Premiership gut-check follow-up

Comment from Fucking Arsenal’s Connolly’s Agent on the last post:

I must be one of those spoilt, joyless, arrogant son-of-a-bitch fans you’re talking about. I can’t see us winning it:
1. Flamini and Hleb out, Vela and Nasri in – we’re still a couple of experienced players short. And Vela and Nasri will need about half a season to adjust to England.
2. van Persie and Rosicky are injury-prone; unless the just-departed Gary Lewin had been paid by Man Utd to injure those guys on purpose, they’ll miss half the season each.
3. Ramsey, Wilshire and Coquelin shouldn’t be anywhere near the first team sheet. Give them a couple of cameos when we’re 3-0 up, maybe, but otherwise they’re firmly for 2009-2010.
4. I think the most important thing is whether we can keep a winning mentality. We had it the first half of last year, and we lost it over Christmas. If we can get it back again and keep it despite the inevitable setbacks, we’ll go a long, long way.

First up, just so he knows, he’s not one of those joyless, spoiled, etc  supporters – he doesn’t take success for granted and he  has a sense of humour.  Second, he’s more than entitled to disagree with me.  I mean he’s a football agent, he should know the game better than I do…

I agree that we’re looking short on experience – hell, even Wenger said that yesterday. Ramsey is good enough and old enough, Wilshere and Cocquelin he’s probably right about.

I don’t agree that van Persie is injury-prone, I think he’s been unlucky and impatient, coming back when he wasn’t fully recovered. I see no reason why he shouldn’t last the season. Rosicky was injury-prone due to a muscle imbalance which he’s had surgery to correct, and all the signs are that the surgery was successful. Likewise, no reason to think he won’t be available.

On the winning mentality: no doubt that success breeds success. I think this is partly why Lord Ferg has had the edge for such a long time.  His teams know all about how to win, ours less so, and when you look at the lack of proven winners in the Arsenal squad, no wonder this makes supporters nervous.  But yet, look how close we came last season.  And now we have one more proven winner than we did a couple of months ago: Cesc, our most influential player, has just won his first straw donkey with Espain.

There is every chance I’m fooling myself.  When it comes to football, I’m a Gallas-half-full kind of person.  There’s not much room for optimism in the rest of the world, so I get my fix of hopeful wishery where I can.  But I don’t think I’m just asking Daddy for a pony here:  last season when we lost Henry and were written off from the top four, I said we would win it, and we nearly fucking did.  This season I think we’re in better shape than we were last.  We’ve trimmed some fat, we’re older and hopefully a little wiser.

Arsenal are currently 11/2 at Lasseters for the title, with Man Utd at 6/4 and Chelski at 11/8.  In other words, an £8 bet on Man U wins you £12, on Chelsea £11, and on Arsenal £44.  That’s got to be worth a punt.