Hello all, long time no see.
Much has changed since I last wrote: Robin Van Persie has finally developed the reputation he deserves, Wenger's head is no longer on the chopping block and most importantly Arsenal are back in the hunt for a place amongst Europe's elite (and Manchester City) in next season's Champions League.
At the start of October we were dead and buried. Lingering just above the relegation zone, it would take a miracle get us anywhere near the top four. Well we found a miracle and his name is Robin. The striker has 20 goals already this season in all competitions, and two more in the league would see him match Alan Shearer's record for league goals in a calender year. A truly remarkable achievement for someone who's legs are part flesh and bone and part Ming vase.
The striker's fantastic haul only tells part of the story. Equally astonishing was that pundits and fans alike expected an Arsenal team that was almost 50% new players to not play like a team that was almost 50% new players; when the new recruits were unsurprisingly unable to blend seamlessly into a team with a technically difficult style of play everyone threw their hands up in despair. Mertesacker, Santos, Arteta, Gervinho, Jenkinson and Benayoun have all been thrown into the first team this season and have had little time to settle. Really it should have surprised absolutely no one that when they finally did have time to learn how to play as a team Arsenal's form would see a drastic improvement. There's life in the old dog yet.
Since that loss to Spurs way back in October, Arsenal have lost just once (discounting the 'who gives a carling cup' and a meaningless tie in Athens). We now sit just one point off the Champions League places, and while the title seems destined for Manchester, the race for third and fourth places is well and truly on. Ostensibly a four horse race, I think Liverpool can be discounted on the grounds that they are rubbish. Dalglish has them playing in a way that serves as a constant reminder that he had not managed a team in ten years before taking on the job, and if the Suarez racism case has a silver lining for Kenny it's surely that it serves to distract the press from the fact that all of his other signings are quite shit (and he overpaid for all of them). If they were going to stand any chance of finishing fourth, it probably involved Suarez being able to play in all of their remaining games.
That leaves us with Chelsea and Spurs. As it stands, Spurs look likelier to finish first than fifth; keeping Modric meant that Redknapp now controls arguably the best midfield in the league, whilst Bale is reproducing the form that saw him linked with clubs all over Europe. They're finally getting some use out of Ledley King, and Brad Friedel has ended Spurs' laughable goalkeeping problems. A traditional mid-season collapse is looking increasingly unlikely, at least in North London, but over in West London things are still shaky. When Chelsea beat City a couple of weeks ago there was talk of them having turned a corner. A premature assessment as it transpired, as this was followed by successive draws against mighty Wigan and awesome Fulham. The Blues once lauded defense looks creakier by the week and simply isn't cut out to playing the high line that Villas-Boas is so determined to use. Sturridge looks like a good prospect but Drogba and Torres have 4 league goals between them all season. Things could well come to a head at the Emirates on the 21st of April when Chelsea come to visit.
Meanwhile it was Wolves who entered the lions' den on Tuesday, but instead of a mauling they left with a point. The performance somewhat characterised Arsenal's attitude against weaker opposition in recent years. After grabbing an early goal through Gervinho, we became content to sit back and just wait for another to just materialise. Opportunities were created and squandered but the intensity that you see week in and week out from the teams in Manchester simply wasn't there. And so instead of doubling our advantage it was instead cancelled out when Steven Fletcher was on hand to head home from a couple of yards out after a blocked shot fell to him just outside the 6 yard box. Predictably the rest of the game was spent laying siege to the Wolves goal but to no avail, even after they had a player sent off (probably unfairly).
Nonetheless the ante was upped after it was too late. Granted Hennessey in the Wolves goal had a great game and more than once goalbound shots were only kept out by desperate lunges from defenders but the game should have been killed off in the first half.
Rumours abound that Thierry Henry has signed a two month loan deal - I'm not convinced either way that this is a good or bad idea. What I do know is that Henry was part of a team which knew how to put games to bed. This is a squad that's been crying out for an experienced head in the dressing room to instill some belief and know-how into a still relatively young squad - if he can leave his ego at the door then that's exactly what Thierry brings to the table.
QPR are our guests on Saturday and then we're off to Fulham on the 2nd - if we can win both these games then the congested Christmas period can be considered a success. Either way, compared to October, we're sitting pretty.
