Arsenal Season Review 2009/10 Part Two: The Bad

Yesterday's blog was all about the high points of the season and what I was happy with from an Arsenal perspective. Unfortunately that means that I have to go into the low points today and analyse what we did wrong and why, in my opinion of course.

For me the first mistake was not signing a top-class goalkeeper last summer and I said it in my season preview after the transfer window had shut. Almunia has never been good enough to be the first-choice goalkeeper of a team that wants to win either the Premier league or the Champions league or both and the misguided faith that the manager has put in him should have ended last summer. We can only hope that sense will be seen this summer and we will get the goalkeeper we need.

With the money we got from the sales of Toure and "he who shall remain nameless" we surely had the money to invest in a goalkeeper and as I said at the time possibly a centre back too. At the start of the season, Silvestre was our fourth-choice centre back and with Djourou missing the whole season it meant that we again saw far too much of a player who just is not good enough to play at this level any longer.

With the next-choice goalkeeper proving to be even worse than Almunia it meant that we suffered even more when he was out than when he played and it's no wonder that we conceded so many goals. Apparently we conceded the least amount of shots of any team in the league yet somehow we managed to concede more goals than "Manure", Chelsea, Villa, and Liverpool.

I honestly think that if we had a keeper like Friedel we would have gained at least 10 more points over the season. The confidence a good keeper gives his defence cannot be overestimated and it's blatantly obvious that our defenders had no confidence in the keepers that were behind them during the season.

When it came to our performances against our title rivals it was a very disappointing season as we lost at home and away to both Chelsea and "Manure" and in three of those games we were completely outplayed. In the first of them we went to Old Trafford without Cesc and lost a 1-0 lead courtesy of poor goalkeeping from Almunia coupled with a Rooney dive and a fantastic headed own goal by Diaby. In that game the boss was sent to the stands too when he kicked a water bottle after a last-minute equaliser by RVP was disallowed. At least we felt that we could have won that game but the other three games were a disaster.

The 4-2 defeat at Man City was a low point too and with Clichy having a hand in three of their goals us fans weren't too happy with his performance. We were a lot less happy with our ex No. 25 and his one-man attempt to injure our players and provoke our fans but at least the FA gave him the punishment he deserved.

The team worked so hard over the Christmas and New Year period to fight their way back into the title race that the capitulation to the teams above us at the end of January hurt a lot but again the players came back and won their next six league games in a row to raise all of our hopes.

Just when it looked like the league was a real possibility we had the disastrous late equaliser by Birmingham that effectively ended our challenge. It was a game we should have won and had the chances to win but a mixture of bad luck and incompetent goalkeeping more or less ended our title challenge that day. We did just about beat Wolves in our next league game but it was obvious at that stage that the injuries were beginning to have an effect.

That Wolves game was sandwiched by the Champions League quarterfinals against Barcelona and the decision to play Cesc, Gallas, and Arshavin in the first game virtually ended all of their seasons. The footballing lesson we got in the first hour of that game was another low point but at least we somehow managed to get a draw.

When we went to Barcelona our hopes were raised when Bendtner gave us an early goal but after that the freedom that we gave them to play led to Messi scoring four goals against us. The lack of fight and effort that we showed that night wasn't easy to take because Barcelona weren't really that good but we made them look good.

After that our league form collapsed as we first of all lost our 11-year unbeaten run against The Spuds and then we blew a 2-0 lead to lose at Wigan. We followed that by drawing with Man City before losing another lead as Blackburn beat us 2-1. Thankfully Fulham decided to hand us the points in the last game to ensure that we finished third ahead of the Spuds.  

The lowest point for me though was the horrific injury suffered by Aaron Ramsey when the ever so nice and innocent Shawcross snapped his leg in two with what can only be described as a disgraceful "challenge" away to Stoke in the league. The fact that Shawcross seemed to get more sympathy than Ramsey afterwards and that supposed ex pros said it wasn't even a red card offence only made matters worse and showed how little some people understand the rules of the game.

That defeat to the Spuds was next in the list and if RVP hadn't come on to change things we probably could have lost by more than the 2-1 scoreline. The fact that we had to wait until the final league game of the season for St. Totteringham's day wasn't good either and it's something we need to remedy next season.

The absolutely terrible goalkeeping by Fabianski against Porto was another low point that I would prefer to forget and I also have severe doubts about the supposed injuries and sickness that have kept Almunia out of the team at times.

The failure to reinforce in January wasn't great although at least Campbell did well when he came in. I suppose even if we had signed a player or two the injury crisis we suffered would have meant that the league was just a bridge too far. 

That injury crisis was absolutely unbelievable at times and ultimately it caught up on us in the end when the few players we had left found it too difficult to cope. 

I will always wonder how the FA Cup would have gone if we had fielded a full team rather than rest our players for bigger games. 

In other news, the youth team won the FA Academy Premier League final yesterday by beating Nottingham Forest 5-3. Afobe scored three of the goals with Freeman scoring the other two in what seemed to be an end to end game. It was interesting to note that Bartley and JET were on the bench and I can only assume that they were there in case things weren't going our way and reinforcements were needed.

Ivan Gazidis was able to tell us yesterday that the club has no more debt from the development of Highbury Square or Queensland Road and that all future property sales are clear profit that can be reinvested in the club. It means that a lot more money could be coming the manager's way very soon but whether he uses it or not is anybody's guess. 

He also told us that a clock will be placed at the south end of the stadium before the start of next season and the quadrants will be given new names too as the Arsenalisation of the stadium continues. 

The ridiculous transfer rumour of the day was that we are interested in Paul Robinson and it is just completely unbelievable to me. Has any goalkeeper ever conceded as many goals against Arsenal as he has because we nearly always seem to get at least four goals against him. 

Walcott has been named in England's provisional squad for the World Cup and Diaby is in the French squad but Nasri didn't make it. At least it means Nasri will have the summer off. That's it for today and I hope it wasn't too negative. I'll run through the players individual ratings tomorrow.

Here's a reminder of just how bad Fabianski was away to Porto.

See You Tomorrow.