that but we may actually have close to an injury free squad if not completely free. I know, I know I am asking just a little too much but you never know.
I can imagine the players scratching their heads and saying 'Perhaps we should have finished above fourth after all'
It will be interesting to see how Arsene manages the squad this time round. I presume that he will have more faith in the new faces that come into the squad from the outside, rather than certain players who were somewhat pushed aside during the course of the season. This should allow for more rotation than we saw in our last league campaign. At the same time players need a run of games to get up to speed and find their best form.
One of those players likely to be rotated is wide forward Gervinho who is supposed to join us in a 10.6m deal in 48 hours. The trouble is, he has been signing in 48 hours for about a week now. Which 48 hours is it supposed to be?
I have been wondering what Arsene plans to do with Gervinho and I cannot help but think back to the last day of the season when Chamakh was drafted back into the team with Theo dropping down to the bench.
Arsene pulled on his tinkering hat and altered his tried and tested 4-2-3-1 to a sort of 4-2-2-1-1 without a natural right sided player. I still cannot quite make out who was supposed to be ahead of Bacary on that day.
Wenger had been talking about the 4-2-3-1 having problems against defensively organised sides around that time and I wondered if another forward player would be one of his targets this summer. Now it seems likely that Gervinho will be joining our attack, I wonder if Gervinho will be that extra presence in the box, the one making runs for Van Persie and Cesc. A player who can use both wide and central areas?
If that is the case then one from the Theo Van Nasregas combination will have to play second fiddle come the big matches or the defensively minded sides and I could make a case for each of those players to be one of the first names on the team sheet.
No doubt there will be enough games to go around but you still have to have a strongest team, a team that you choose first and foremost for games that you must win.
I suppose pre season will be the place where we see the tweaks and changes to the team.
We have already been linked with Shakhtar Donetsk wide player Willian and now we are linked with his team mate Douglas Costa according to his agent Cesar Bottega.
We were told that Willian was the target with Denilson going the other way and now Costa's agent has spoken about Costa being the interest. Whenever an agent speaks about Arsenal being interested in their client, it always makes me feel a little suspicious.
However I really like the player, I have done for a season or so now. Quick and full of skill. Excuse the cliche but he would get bums off seats and all that but I don't know what we would do with another wide player to go with Walcott, Nasri, Arshavin and most probably Gervinho and the same goes for Willian.
The only way we would be trying to bring in another wide man would surely be if one was on the way out and I would rather that not be the case for obvious reasons. I like Costa but would much rather we kept hold of Samir Nasri.
Before I go, I would like to wish Mark Randall, Thomas Cruise and Roarie Deacon who have been officially released by Arsenal. Hopefully they can find a good club and make a good career for themselves.
Back tomorrow.
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