A team to win the league? Wenger in Disneyland

Wenger is to have a cameo performance in a new Disney movie, The Lying King. It will be the usual tragedy, you know the sort of thing, animals parents are shot, they become orphans, except this time don’t expect a happy ending.Now I am not calling Wenger a liar, heaven forbid, but it’s a shame to waste a good joke, however he is capable of either deluding himself, or perhaps trying to delude his critics. A few years back it was his strongest squad ever delusion, which was repeated as gospel by his most fervent supporters.

Those of us who insisted on believing what we could actually see repudiated this nonsense. Of course we were denounced as unfaithful, but at the end of the season Wenger had a mass clear out of his most wonderful squad ever,  and had a panic buy in. it was possibly the biggest turnover in Arsenal history.  We all know the result; players like Park, plus one or two reasonable squad players like Arteta, but certainly not a squad to win the league.

Then at the end of this season, just departed, but not lamented, we were told by Gazidis that this coming season would not be like other seasons. The transfers in would be done early, so they could get quality players integrated into the team and hit the ground running. No more panic buying, that might not have been his exact words, but it certainly was the gist of what he was saying, and there are plenty of transcripts available to prove it, including a full video on Arsenal.com.

As the days have  drifted by there are no sign of new players, rumours yes but no signings, unless you count an injury prone player from France. Then the Suarez bid became news and suddenly hard to sell Emirates Cup tickets began to fly out the window. The matches were sold out for the first time in many a year. I will not bore on about Suarez here, there is a perfectly good article on this issue here, see links below; suffice it to say I will be happy if the diving, racist cheat doesn’t come.

Oh the bankruptcy of the football fan, all fans not just ours, one minute a pantomime villain, or an alleged rapist, and then on change of club the same player is a saint and hero. Though the main point I will make about Suarez is that I think the saga has blinded Wenger to pursuing realistically  attainable quality players. Of course Liverpool are right not to sell to a rival, who in their right mind would. Who indeed, which reminds me Wenger has helped build three other Championship winning teams by selling to rivals.

A team to win the league?

However, I digress, let’s cut to the chase, which is Wenger’s claim that his present threadbare squad could win the league. Indeed they could and so could 19 other teams, could is always there, it’s what is actually won in May that counts.

The real question is, is this reality, what is it based on? The answer is that Wenger’s claim is not an idle boast but based on the famous last ten games of last season with 8 wins and two draws, a good run by any standards. However the run needs looking at more closely, Arsenal’s good form and hard work is not the only explanation for this great run.

One could be churlish and put it down to bum of the week syndrome, and there were quite a few bums. A struggle to beat QPR 1-0 and a 4-1 victory over good as relegated Reading. The mighty Wigan were beaten a few days before they went on to win the cup, I can’t help feeling their minds were elsewhere.

However, the run also demonstrated an inability to beat top flight teams, there were lack lustre draws against Man U and Everton, good results against tough teams, but at home is that really what champions look like.
A season averages out over 38 games, by the last ten games the Gunners only had only two tough opponents left.

If you start the calculation from 11 games to the end of the season it starts with a 2-1 defeat at Spurs. If you start with the first ten games it is two losses, 4 draws, and 4 wins, true players had to settle in but that’s an argument to buy earlier not later.

As I stated above the season averages out over 38 games, not the first ten games, or the last ten. So it is disingenuous of Wenger to base his claim on the last ten games as good as a run that it was.

The reality is that this squad is incapable of winning against the top teams, indeed the poorest set of results in Wenger’s reign. They also find it hard to score against top teams. At first sight 72 goals looks good for a season’s work, but a breakdown of the figures tells a different story.

Out of 38 games last season out of 72 goals, 36 were scored  in 7 games and  36 in the remaining 31 games.

So for example 9 against Reading over 2 games, 7 against Newcastle at home, 5 against 10 man Spurs and 5 against the Hammers. Apart from Spurs it was bum of the week. Against the cream it was mostly a struggle to score one.

Strong enough to win the league? I don’t think so, we have flat track bully strikers; and a thin squad, that has seen a big clear out and no new signings. Players still might come in as Wenger is famous for his long pre-season that goes on to mid-September, but they will not come in to make a difference straight away. But not to worry we have a bye in the CL qualifiers and a chance of the usual 4^th place trophy, or not as the case may be.