In an ideal world, we would not have two, very promising, young goalkeepers, but at least one experienced stopper; and we would also have a beast of an experienced, classical DM in our squad. But other than that, Arsenal have great strength in depth throughout the team.
Last night, I was having a good look at our squad and gave some thoughts to what would happen once, if ever, the entire squad is fully fit and ready to play. I divided the squad into: ‘most likely first team starters’ and ‘second string team’, and when finished I wondered whether I would put my house on the first team easily beating the second string team, assuming they are all fully fit and motivated.
First Team: Second Team:
Szczesny Mannone
Sagna Jenkinson
Mertesacker Djourou
Vermaelen Koscielny
Gibbs Santos
Arteta Coquelin
Diaby Ramsey
Santi Jack
Podolski Rosicky
Gervinho Arshavin
Giroud Theo
I based the first team on a mixture of recent selection choices for key games and quality of the player (experience, recent successful performances, etc). A fully fit Jack might be first choice instead of a fully fit Diaby, but I reckon it is very close at the moment.
Would you put your house on the above mentioned first team beating the second team, say four times out of five? I would not.
I reckon Arteta is a lot stronger than Coquelin, as the former lacks the enormous experience of the Spaniard, and a fully fit Diaby is ahead of Ramsey, no doubt. Mertesacker is a better CB than JD and Podolski a better goal scorer than Rosicky, but a team is more than the sum of its parts, and if both teams would be given one month to train together and than play five games against each other over the space of two weeks; would the first team outperform the second team with ease every time? I think not.
Or let me put it differently, if we would take the second team to Norwich on Saturday, would you really be worried we would not be able to win the game?
There is great strength of depth in our team, which is just fantastic for us. The key thing is, though, to use it properly. Rotation of players is a real art. We all know the saying: ‘don’t change a winning team’ and managers are often reluctant to rotate players, even when the risk of fatigue and subsequent injury is looming dangerously.
I reckon we played Mertesacker in too many games before he got injured. His body and mind were used to a long winter-break in December and January, but Arsenal kept playing him and it is quite well possible that this led to him damaging his ligaments in early February. Arteta and Van Persie are other examples of not being rotated enough. Miraculously, we got away with not resting the traitorous Dutchman, but we were not so lucky with our anchor in midfield, which could have cost us dearly. There are more examples of players being played in too many games in succession, and the only way to avoid the strong possibility of long term injuries to key players is by rotating our squad wisely.
I am a huge fan of Arsene, but I believe he is not very good at rotation. I don’t think he does it enough, and we often seem to suffer disproportionately if and when Arsene is forced, or even chooses, to rotate. Yet, I feel strongly he needs to rotate more this season: not four, five players at a time, but one or two at every game: subtle, well-prepared for changes, designed to keep players out of the ‘red zone’.
If we don’t do it, there is a strong possibility we will get into the final period of the season – the one in which silverware is being won or lost – with either too many fatigued, or long-term injured players. By using the width of our squad appropriately we can keep the entire squad as fit as possible, leaving us with options throughout the season and a better possibility to bring home silverware in May.
Total Arsenal.
Bergkampesque 