Written by George Sezer Monday, 21 November 2011 19:29

GunnerTalk Blog

By George Sezer

Greetings GunnerTalkers,

I’ve been restraining myself from writing about my beloved Arsenal since things started to go disastrously wrong for us towards the end of last season. Watching my team going through a hellish summer and even worse start to a new season was bad enough; I just could not bring myself to write about it.

What hurt me most was to see the Gooner community being so divided and at loggerheads instead of being at their lager-heads best.

Yes, things were bad….yes, a lot of mistakes were made…. and yes everybody is entitled to their own opinion but some of our fellow Gooners attitude did not help the situation one little bit.

Of course it’s OK to criticise, but constructively, and there is no problem at not agreeing as long as it’s done maturely and pulling in the same direction - forwards.

I hope the lessons have been learnt.

I personally did not care about losing the players who did not want to play for the mighty Arsenal; good riddance to them is my motto. What worried and puzzled me was that the way management were dragging their heels on finding adequate replacements. That must take the blame for our very poor start to the new season. In other words the management have to take full responsibility if we fall short come the end of the season.

Although we managed to get sufficient amount of decent quality players in as replacements, it was just too late in the day for them to blend in for the start of the season.

Nasri; very good player but there are many like him or better out there. I also think that Gervinho is a better option, not necessarily a better player but a more direct player who compliments Arsenal’s ‘pass, pass and pass’ play - improvement there,  he just needs to be more ruthless in front of the goal.

Clichy; not many Gooners, including me were too upset that he left for moneybags. I would have loved it if we had signed Baines as a replacement but contrary to what many people think, I see Santos as a very good replacement , great going forward and he will prove many people wrong once he gets fitter and comes to terms with the pace and physicality of the Premiership. I think his critics are in for a surprise.

Fabregas; It was almost impossible to replace him and that was the case but in Arteta we have a ‘done and seen it all in the Premiership’ player. As Ben Harrington mentioned in his brilliant piece “The one who goes unnoticed” he is not a direct replacement for Cesc but an unsung hero of our recent good run. He is the high grade oil in our engine that makes it tick smoothly.

We have also got rid of some of the dead wood like Denilson, Bendtler and Vela, and signed Jenkinson, Benayoun, Miyachi and Mertesacker. The German international is a great addition to the squad; he is different then what we have. I know he is sloooow but the way he seamlessly integrated into our team speaks volumes and I love the way he installed calmness into our defence which was lacking desperately.

With the other additions, our squad looks to be stronger to cope with the demands of the Premiership although it might be weaker as individuals. Had we signed them earlier in the summer we would have been in the mix now, especially with the RVP-Theo pair starting to resemble the Legend-Legend partnership.