A frustrating cup tie early in a transfer window provides plenty of meat for journo’s and bloggers today. Lots of questions are being posed about the Arsenal squad. The favorites seem to be:
Are Eboue and Denilson good enough?
Who is best out of Chamakh and Bendtner?
Where has the Rosicky and Arshavin magic gone?
When is Fabregas going to Barcelona?
The last is just their to mark out the lazy who want to file copy without having to watch any football or think!
My own take on the game was simply that we risked too many team changes at once and ended up having to unmake two of them to stay in the competition. Now we have an extra fixture that will need a fairly strong starting line-up.
Is Eboue good enough? As a stand-in for Sagna who doesn’t whinge about his place in the squad – yes, but if a better option came along you wouldn’t miss him.
Is Denilson good enough? Yes. Obviously behind Song and Wilshere on the pecking order but a good solid midfielder. The clumsy lunge for the penalty was pretty poor but his excellent first-half was more typical.
Who is best out of Chamakh and Bendtner? I think they probably have about the same talent if given the same time on the pitch. Problem is getting that time if we are sticking to 4-3-3. Van Persie is better than both. Truth is that Bendtner should probably move on for the sake of his career.
Where has the Rosicky and Arshavin magic gone? Goodness knows! Whether both of them stay probably depends on the Fabregas question. If Cesc goes and Nasri moves into the middle then one of them probably stays. But if that does happen I think Arsene Wenger needs to search for another left-midfielder. Arshavin just doesn’t deliver often enough.
All in all, I think that we over-rotated and only just got away with it. On the upside, Djourou had another great game. He was initially neck and neck with Cesc in our MotM poll but has a clear lead now.
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