Well that wasn’t in the script, now was it? We all left feeling shocked, deflated, letdown, angry and simply lost for words, wondering where we are headed with the club with love so dearly.
All this after the perfect start, breaking the deadlock after 5 minutes thanks to a classy move between Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Tomas Rosicky, and a clinical dispatch by Olivier Giroud. The omen looked oh, so good, but from then on it was sadly all downhill.
Way before the ref put the Gunner faithful out of its opening day nightmare, the cries of “Spend some f$$$ing money, spend some f$$$ing money” and “You don’t know what you’re doing”, echoed around The Emirates. Remember, this was supposed to be the summer where we supposedly dusted off our £70 million-plus War Chest.
Many fans have had enough of the lies, b.s. and videotape. What does Ivan Gazidis do? Personally, I really don’t know and I highly doubt anyone else does either. I know he gets very well paid for doing bollocks every day, and I think you’d at the least support me on that. I could moan/rant/shout and scream my frustration from the rooftop of my New York City apartment, but it won’t help. Will anything?
Well, yes, actually. Let’s just spend a minute to figure out how we might be able to dig ourselves out of this mess.
1. A Defensive midfielder is a must. Since the days of Gilberto Silva and Patrick Vieira we haven’t had a proper one. Maraoune Felliani and Lars Bender both would be ideal.
2. Defensive cover is also a must. Premiership ready Ashley Williams would work, PSG’s Mamadou Sakho would also be quality addition.
3. We need a striker too. Luis Suarez isn’t coming. We could do worse than offering 30/35million for Wayne Rooney, and make him the main man as he has proven he’s top Premiership class (chances of that are none). Most of the other formerly available strikers Gonzalo Higuian, Alvaro Negredo are sadly now tied up.
4. A proper bloody keeper. Both Wojciech Szczesny and Lukasz Fabianski are liabilities, or at the very least are just not ready to play at the level we need them to be at. We need an experienced top class keeper – either Julio Cesar or Asmir Begovic are needed urgently, and both would be quite cheap, too.
It’s plain to see what we need, but after 2-plus months and just signing Yaya Sanogo on a free, then confidence in us making the additions is at the lowest ebb possible. Remember we let go nearly 20 players (still shaking my head at the paper thin squad size).
Negatives, negatives. Were there any positives yesterday? Actually yes, there were a few. Rosicky ran his socks off and showed real passion and fire to keep the team going. The Ox was very lively before sadly getting badly injured – ****, it was going to be his year too. I must praise the crowd for 60 or 70 minutes anyway. They were very noisy and behind the team before frustration kicked in. But on the pitch very little else went right. Many bad tackles, lots of dodgy decisions.
So where from here? Wednesday night Champions League game in Turkey is massive. With injuries abound, confidence low, it will take a proper team performance to hopefully get at least a draw. It’s time to step up guys. Getting through could dictate certain players coming to the Emirates or not.
So until next time stay safe. Up The Gunners!
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