RTK Blog: Look at the positives

Arsenal’s players are under intense scrutiny, and at a time when their own fans and the media have dished out doom and gloom in spadefuls, they delivered a second clean sheet, when in the last two games of last season, two clean sheets would have secured the four precious points that would have prevented Manchester City from taking the third place spot in the league. This result was far from convincing, but in morale terms it was absolutely timely and well deserved. Many Gunners have written off our prospects in the Premier League and the Champions League before a ball was kicked. Yes we should have bought more players by now, but I must take issue with those Gooners who refuse to give credit where credit is due. We won ONE-NIL! and in the past we would have been happy with this score line and it was our trademark result in the George Graham era.

Yes we WON yet reading some of the blogs today, one would be forgiven for thinking that we had lost 3-nil. This game was being played with many adverse pressures, no Jack Wilshere, Arsene Wenger in the stands and what appeared to be hammer blows as we lost Gibbs and Djourhou in the space of 10 minutes. These factors could have destabilised the defence, but we managed through a combination of endeavour, luck and passion, to secure an ugly win. WELL DONE YOU GUNNERS! We had star performances in the shape of Theo Walcott and Wojciech Szczesny, Song showed marvellous passion in the heart of midfield, and Aaron Ramsey show flashes of inspiration with some of his passing. I am confident that Frimpong will add more steel to our midfield, and the thought of him along side Jack Wilshere is a mouth watering prospect. I love his Mohican as it reminds me of the Mr T of the A-team. He will become our “Paul Scholes” and he reminds me of Gilles Grimandi the former midfield assassin who took no prisoners.

Of course it would be easy to go into detailed analysis and find things that displeased me, but when facing the top scorer of Seria A in 2009/10 in the shape of Antonio Di Natale who rattled our crossbar and almost netted, you know what, I will take a win every day of the week. We can score next week in Italy, and add to this the possibility of our secret weapon in the form of Ryo Miyaichi, then we have reason to be cautiously confident. We have Liverpool on Saturday, and this fixture will really tell us more about our prospects before the transfer window has even finished. Liverpool will have the likes of Andy Carroll and Suarez who will really give us a defensive test, what ever the result it will only get better after we complete our defensive signings. So please be a litlle more patient. Let’s have a real debate AFTER the transfer window closes about the future prospects for the team this season.

So my message to all Gooners out there is to remember that the Premier League is a marathon not a sprint. We cannot lose the title in the first three fixtures, yet listening to the negative voices out there, we have been written off before we have re-strengthened our transfer weakened squad. THIS IS WRONG. Manchester United have signed a keeper who makes Spurs keeper Gomez look world class. The Mancs have quite a few surprising results to come, and I predict that De Gea will be responsible for many conceded goals. So the fixture on August 28^th will not be the walk over that the media are expecting. In terms of the outcome of the title? I cannot see a clear front runner. Chelsea drew against Stoke and look at the money that Man City and Liverpool have spent, yet they have yet to play decent opposition, and if Aguero had not scored two goals, the media would have been more critical of the light blue mercenaries. I hope that Samir Nasri departs to Eastlands as soon as possible, he reminds me of the French collaborators during the last world war. A traitor in our midst who put his own selfish interests above that of the prospects for the Club’s success, he doesn’t care about the future fortunes of the club, contrasted with Fabregas and Thierry henry before him, who are self declared Gooners. For that observation alone I cannot wish Samir Nasri well.

 Rocky_the_King