Part 1: What do Arsenal need to do to win some silverware this season
Arsenal have always been a team that perform good but never really go far. Some people would say that they are Holland’s equivalent on the club level. However things might be different for the team and the team’s fan’s this year. Arsenal seem to be stronger than they have been in their past couple of seasons.
Last weekend Arsenal handed out a thrashing to the new boys in the English Premier league, Blackpool. Arsenal went on to destroy the team by six goals to nil. It was the type of Arsenal performance that had been missing for a while now.
Arsenal were easily not at their best when they played Liverpool, however the team seemed to have turned it up a notch or two against Blackpool. Even Theo Walcott ended the match with a hat-trick.
According to most experts this might finally be the season that see’s an end to Arsenal’s barren trophy less run that has lasted five years now.
Change of Keepers: Last season Arsenal, seemed to be doing just fine. They were scoring goals for fun and defending much better than people expected them to. The team at one point even looked like they were going to go all the way. However the teams goal keepers, had plans of their own. Arsenal lost around twenty one points last season, due to goal keeping errors.
Manuel Almunia and Lukas Fabianski were quite simply terrible in Arsenals goal. The keepers seemed to be a bunch of amateurs playing in professional team. Countless goals were conceded due to the mistakes made by the keepers in between the sticks.
Almunia is a keeper who has very little or no control in the box. He shakes in the knees every time a ball is crossed into the goal and he manages to fumble loose balls, like it was an involuntary action. He is just not good enough to play in the Arsenal starting eleven.
The same goes for his counterpart, Fabianski. Fabianski is one of the very few goal keepers in the world right now, who can actually make Almunia look good. That in itself is saying a lot, but it is the truth. If there was a keeper at Arsenal who was worse than Almunia then that keeper was Fabianski. Fabianski easily needs another three years to develop to the standards of the Premier League. The best solution for the keeper would be to leave on a loan to try and develop the skills that Arsene Wenger feels he possesses.
Arsenal have been linked to numerous goal keepers this summer, to try and end the curse of bad goal keeping that they seem to be going through. Two of the most prominent players who seem to almost be on their way to Arsenal. Those players are Fulham keeper, Mark Schwarzer and Manchester City keeper, Shay Given.
Both the keepers have been heavily linked with the North London team. Schwarzer’s move to Arsenal was thrown into jeopardy ever since the former manager of the, Roy Hodgson moved to Liverpool. Whereas Arsenal were shown a glimmer of hope, when Shay given stated that he was pondering a move elsewhere.
Both the keepers have proven in the past, that they are as good as anyone else out there. It would however be better for Arsenal to pursue Shay Given since he is younger than Schwarzer and could be a long time future investment for the team.
This addition of a new keeper, could see Arsenal go onto finally break their trophy drought and take home some much needed silverware that has been evading the team for the last five years.
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