Arsenal's Problem of Plenty

It’s a problem nobody’s talking about. It’s the problem nobody ever thought they’d be talking about.

On the face of it, Arsenal’s squad has a number of issues that require attention. The midfield is marred by inexperience, with the manager still looking for “one more body” (which, at the time of going to press, was touted to be Kop favorite Xabi Alonso); the defense has also seemed understaffed, with cover for the first-choice quartet proving woefully inadequate in the last season.

But what I’m going to talk about here is a problem that supporters have not known over the past few seasons, hence their inability to recognize it.

Yes, it is the Gunners’ very own Problem of Plenty™.

Every Big Four club suffers from it. Chelsea has more midfielders and defenders than anybody (including Chelsea supporters) cares to count. Liverpool can’t get enough of defenders, and if the seemingly endless Gary Barry Saga ever comes to an end, expect more rides on Rafa’s Rotation Merry-Go-Round in its all-new, middle-of-the-field edition. Even Old Trafford plays host to one midfielder too many.

The pack of chasers, led by Tottenham, hasn’t been too shy of playing in the transfer market either, and no time has been wasted in loading the squad rooms to the brim, finances permitting.

But Arsenal, the Premier League’s answer to the stingy, hard-bargaining, deal-snatching, prudent-to-the-point-of-pain Jews of Antwerp, have found themselves in the middle of a glut of strikers. Yes, too many s-t-r-i-k-e-r-s. There, I’ve spelt it out.

Before you decide to give your comment-shaped knives a much needed taste of Blabbering Blogger Blood, please do me a favor and read the rest. After all, you’ve come this far.

Keep in mind that when one talks of a glut, one means that, given a fully fit squad, there is a genuine problem in selecting a player for a particular position from amongst the options available, as all of them are more-or-less of the same level of competence.

In such cases, the manager usually tries to devise formations and styles of play where he can accommodate all the quality that he has in front of him, or simply plays them out of position and hopes that they will adapt. So we have Owen Hargreaves playing on the right of midfield, Michael Essien playing at right-back, etc.

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