Is Arsenal Suffering From Mid-Season Blues
Arsene Wenger, the manager of Arsenal, has been promising success to the Gunners fans for a very long time now. However, Wenger has failed to deliver that promise over the years and the fans have been seeing one trophy less season
after another. Some silverware is overdue at the Emirates Stadium because the fans must have had it enough.
In the past few years, Arsenal did start their English Premier League campaign on a high note. The club sticks close to the title challenge and remains a contender to the ultimate crown. Often, Arsenal is leading the standings
in the beginning giving a lot of hope and courage to the fans. But, something happens during the mid season which changes a lot of things. The team loses its energy and momentum, thus in the end they fall short of their target.
Over the past few years, injuries have played a major role in Arsenal’s demise towards the end half of the season. There are certainly problems related with fitness associated with the Gunners, due to which the players have to
remain outside for the most part of their season. Robin Van Persie, the promising Dutch striker, has not been able to make him useful to the team for the whole of a season. Although, most of the players have to go in and out during a season, but Van Persie
has been sidelined for longer stretches, in the past.
Apart from this, Wenger finds himself surrounded with problems during a season. His seems to lose control over some of his players, mostly the senior members, which creates disturbance in the squad and problems on the field. At
one time, two of Arsenal’s centre halves were having problems outside the pitch but they kept on playing together causing all sorts of defensive issues. Apparently, as most of the critics believe, Arsene Wenger has had problems managing the senior players,
due to which his squad’s average age is always below 25 years.
If we look at Arsenal’s lack of success in the past few years, we would notice that the team was in transition. A lot of senior players were packing their bags and Wenger was forced with nothing but to replace them with inexperienced
youngsters. Due to this there were doubts about Arsenal’s title credentials. Also, the youngsters always have a tendency to be selfish players, like Samir Nasri, Theo Walcott and other young Gunners used to be in early parts of their careers.
However, after working on a team for five long years, Arsene Wenger put together a side that could have made a difference this season. For the first time in the last few years, Wenger had luck on his side as well. During the summer,
despite the utmost efforts of Barcelona, Wenger was able to keep his captain and playmaker, Cesc Fabregas, back for at least another season. Also, the youngsters have developed in fine young players as Samir Nasri and Theo Walcott are showing the best form
of their lives.
Still, despite everything going in the right direction, Arsenal is moving in the wrong direction once again. In the last couple of weeks, there were opportunities for the Gunners to go to the top of English Premier League table,
but Arsenal failed to produce results against all odds. There has been no luck, as far as the injury problem is concerned. Van Persie missed a whole lot once again and is still not been able to make a return to the starting XI. Theo Walcott stayed out for
a few weeks while Samir Nasri remained on the sidelines in the beginning, as well.
It is the same thing happening all over again for Arsene Wenger. Already in this season he has challenged his players’ winning mentality while he is far more worried after his team’s unprofessional loss against Tottenham Hotspurs.
On top of it, Arsenal has played some extremely poor football in their home matches, which leaves their fans more furious than the previous seasons. Therefore, if Wenger fails to deliver even in this season, a lot of eyebrows would be raised and curtains could
be dropped on a long and mostly unsuccessful era of beautiful football.
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