Assessing Arsenal’s Summer Buys + WBA Thoughts

Arsenal’s rejuvenation doesn’t come as a surprise at all as it was the only thing that could happen after the disastrous opening to the season. Eight wins in ten is an attestation to the fact and the demolition of Chelski at the bridge means that confidence is sky high at the moment. The match against Marseille was a drab draw but it is worthy to note that Marseille just sat back and expected to hit us on the counter which never materialised due to the composure of the back four.

Our “knee-jerk” reaction buys have been impressive and are settling well into the team and providing us with options in all departments in the team. Most worthy of note is Mertesacker who was criticized for his lack of pace but his positional judgement and aerial presence was overlooked. In most of our games, he has been performing with so much experience that whenever he is caught off the ball, the whole backline gets exposed. Against Chelsea, the goal Terry scored, the replay showed that Per wanted to put his body in the way so as to block him from playing the ball but was not fast enough in that occasion. Against Marseille also, all aerial threats were taken care of by him.

Another person who has caught the eye is Andre Santos who has added the Brazilian flavour into our attacking play as evident in the Chelsea game where his mesmerizing forward plays, exposed Bosingwa on various occasions and the goal he scored was calmly taken. Arteta has been played out of position, but he has proven his mettle and covered for Song whenever he ventured forward. Park has featured sparingly so I can’t say much on him but his quality did show in the goal against Bolton.

Now all said and done, we are now faced with the test of West Brom who took four points from us last season, we were brought back from the fifth heaven against Marseille, we have to realise that we can’t score five every time, but we have to be wary of complacency because that would be our only enemy this time that everything is going well for us.

I am sure Wenger is experienced enough to know that if we lose a match now, it would have a negative effect on the team and means the team’s morale will be down again. We should approach the West Brom game with utmost importance and caution and three points and the Premiership summit could be beckoning.