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It's the same squad of players (more or less), but that doesn't mean that it's always the same team - each season's casualty list kind of dictates what we end up with on the pitch at any given moment, so whilst the training methods stay the same, the challenges we face are always going to be different. That's probably a large part of the problem.
One of my biggest gripes with the coaching at the moment is that we have far too many players who have no defined role in the side, and who don't seem to be learning how to do any job properly? Guys like Walcott, Ramsey and Ox are all kind of drifting at the moment - we're asking them to do one job for the team, but instead of telling them in no uncertain terms that that's gonna be their main role, we allow them to carry on thinking of themselves as something else, and they end up not really mastering the specifics of anything. They don't see themselves as right-sided players - they just think they're filling in there for a bit, so they don't really commit to it. What's happening with Chambers? Is he a CB or a RB, or a defensive midfielder? What are we actually teaching him, and training him to be? Has anyone actually taken Flamini to one side and explained the role of a defensive midfielder to him? He talks a good game, but he still just seems to wander about wherever he wants. Have we nailed Wilshere down to long-term role? I know where I'd play him, but I'm not sure Wenger has made up his mind yet. I still don't even know what Rosicky's main role in the side is after all these years! I'm all for a bit of flexibility and adaptability, but I think that kind of intimate knowledge a specific role is important - it gives you something to fall back on, that you can almost do on auto-pilot because you've practiced it to death, when you're out of form, or just not up for it. It gives you confidence, and it can carry you through tough patches.
I also think we've allowed certain players to feel a little too safe and secure in their places in the side. I see a noticeable difference in guys like Coquelin and Campbell, who have come into the side after being farmed out on numerous loans, and look like they're playing for their Arsenal lives! They've been given any place in the side, and they look determined to make it their own, regardless of whether it's how they imagined their careers going when they started out. Iwobi is another one where you see a difference - he looks like he can play anywhere across the front 3, but whichever role you give him, he sticks to it, does the job well, and doesn't continually drift into other areas because that's where he'd rather be playing. This is his big chance, and he knows it. Bellerin is another good example of what you get when you focus a player on one role - there's no question that he's anything other than a RB: he does nothing but learn that one role inside out, and he's already starting to look world-class. That doesn't mean he couldn't fill in somewhere else, like RW, if we ever needed him to, but that flexibility comes second to his main role. If we could apply that same kind of focus and motivation to every member of the squad then there's a lot more that we can squeeze out of this group of players.
Which isn't to say that we don't need a massive spend-up in the summer, because we do. Regardless of all of the above, we're probably going to need at least one more CM and a new RB, probably a new CB and LB, and possibly a new back-up keeper, and that's just replacing players that will likely be leaving or retiring! My gut feeling is that we'll need either another CF or another world-class wide attacker, with one high-profile casualty making way, but I'd like to get a more complete picture of what's going on with the attack first before making that call - as it stands, I think a lot of players have been massively underperforming, and others have been going to waste, and I kind of fear the same thing happening to anyone new who might come in unless we get a grip on the coaching.
. The frustration with Wenger goes back a long way.
) in the CL? Well then sorry, but let's forget about Walcott and Welbeck and Campbell and Coquelin and just about every player in this squad. Who do we have that could seriously hold down a spot at the very top level? Ozil, Alexis, Bellerin, Cazorla, Cech, maybe Kos at a push. There's our squad to build on if we want to step up. We were closer ten years ago than we are having realised the so-called benefits of this big finance project. Elite football has passed us and moved off into the distance over the last decade under Wenger and the leeches in the boardroom. A sustainable profit making machine in an industry where sustainability is the biggest handicap you can suffer. That's just not how football works any more, regardless of Wenger wanting it to be so.
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