It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to this new blog, Arsenal Till I Die. Apparently Arsenal Football Club are doomed. The season hasn’t even started and the Club are in turmoil. There is an infinite list of star players being linked out of the Arsenal and it has been officially announced today that Gael Clichy has signed for Manchester City for 7 million pounds. Should Arsenal fans be worried?
The focus today is on Gael Clichy, the last member of the invincible team, the Arsenal team that went unbeaten throughout the entire 2003-04 Premiership season. The most disappointing thing about selling Clichy is that he has come through our “youth system” and was given a chance to play in our first team at a relatively young age and when he is reaching an age were players start to mature he has decided to leave.
He was in his last year of his contract at Arsenal and according to Arsene Wenger he was a player we didn’t want to lose. If reports are to be believed City have offered him 65k a week and he was on about 55k a week at Arsenal, which doesn’t seem to be a big difference (for a footballer anyway). For a player to move from Arsenal to Manchester City the only reason can be money. Surely he doesn’t really think he has more of a chance to win the league at City than at Arsenal. It takes years to build a team capable of competing at the top year in year out and City are pretty new to this.
The bottom line is that Wenger wasn’t willing to match City’s offer which means he didn’t think Clichy was valuable enough to stay. I for one certainly think that Clichy has been a liability at times for Arsenal. He was to blame for giving away a penalty in the last minute against Birmingham City which ended in a 2-2 draw in the 2008-09 season which was the beginning of our downfall that season after leading the table for many months. He was also to blame for the goal we conceded against Barcelona in the Champions league second round game last season which we won 2-1, playing David Villa onside unable to play the offside trap. That away goal ended up being the vital goal which meant we got knocked out.
So, who will be playing left-back next season? When Cashley Cole left Arsenal for what can be considered similar reasons (money), Clichy took his place, and did quite well. We have a similar replacement in Kieran Gibbs. The only problem being that he is the most injury prone player at Arsenal, and that is already an achievement in itself! He has the ability to replace Clichy and go on to be a better player. I watched him play very closely last season when he occasionally played in Carling Cup and FA Cup games although he seemed to be playing with his brakes on, or maybe just cautious of picking up an injury. He first came into the team in the 2008-09 season and really did look a decent player with some very impressive performances.
With Gibbs probably only being able to play about 10 games next season due to injury we need to ensure we have another player who can replace Clichy. Armand Traoré is returning to Arsenal this season after a loan spell at Juventus but if we want to be challenging for the title next season I don’t think we can depend on him to be playing most of our games at left back. Another option that has been mentioned is Tommy ‘hard as nails’ Vermaelen playing at left-back but I don’t think that would be a good alternative. His best position is centre-back and was truly missed there last season so we need to ensure we can get him back in the centre commanding the back four again. All the top teams have energetic full backs that can defend and at the same time get forward giving their team an outlet (Evra, Alves, Roberto Carlos, Cole), it is something I cannot see Vermaelen doing.
Two other options that have been circulating the papers are José Enrique of Newcastle and Leighton Baines of Everton. Either would be good signings and I think would strengthen us defensively. I especially like what I have seen of Enrique, a very powerful left-back that also has a touch of class. He is also in his last year of his contract at Newcastle so there should be a good chance of us getting him on board.
So, it is over to you Arsenal. Us fans need a statement of intent. If you want us to believe we will be challenging for the title next season bring us a replacement for Clichy and please not somebody like John O’Shea.
