Arsenal Season Preview: The Midfield Options

When I last posted a few days ago I ran through our defensive options for this season and I intended running through our midfield options the next day. After a very late night on Friday I had a lot of family commitments on Saturday and I decided to give things a miss and run with it on Sunday instead but it's funny what the interlull can do and I decided to take a much needed break from my Arsenal duties until this morning.

First of all we are only just into our second season playing a Barcelona style 4-3-3 formation after the boss decided that it was the ideal formation to suit our star player Cesc Fabregas. With that in mind he was hardly going to allow Cesc to be sold to Barcelona in the summer and have to change his plans for the future path forward for the team. 

When we started playing that system last season it was working very well with Cesc pushing forward from midfield and RVP playing the best football we had ever seen from him in an Arsenal shirt in the central striking role. We were scoring an average of more than three goals a game and when RVP got injured our rate of goals scored decreased drastically but we managed to keep things going in our league challenge until the injury crisis became too much to handle towards the end of the season.

With the new season upon us the boss is hoping that the formation will come into it's own again with both of those players central to his plans. Cesc has been eased back into the team as he played right through to the World Cup final with Spain but he managed to start his first game of the season against Blackburn just before the international break. Last season Cesc managed 15 goals and 15 assists in the league despite the fact that he missed almost a third of the season through injury.

I suppose the reason he is being eased back into the team is to ensure that he doesn't suffer those same injury setbacks this season although there's nothing that can be done to avoid injury at times. Cesc has to ability to take any team in the world apart with his fantastic vision and superb range of passing and with the right players around him he can and will be the best central attacking midfielder in the world in my opinion. I'm sure his reason for wanting to leave for Barcelona was to fulfill his potential and win some trophies as well as playing beautiful football and moving back to his hometown.

What Arsenal have to do is surround him with the players who can help him to fulfill that potential with us and with that in mind it's important that the right players are chosen to play with him in the team. For me that means that Song has to anchor the midfield and protect the defence in all of our games against the bigger teams where we will be required to do a lot more defending than usual.

He has the ability to make the important tackles that are needed and the self discipline to hold his position at all times and cover other players when they move forward. I know his passing can be a little wayward on occasions but he is still very young and he is only going to get better in my opinion. Only a couple of years ago there was hardly one fan who thought he was good enough to play for Arsenal but the boss was convinced otherwise and he has been proven absolutely right in my opinion.

There is always the option of playing two players in front of the defence and giving Cesc even more of a free role than he has had up to now. Away to Liverpool Cesc was injured and Nasri played his role with Diaby and Wilshere behind him and it worked effectively enough as Liverpool created very little. If Song is not to play it's an option that has to be seriously considered and as well as both Wilshere and Diaby we also have Denilson and Ramsey(when he recovers) who can play there too. 

I can't see a player to directly replace Song and he can't play every game so I'm sure the boss will consider all of those options when the need arises. As the season started the boss had said that he saw a bigger role for Frimpong this season as he had performed so well in pre-season but his unfortunate injury has ruled out that option. Eastmond is another player touted to fill in for Song but again he is very young and very inexperienced and he could probably do with a season on loan at another club to get some much needed experience like Song did at his age.

A lot of fans are very unsure about both Diaby and Denilson and there performances have varied greatly at times for us. Diaby can look a world beater at times but he also has a tendency to completely overdo things  when he is on the ball and that infuriates the fans. When a pass is clearly open to him he will often look to take another man on and that was never clearer than when he had an ideal chance to set Walcott up when we were already 1-0 up away to Barcelona in the second leg of our Champions league quarter final. I still don't think we would have gone on to win the game but it surely would have given us a chance and it was a very obvious pass to play.

Denilson can give the ball away far too often for my liking at times and a lot of fans were very unhappy with his performance in the home loss to "Manure" last season. He was overtaken by the referee while tracking back in the lead up to one of their goals and it just looked like he couldn't be bothered putting in the effort. When you add that to his collapse in the home game against Everton last season when in possession it looks to fans like he is too pampered. 

I know Diaby had a horrific injury only four years ago and he still struggles with niggling injuries to this day as a result of that leg break but there comes a time when we have to expect more from him. When asked about his favourite position Diaby said it's playing off a striker but we already have so many players that play there that he is unlikely to get his wish. He does offer us extra height at set pieces and if we could just get some consistency from him he could become an intrical part of the team.

Denilson is a bit of a puzzle to me as I'm not sure he's good enough to play at the level Arsenal play at but every so often he does something to indicate that he is well capable of it. With all of our players available I can't see him getting too much game time this season but it is a squad game and we could well have to cll upon him a few times thi season.

During pre-season Nasri was in great form and I had high hopes for him this season. He played very well in the first half against Liverpool but his second half wasn't so good. It would seem that was down to the injury he picked up on the day and he is now back in training after his operation. If he can strike up a good partnership with Cesc they can become a lethal combination and between them they have the ability to unlock the tightest of defences.

Nasri can also take the lead role in midfield when Cesc isn't playing and he showed exactly what he can do with his fantastic goal against Porto last season. He can also take a very good free kick and his ability at corners is fairly good too. His omission from the French World Cup squad looks like it might have been the catalyst to push him on to greater things this season and hopefully Arsenal can benefit from that.

Another player with a lot of ability of course is Rosicky but unfortunately we haven't seen the best of him during his team at Arsenal. His injury he suffered two and a half years ago has severely curtailed him since then but the signs are that he might just have got back to his best for this season. He looked very good when he came on for the last half hour against Liverpool and in the game against Blackpool as well but when Cesc returned he lost his place against Blackburn. I don't think he can expect to be a first choice player this season but he has got the capability to do very well when called upon and not many teams have a player of his ability waiting in the wings for a game.

Wilshere spent half of last season on loan at Bolton and he seems to have found a hard edge to his game when he was up there. I wouldn't be surprised to see him get a red card at some time this season if he gets a run of games as his tackling can be a little too like that of Kevin Davies for his own good. Again he has fantastic ability and he would ideally like to play in a more attacking role in the midfield  but I think he will have to settle for a few appearances behind Cesc when the need arises for the moment at least.

It's hard to say too much about Ramsey as there's no knowing exactly when or if he will recover fully from his terrible injury last season. At the moment he is scheduled for return in November but I don't expect to see him challenge fully for a first team place until next season in reality. I think the manager rates him so highly that he sees him as along term replacement for Cesc and we can only hope that he recovers fully and we get to see him go on and have a fantastic career at Arsenal.

I've already talked about Eboue in my rundown of our defensive options and although he's included as a midfielder on the club site I'm going to include Arshavin with the forwards as the wide left position seems to be all his. 

For me the ideal midfield would be Song with Cesc and Nasri in front of him and possibly Diaby coming in to play alongside Song in some games instead of Nasri for his height if he can have the discipline to do the defensive work. We also have Rosicky, Wilshere and Denilson as back up to them and Ramsey to return before too long hopefully. It's a very strong midfield with some very good players in it and if we can get them playing at their best we can control games and hurt any team in the league.

In other news the youth team came back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with Reading on Saturday with Josh Rees and Jernade Meade getting the goals. There really isn't a lot of other news to report today as the dreaded international break enters it's second week and thankfully we can now countdown to the return of real football on Saturday as Arsenal take on Bolton at home at 3pm on Saturday afternoon before playing Braga at home four days later in the Champions league.

Here's another look at Nasri's fantastic goal against Porto last season.

And

See You Tomorrow.