Arsene Wenger Needs Some Help…..

Morning all.

Another cock-up at the weekend, another player vows it will not happen again. This time it’s Mathieu Flamini’s turn to rally the troops and tell the world, well anyone who can be bothered to read his words, that the players cannot afford to make the “stupid” mistakes which have plagued their season. This is course has being going on since what feels like years, many of them.

Why? Because it has and all the time our players think like the Frenchman, nothing will change:

We had a bit of frustration because we felt we were unlucky. We conceded a stupid goal from a corner. But that’s football and we have to get on with it.

No, it’s not bad luck, it’s bad planning, bad organisation, bad coaching and lazy football and can you believe that he thinks that us fans would have enjoyed the game? Yep, that’s what he said! He also believes injuries have cost us:

We definitely need them because in the championship and the last stages of the Champions League, you cannot do it with eleven players. You need 25 so it is important for us to have them back.

The season is going to be long. We are only arriving at Christmas now. There are still a lot of games to go so we take one game after another and focus on the next matches.

I am very confident in the team, very confident in the quality we have because we have a few top players.

Ok, he’s right, we have missed a few key players, the biggest losses being Mathieu Debuchy, Laurent Koscielny and latterly, Mikel Arteta but even with those three in the side, I’m not sure the ‘stupid mistakes’ would have been prevented. Certainly not from set-pieces, they are our nemesis. How or even why we continue to make the same errors time and time again baffles me as this kind of sloppy defending should have been knocked out of our game years ago. But no, instead of that, it’s a topic raised nearly every other week as yet again an opposition player is left free to roam and make it count.

We’ve talked before about how Fergie used to regularly change his assistant manager and I’m not suggesting Arsene Wenger ditches Steve Bould but maybe it’s time for him to ditch one or two others and bring in fresh faces. Arsene has talked recently about how he expects Thierry Henry to one day return to the club and how he deserves more than just a statue outside The Emirates for what he gave to Arsenal, but what about other ex players?

Ok, they may not have scored the amount of goals Henry did and they may not have been as gifted but they played their part, a big part. Martin Keown is one who straight away springs to mind, Sol Campbell is another who instead of being employed by Arsenal, has reportedly taken up an offer to begin his coaching career with Ajax. Why not us?

Both of those players would put their head where others would fear to do so, especially Per Mertesacker. Both of those can probably see quite clearly what is wrong and would do their best to rectify it.Why aren’t they, or any others you can think of, at the club instilling what they had in bundles, into our players?

We never used to concede sloppy goals during their day I’m sure….

I think most of us believe that Arsene Wenger won’t change, no matter how much we hope he will as to do so would be admitting he’s got so many things wrong and that’s not his way. But to change his back room staff, well, one or two would see him to be versatile, open to new ideas and all without him having to portion any blame.

He’d like that surely?

Then, he can carry on doing whatever it is he does and let the defensive coaches sort out this bloody mess and maybe then, we’d finally cut out the schoolboy errors at the back. Then have can drift off gracefully in a couple of years time.

Yes, we need to sign players, big strong athletic ones in both midfield and defence but if the coaching remains the same, everything else will remain the same…

If Arsene Wenger really is planning on seeing out his contract in it’s entirety and that useless American is prepared to let him, then he needs some help.

But is he bould enough (yes I know) to recognise that and accept it?

Our next three fixtures are Qpr on Boxing Day and then West Ham who are in fine form and then Southampton. If Wenger wants top four this season, we seriously need to be winning all three of those fixtures and then go on a really good run and Flamini thinks we will, in fact he say’s it would be crazy to think otherwise…

I not so sure, in fact I’m pretty sure we won’t.

So, on a day when sad news has broken with the passing of Joe Cocker, Arsene Wenger needs to go and get a little help from a friend or two as he might just get by with them…

Have a good day all, only two more sleeps…..