The Grand Finale: Part 4 of our season in review

It’s finally here. The end of my long thesis on our season and it’s taken as much out of me as it has out of you. I do hope you have enjoyed it, though.

It’s been a great ride so far, gooners. We’ve gone over our defense, the strengths and weaknesses of our midfield and our forwards on an individual basis. Today, we will discuss the overall performance of the team throughout the season and my thoughts on how we can improve.

Our worst start in 52 years. Not aided by the exit of our best player and captain. Not aided by the sale of our 3rd best player. Not aided by a summer of lolly-gaging and waiting until the last day of the xfer window to conduct most of our business. I realize that most of it was cause and effect but it all contributed to the nightmare start.

By the time the Chelsea away game rolled along, we were all just hoping, at some point, we would start getting results some way. Any way would do. RVP went on to seal his name in Arsenal lore in that match. It was a crazy performance with our best, and some of our worst qualities on display. It was the first, but not the last, time this season we would show our mettle by coming back to win games. We recovered more points from losing positions than any other team in the Premier League. It was a fantastic day.

November, traditionally our worst month, was a good one. With a 1-0 home loss to City in the Carling Cup  our only one. Home draw to Fulham a bit disappointing but considering how well Fulham would go on to play, not soul-crushing. We found our feet in the CL, beating an excellent Borussia Dortmund at home 2-1. I love games like that because 2 teams like that, who play proper football, have at it for 90 minutes. I love the way BvB play football and it was a great game to watch.

We played the most games in December than we did any other month in the season. We won 4/6 league games and drew 1, only losing to City, by a cunthair that defined RVP was offside and Vermaelen being cockblocked by Joe Hart. It was the loss to Olympiacos away in the CL that hurt though, as Andre Santos would go on to hurt his ankle and miss 3 months of action. That one hurt. Not just figuratively, either. It would leave us with no recognized LBs as Gibbs was also out with a hernia operation, followed by a groin injury. We still finished top of the group and looked poised to make a good run. That is until we drew AC Milan in the round of 16.

January was a nightmare and again, we all saw the same deficiencies coming through. Fulham away and Swansea away showed our inability to close out games when we really needed them and  naivety in defense. A few decisions didn’t go our way but we should be used to that by now, shouldn’t we?

February was the perfect encapsulation of our season in my opinion. It started off with a bit of disappointment, before we hammered Blackburn, got hammered by AC Milan, knocked out of the FA Cup by Sunderland and then mashed some Spuds. Sprinkled in: a draw with Bolton and a comeback win at Sunderland in the league and you’ve got our season. It was full of dismay, horrible play, brilliant play, the emergence of youngsters, an RVP hat-trick, Theo Walcott sticking it to his critics, a brilliant comeback, and The King making a hero’s return.

It was only fair that we had a great March. Wins over Liverpool, Newcastle, Everton, Aston Villa, and a brave effort against AC Milan at home, were capped by an away loss to a seemingly relegation-bound  QPR. I think we’ll look back at those games and think of how encouraging those performances were heading into the end of the season. Defensively, we played much more organized. We got the goals when we needed them and we climbed our way into the top 4 by the end of the month. Most of us were confident we would get into  CL qualifying at that point. Also aided by the wonderful Tottenham collapse that was going on across town.

As April came at us, we were all feeling confident. Beating Man City at home was the cherry on top of that great form we had displayed and the results we had gotten leading up to that game. We had just lost to QPR away and had that bitter taste in our mouth but the squad remained focused and Arsene prepared them well for this match. We played our game the way we like to play it. City also did their bit and made a game of it. We just had that extra touch of brilliance by one Mikel Arteta *swoons* to prove the difference on the day. We were all on cloud 9. We then travelled to Wolves and put in a good shift.

But this is Arsenal and if I’ve learned anything, its that we don’t do things the easy way. With Wigan, Chelsea, and Stoke looming, we all felt confident we could win out and secure 3rd place. On paper, and based on form, we should have probably won all three of those games. Wigan at home. We were caught out twice by two a quick counters and some brilliant play from a team who was also fighting relegation. Not sure if it was us taking them lightly or us just not having a good day at the park. Either way, it left us wondering just how the rest of the season would go, if that’s how we were planning to play.

Sometimes, our opinion of a season is decided in the last few games, regardless of the way the previous 9 games had gone on. This was exactly the case this season. Not only did we leave it to the last game of the season, after drawing at home to Norwich which, looking back, was ridiculous the way we let them march down the field and score, but we also left it to the last 45 minutes of the season to secure CL football.

Credit to West Brom, who were trying to send Roy Hodgson off on a high note as we were to Pat Rice. But we really shouldn’t have conceded those two goals. While the first was offside, if the player would have timed his run better, he would have still been in between our CB’s and probably would have scored anyway. The second, a ball bouncing around at the top of the box was mis-judged by both Koscielny and Vermaelen. I’m not putting blame on anyone in particular but my heart could have done without those two goals. Luckily, Koscileny and Gibbs (still can’t get over how great that tackle was) were there to rescue the game and our season.

Its been said, but I’ll say it again: Going from 17th to 3rd was an amazing achievement. Arsene deserved all the credit in the world for dragging us out of the cellar the way he did. He also deserves criticism for having dragged out the summer’s business, tried to hang on to players that didn’t want to be here, and for us being 17th to begin with. It’s a double-edged sword but I would hope he has learned from last season and will be looking to not make those same mistakes this summer.

There’s indications that he’s already making moves in the market and in future posts I’ll be looking at the ins, outs, and all that fun stuff. I’m excited by the Podolski signing but I think we are all in agreement when I say that we hope that is not the only move we make. We have plenty of excess wages on the books and areas that need to be addressed as far as improvement is concerned. I think we all trust the manager to make the right moves, its just up to him and his staff to make sure they happen in due time.

Thanks for tuning into this season review of mine. It’s been a pleasure to share it with you guys and girls. It’s inspired me to continue writing this blog regularly and I hope to do just that. For now, I’d advise you all to not believe everything you read and try to keep a level head when it comes to all this RVP talk. Just wait until something concrete comes out before we go into DEFCON 5, please? Pretty please? Ok, then.