I hope the two victories over Liverpool at Anfield will finally convince the doubters our youth policy is carrying us into a RIGHT direction.
Put it this way: you look at Liverpool, they were disappointed in two games. They probably would improve a bit in the future. Or probably would go out and buy a few players in the January transfer window or the coming summer. But the problem facing them is - unless their take-over talk becomes a reality, they simply have no financial strength to match with Chelsea for the best talent available. So they will again go for the second best - the likes of Kuyt, Agger, Garcia.
In short, you just can’t see them mount a serious challenge towards the Premiership in the foreseeable future.
In terms of financial muscle, we are even worse than Liverpool. But because of Wenger’s vision, now we got a whole bunch of talented youngsters. When you look at the win over Liverpool, we fielded 6 teenagers, many of them hardly played first-team matches. Yet they played the game exactly the same way our first XI play - by passing and movement. No long ball into the box, and kick and rush. Most importantly, they showed their capability of playing the passing game well.
In short, even our second string are technically solid. There is simply no other Premiership team that possesses a bunch of youngsters as talented as Arsenal’s.
Those second string youngsters offer a lot of depth to our squad. All a sudden we are loaded with quality players. The depth we have this season is perhaps the deepest ever under Wenger.
The best compliment of the new found depth of our team is - when Cesc was booked in the Sheff Utd match, the TV pundits made a meal out of it suggesting it might turn out to be a big blow for us as Cesc would miss the FA Cup tie at Anfield. Yet after we beat Liverpool 2-1 at Anfield, nobody even mentioned the fact that Cesc, our key playmaker, had in fact missed the game. And the fact that the team had only lost one match when Henry was out has shown that how much an improvement Arsenal has made as a TEAM.
Best of all, even when our young side let us down every now and then, we know they will only get better, and they can’t get worse. While teams like Liverpool probably needs a sugar daddy or a big spending spree in order to upgrade their team, our basic element - talent and depth of squad is already in place. It’s only a matter of time before they finally reach a point to take off and soar like our double winning season of 2002.
9 Responses to “The kids are alright afterall”
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January 10th, 2007 at 5:28 am
Michael Jackson wants Rafael Benitez as HIS manager, so he can get a SPANKING from eleven kids at home as well !
January 10th, 2007 at 5:58 am
Andez Please don’t over kill it after one game against a very disappointing Liverpool side. Yes respect to all those Arsenal players on the field yesterday for a good win but there was nothing special apart from a sh&t Liverpool team. In term of performance it doesn’t say a lot. Remember not long ago almost the same side lots to Sheff Utd.
Arsenal youth policy is a lottery and if you think Song and Ali are the next big thing after one game then think again. I have been waiting for the past over 10 yrs to see the youth team and nothing to report. How many are on loan and how many will be sold off at the end of the season?
Remember what the Papers, Media and most fans said 9yrs ago and 5yrs ago? and where are they now. They blow hot and cold and that is the Arsenal youth team.
January 10th, 2007 at 6:25 am
The kids are good. They are seriously good. Notice the 1 touch football they play, exactly like the senior team. Not everyone from a youth team is going to break into a senior team. Kids who are too good but not good enough 4 AFC are eventually going to be sold.
Beating Liverpool at Anfield twice in 4 days is a brilliant achievement no matter how crappy a team we played against. Did any1 give us a chance in either game? NO. This is very good..We need to keep the consistent run going and beat Blackburn at Ewood Park and then beat ManU at the Emirates if possible. We should then go on a decent run.
If we dont create people are unhappy and want us to be clinical in front of goal. If we create more and score 1 out of 9 we are not clinical enough.
Just no pleasing some people… enjoy the moment guys, Yes we’ll slip up again but just enjoy this little achievement.
January 10th, 2007 at 8:39 am
What this game shows is that Wenger has a lot of options. I am still unsure of using the word depth. But options are aplenty. Over the rest of this season, Wenger can figure out the best 25 (or so) players, I think we can challenge for the title next season.
Or am I speaking too soon and should wait for the Blackburn game on Sat?
January 10th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Too true. If Aliadiere had put this sort of performance every time he played for Arsenal then doubtless there would have been a lot less criticism. The FACT is, this was a weakened side, and Aliadiere has proved nothing except have an excellent game against a much depleted Liverpool team. Still, hopefully that has put another ?1m on his value and he can be sold now.
Baptista still has a lot to prove as well. The one thing that is obvious is that he’s a forward not a midfielder - he will never be a midfielder.
Anyway, you cannot take away anything from the performance yesterday - I’m sure Liverpool have put out many understrength teams over the last 100 years, but to get caned by a bunch of, mostly, kids like that is something special and not to be scoffed at.
January 10th, 2007 at 8:44 am
Consistency is the key. I still maintain that the performance against Liverpool on Saturday was nothing wonderous. Arsenal had 3 attempts on target in 90 minutes - scored all three and one was a wonder strike. Great stuff, but that’s never going to happen every week.
Arsenal needs to start dictating the play a lot more away from home and creating a lot more clear cut chances away from home - they need to be creating 6 or 7 decent chances and converting a couple. If they can do that throughout the remainder of the season then perhaps we can talk about titles next season.
January 10th, 2007 at 9:47 am
note for Love Gunners
The youth policy is serving 2 purposes, cover for injuries, options for tactics, not directly competeing with chelseas millions in the transfer window… oh and the players who dont break through to the first team are sold for a profit, bentley and stokes are two examples
so while all the other prem teams are filling holes with quick fixes like liverpool do every transfer window (how many strikers have they gone through the last 3 seasons?) arsen just has to go to the training ground
January 10th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Love G, I did not say Ali and Song are the “next big thing”. All I been saying is as a TEAM, we have a lot of quality in our younger generation, and we are heading into the RIGHT direction with this - buying youth instead of spedning big policy.
You should know I been watching football for too long to be overexcited over ONE SINGLE RESULT. I am talking about a bigger picture, the team clearly show the potential, and indeed signs that they got what it takes to be a legit title challenger in years to come.
As for the two Liverpool victories, bare in mind - prior to those fixtures, I browised through this site, how many people here predcited we could win ONE of the two ties? Let alone two.
And we are talking about THIS IS ANFIELD, where it used to be a so-called fortress this season before we arrived.
Despite Henry’s come back, in the FA Cup tie, we still got many first-teamers missing. In the League Cup tie, however a reserve side Liverpool fielded, they still put on a stronger side on paper compare to us with our starting XI had an average age under 21.
Nobody could beat Liverpool twice at their backyard through sheer luck. Our younger generation played a hugh part in getting this result. If it still fails to convince people that the future is bright, then I got no more to say.
January 10th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Nice game for our reserve players. Good game to boost the confidence of Aliadiere and Baptista. The reality is that that we beat an unbalanced Liverpool team. Their back 4 were a disaster and Dudek hasn’t done jack since Istanbul. Clearly Liverpool’s (R) defensive pairing (Paletta and what his name) were not up to the task. Baptista and Aliadiere have to still show us something against sterner competition. It is more concerning to me that we still conceded 3 goals. The Gerard goal aside, you cannot let Sammi (slow as molasses) Hyypia have a free header. Its the only thing he’s good for these days besides giving away penalties. That first goal was offsides and should not have counted (just like our fourth). Set play defense is still a problem.
So let’s put the Liverpool game in the memory bank and get back to reality. Blackburn are next with Benni McCarthy who did not play in our last game. He’s adapting well to the English game and his goal total has more than made up for the loss of Bellamy. My only question is will Hughes still let his team come out and play. I hope they come to play since they are in Europe and should fancy themselves a ‘big team’. I’m hoping that the egos of Hughes and Jol will get the best of them in how their teams approach Arsenal. That they will ‘play’ to Arsenal’s strenght.