Prospective perspective

Patience may be a virtue of the royal, but it’s an ingrained feature for Gunners after seeing the see-saw of transfer rumors and deadline day signings Arsène Wenger and his management team have put us through over the years. As the Premier League kicks off this weekend, the much anticipated date for return of football is upon us. For Arsenal fans though, the focus is on a bigger date: 31^st August. That is the date which will define what our team manages to do this season.

Sometimes it is best to look back over the years and think about how far we’ve come from Wenger making no signings at all in the transfer window to the deadline day signing of Mesut Ozil. Once the fires of hope struck, Arsenal made sure they kept them running next summer with early signings of Alexis Sanchez, Mathieu Debuchy and David Ospina. The fans were excited and expected Arsène to continue going against his usual ‘close the cheque-book’ style and sign a forward to make it a great summer. That’s when the flames started dying out and we just about managed to scrape Danny Welbeck under the nose of the deadline on 1^st September. Now this may not induce optimism in the hearts of us Gunners wanting a similar summer spending spree, but it does remind us about the way in which Wenger usually goes about his business.

For the Ozil transfer to happen, it was imperative Real Madrid got to make their annual Galactico signing. Luckily for us, Gareth Bale was on hand and foot to walk towards the Bernabéu. And so, the master plan to let Gervinho move to Roma, followed by Erik Lamela to switch for Spurs which in turn allowed the Grandmaster of transfers, Daniel Levy, to extort £86m from Madrid. After that session of dominoes was concluded, Ozil was free to leave for Arsenal and Wenger was able to give us all his famous smirk of “Maybe we’ll have a surprise for you”. While this may have happened three years ago and last year only brought us Petr Cech, the Wenger smirk was conspicuously missing. This time however, we’ve seen it twice; when asked about Granit Xhaka and Shkrodan Mustafi.

Mustafi may seem to be a direct upgrade on German counterpart Mertesacker; it is the other defender, who actually has put pen to paper, that is of more concern. Primarily because Rob Holding might have to hold his own (sorry, not sorry) much sooner than expected. It is a true fan’s hope in the opinion that he turns out more like an English Koscielny and not another Chambers. Since it’s highly likely we see the Chambers-Holding partnership in the coming weeks given the schedule of defensive injuries at Arsenal, he will have made either plenty of critics or admirers earlier than anticipated. The fact that he was awarded the Player of the Season last year when his team was relegated should mean that he knows how to deal with a certain amount of pressure.

Moving to the forward dilemma now, I believe my biggest query is regarding our number 14 and why he even holds on to that iconic jersey at our club anymore. The point of Theo Walcott is now lost on me and frankly, it seems like it’s lost on him too. For the man claiming to be a striker last summer and now back to his “I’m really a winger” phase, even Wenger is taking the mickey out of him. He told the Englishman that he wasn’t ready to play up front when he wanted to and now when he wants to stick to the wing, Le Prof says, “Theo can be a very deadly striker”. That’s some double minded psycho stuff man. The problem is, we do need a striker in the mould of Walcott, but not Walcott actually. And having mentioned his name in my 5 players to sign earlier in the summer, reiterating it here is more of a plea to Wenger to splash the cash on him.

Alexandre Lacazette is the player Theo Walcott will never be and Danny Welbeck could be if he stayed fit. He is super quick, has the body to hold up the ball on his own and unlike Wilfried Bony, has the skill to go past his marker as well. He may not be the Drogba-esque striker every team needs but he’s certainly an explosive player I’d like much more than Riyad Mahrez or Julian Draxler. Neither of those players really fixes the spine problem at the club and Arsenal already have an abundance of riches in the attacking midfield and wingers department. With players like Alex Iwobi and Joel Campbell on the rise, the sense in overloading a flowing tank while the next cistern is empty is beyond me.

The Liverpool game might prove some of my arguments wrong but I certainly don’t believe we can judge the season to come from the first game’s lineup. It’s also fair to say there might just be a chance that Arsenal makes the signings which end up completely changing the starting 11 to reflect that of a title-winning squad. A man can hope, right?