Arsenal Season review.

This has been an Arsenal season like no other. Last season was quite simply the worst season Arsenal had ever had under manager Arsene Wenger. Arsenal had to rely on another team and an improbable "lasagnegate" situation in order to finish in the last champions league position. Fourth was a big drop from the lofty heights of the Invincibles. The season was largely called a year of transistion whether the team liked it or not.
Now one year later Arsenal find themselves in only a slightly better position having secured the same fourth position with a few games to spare and having contested another final. Arsenal have gone in recent times from being the winners of such prizes to now being the runners-up and getting to finals without winning any. Arsene Wenger has started the process of re-building and his plan is now in year two. The reality of a Chelsea who has had unlimited funding for the last 3 years has caused Wenger to start again with a new blueprint for success. Casting away the older members of the Arsenal recent past Sol Campbell, Patrick Vieira, Edu, Ray Parlour, and perhaps the biggest ones Robert Pires and Dennis Bergkamp. Due to the current state of the team Bergkamp and Pires have not been replaced properly, for so long Bergkamp had provided the flair and inspiration, the incisive pass and the fast counter attack whilst Pires has provided 10-15 goals consistently from wide positions. Arsenals decline has seemed to coincide with that of Bergkamp and there seems to be very few current members of the team that can do what Bergkamp used to do. Fabregas who just turned 20 years of age is the only player who seems to be trying to do the job of Vieira and Bergkamp together. That is surely too much to load onto one young player. All of the goals are now coming only from the strikers and very few are coming from midfield, with our player of the year Gilberto contributing 10 goals and he is supposed to a defensive holding midfielder. We are too well endowed with passing midfield players Fabregas, Hleb and Rosicky and they do not score enough goals.
This Arsenal team is totally different from the team in recent years, they are very bad at defending set-pieces and especially corner kicks and a lack of concentration has seen the team too often concede the first goal. It is very hard to win games in the premier league if you concede the first goal, although Arsenal have shown great character a number of times to come from behind to win or draw games. How many more points would this team have amassed if they had not conceeded a number of those goals first. The transistion to the new stadium has taken its toll also with a number of points dropped at the stadium in the first half of the season. There is however cause for great optimism as the team has scaled the heights against the best, they have beaten the best team twice home and away and drawn twice with the second best team and won once and lost once against the third placed team. It has been lapses against the lower teams that has cost this team. Arsenal are a team that at their best can beat anyone but with injuries and inconsistencies resulting from the younger players inexperience.
Arsenal need to add a wide player in the mould of a Ljungberg or a Pires someone who can add some goals from midfield. Ribery will suit, that and an injury free campaign, the adjustment ot the new stadium and some of the younger players growing up a bit will all contribute to a better campaign next year.