Which Arsenal Team is stronger? 2010/11 or 2011/12?

I have been away on holiday for over two weeks and would like to apologise to those who regularly read this blog for the long absence. I will make sure I make up for lost time. During my absence, a lot happened to my beloved Arsenal. Samir Nasri finally went to City, Arsenal lost humiliatingly to Manchester United and we were treated to an amazing transfer deadline drama. At the end of it all, we all know who is in this Arsenal team and who is not. What a lot of people are wondering though is, Are we a stronger team now than last season?

It is a difficult and tricky question to answer considering that we have quite a collection of younger players, we have more than 9 new players who need to adapt to our playing style and we have lost two of our most influential midfielders. It has been a long and painful summer and you cant help but thank God it is all over, now, are we stronger?

I will do this on the basis of last seasons starting line-up, without injuries and then this seasons probable starting line-up without injuries.

ARSENAL 2010/11:

SZCZESNY

SAGNA  KOSCIELNY  VERMAELEN  CLICHY

SONG  WILSHERE FABREGAS

WALCOTT  VAN PERSIE  NASRI

Even though you can argue that this team never played together as often as they should have, they were arguably our strongest starting XI. With that team we finished 4th in the league, 3 points behind 2nd placed Chelsea. People argued that this particular team needed to have experience and defensive guile added to it for it to have any chance of challenging this season. So, with Fabregas, Clichy and Nasri coming out of that team, can it be a stronger team? Lets look at what I reckon is our strongest starting XI this season (Always up for debate at this stage of the season)

ARSENAL 2011/12:

SZCZESNY

SAGNA  MERTESACKER  VERMAELEN  SANTOS

SONG  WILSHERE  ARTETA

WALCOTT  VAN PERSIE  GERVINHO

What people tend to forget is that, only 11 men plus 3 substitutes step on to the pitch at any match, of course because of injuries, you should have strength in-depth but this team looks good enough to me. We do lack in the strength in-depth bit though, which explains our hammering at Old Trafford. Forget the excuses about injuries, this season our biggest downfall is DISCIPLINE! If it is not stopped now, we are going to suffer all season. When we played Manchester United we had the same number of injuries in the squad as Manchester United but we were further hampered by our three suspensions before the game. Alex Song and Gervinho at Newcastle and Frimpong against Liverpool were all out after doing things that could be avoided. The team of 2011/12 has a lot of young and hungry players that need to be taught how to channel their energies. Frimpong is a real threat to Song’s position in the team but if he keeps with the attitude he displayed against Liverpool, he will cost us a lot of points. Jenkinson is another young lad who is eager but makes rashed tackles that are innocent but costly. That said, Gervinho and Song should kniow better when it comes to their actions when we played Newcastle.

So who replaced Clichy? is he better or worse?

Meet Andre Santos…

In my opinion, Santos is an upgrade from Clichy and he is definitely going to add to the defensive and attacking qualities of the team. He is skilful and has a decent strike rate for a defender at 10 goals in 52 appearances. The only weakness of Santos is, unfortunately, his temperament and concentration. Arsene Wenger will have to work with the boy on this.

Metersacker captained the Germans earlier this week and that alone tells you about his calibre. Do not read too much into the criticism he has received from his native country after that match. The man is talented, those of you that have watched him play know what I mean. Koscielny has not been sold and is improving so we can not worry about players that are still with the team.

Fabregas finally went home and now has been replaced by another Spaniard in the mould of Mikel Arteta. Let’s be honest, replacing Fabregas is impossible but Mikel is an above average player who has almost as much experience as Fabregas in the Premiership. He is a gem at set-pieces and will be of great assistance to Van Persie on that department. Statistically from last season, Arteta can not even hold a candle to Fabregas. Fabregas had 3 goals and 14 assists in 25 games for Arsenal, on the other hand, Arteta had 3 goals and 4 assists in 29 games. So we can safely say that in terms of that position, we are weaker this season.

$amir Nasri finally moved to Manchester City and the player who is now playing his position is Gervinho. In my opinion, Gervinho is more or less the same level as Nasri. Nasri had 10 goals and 1 assist in the premier league last season, compared to Gervinho’s 15 goals and 10 assists in Ligue 1 for Lille. Even though they are different leagues, you can see when Gervinho is playing for us that he is a constant threat to defenders.

My conclusion? We are not where we hoped to be but we are not far from it. The team is more or less at the same level as last season and should be in the chase for titles this season. You only hope that we gel quickly and manage to make the most of it. The transfer window is closed now and it is time we get behind our team and hope for the best. We now have players like Arteta and Benayoun, who have loads of premier League experience and capability. We also have exciting talents like Ryo, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Park to add to our attacking ammunition, “Hakuna Matata!”.

“I’m not worried about the future at Arsenal at all,”  “New faces tend to get everyone bubbling. We all have to lift our spirits and hopefully those new signings will do the job.” – Theo Walcott