By dandan

Arsène Wenger, I believe, faces the toughest summer of his career, because on top of the obvious need to revitalise the squad with three or four new players he also has to wrestle with the new premier league rules limiting the squad size as follows.

All clubs will have a named a squad of up to 25 players of which only 17 can be over the age of 21 and not home grown.

A home-grown player will be defined as one who, irrespective of his nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to the Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons or 36 months prior to his 21st birthday (or the end of the Season during which he turns 21).‪

Clubs will be able to supplement their squads with unlimited additional players under the age of 21 on 1st January in the year in which the season commences.

Changes to the squad list of 25 may be made during the period of a transfer window.

It is interesting to note that home grown does not just apply to players brought through the academy of the club he is playing for, thus Sol would qualify having come through the spuds system from an early age. We have 7 first team players in this category.

Campbell, Djouro, Bendtner, Fabregas, Clichy, Song and Denilson

Add to this the fact that we are allowed to add as many unregistered under twenty one year olds as we like and it would appear to make us well placed with our existing squad. However it does mean that any player reaching 21 has to be registered if he is to continue to play, thus needing an existing player to be deregistered. One wonders how long an unregistered 21 year old or deregistered older player would want to stay

This clause seems to me to make any players that Arsène sees as surplus to requirements  very saleable, given that many clubs will be scouring the country for players that will allow them to fill up there squads.

Could be that Arsène’s youth project will prove to be a real moneymaker for the club. Once again it seems Arsène has done it right.

Being able to loan players out will also be pivotal as to how squads are handled, given that additional young players can be added in January, promising players can be put out on loan for 6 months premiership experience prior to joining the squad as unregistered players.

So how would our squad look? My initial take would be

New GK, Fabianski, Mannone

Djourou                            Campbell

Clichy                                Eboue

Gibbs                                 Sagna

Traore                                Vemaelen                      2 new CB’s

Arshavin                              Denilson

Diaby                                    Fabregas

Nasri                                     Ramsey*

Rosicky                                 Song                               Wilshire*

Bendtner                               Chamakh

Van Persie                              Vela

Walcott

* = Unregistered players, playing regularly

I expect Almunia, Gallas, Sylvestre, Merida, Senderos, and Eduardo to leave the club.  With a new Goalkeeper, 2 Centre backs and a Centre forward to join us. Arshavin is also very likely to go. So a new holding midfielder would be handy although Eastmond could be used in that role.

Perhaps some of our loan players will also be sold or indeed added to the squad, it gives you some idea of the decisions Wenger must make with so many of them approaching twenty one, which has become very much the cut off point career wise.

Interesting times ahead I think

It’s never easy when you lose to your local rivals and I guess we’ve had our 10 years and it had to end soon, but how many of you knew the game was over once Thomas Vermaelen went off. I thought it was that’s for sure, especially with Fish Head coming on in his place. This may be a little harsh on Silvestre but he does nothing for my confidence at all.

Anyhow, onto the game and Arsenal started brightly without causing any problems to Gomes. A harmless corner from Spurs and a half decent punch out by Almunia and wallop Rose with his only touch in the first half scores a worldy (is it just me or was Almunia a little lapse in getting up quick enough). Onto the game and Arsenal had what seemed like 70% possesion of the ball, all pretty passing ……….until the final 3rd.

Bendtner had a great chance but the ball got stuck under his feet, I’m sure I’ve seen that before somewhere. Again more and more Arsenal pressure, Eboue passing to a spud defender when it was easier to shoot and test Gomes. Rosicky goes through on goal after a smart touch round the defender and Kaboul blatently brings him down…only a yellow.

So, onto the second half and game over as Sagna fails to do the basics and keep his defensive line and Bale is through and passes home easily. More and more pressure by Arsenal and Theo puts Nik through only to pass wide again. Enter Van Persie and oh my god how we’ve missed him. He was the best player on the pitch by some distance when he arrived, a free kick from Robin and Gomes pulls off a great save to keep it out and another keeping out Sol via a deflection. The goal just wasn’t coming despite the huff and puff. Then Robin puts Theo through on the line and squares to Nik to pull one back, game on but too little too late. Spurs celebrate their cup final with a first league win this Millenium.

Analysing a game after a defeat it’s easy to get on the bandwagon and question basically everything. The only thing I’d question and now it’s clear, is Almunia, as good as he is, is he a great keeper? The same and controversially I would say about Sagna. How many times when we attack are you worried we’ll be left short at the back despite having 4 back ? I am a lot and against a better side we may have been punished more. We gift sides goals like the second and too many to mention over the course of the season. We didn’t miss Song too much but Denilson passes to opponents whilst trying osmosis far too often.

I’m saying nothing new about the defence but with Silvestre and Sagna in there I’m never confident.  Special word for Sol as I think he was awesome as was Clichy but with no TV we seem to have no defence. It’s time for a right footed TV to come and give Sol a one year extension, he deserves it.

This season we’ve been clinging on and clinging on and finally now it’s over. We can be proud of what we have achieved over the season considering the injuries to key players and especially RVP. The problem is the replacements especially in the defence.

Player Ratings

Almunia – 6  Punched the ball out well for their first goal but was slow to get up in my opinion.

Sagna – 5  Steady in the first half and bombed forward a lot. Gifted the Spuds the second goal and that was schoolboy stuff, where was he looking at along the defensive line ?

Campbell – 8  No fault of his for both goals and looked a threat in an attacking sense, was pumped up and it showed. Didn’t deserve to be on the losing side

Clichy – 7  The man had so much puff and sometimes was not giving the support when in an attacking position

Denilson – 5  Seemed to try and pass the ball through players all game. Started off neat and tidy and faded

Diaby – 5-5  Started slow and looked lazy on the ball, grew into a bit but faded and final ball not up to it

Nasri – 5.5  Tried to instigate moves in the first half looked deflated after the 2nd Spuds goal

Rosicky – 6.5  At the heart of everything first half but didn’t have the players on his level most of the game

Eboue – 6  Energetic but no real threat in attack, maybe better as full back instead of Sagna

Bendtner – 6.5  Hard to criticse too much as he does score time and time again and lacked any real support until the subs came on

Subs

Theo 6 – looked a threat on occasion but thsoe were too and far between
RvP8 – Best player on the pitch when he came on and wished he’d started until he was puffed rather than coming on too late
Silvestre– 6 Could have been in a better position for the second goal. His time is up for me

Time for the old 4-4-2 to come back if you ask me….

By our guest writer Livers