'Tis The Season of Uncertainty

Posted by SmartArse

Remarkable really, given all the fuss over the issue since Arsenal’s last competitive action, that the immediate future of Cesc Fabregas is one of the few certainties of the coming season.

Think about it. Where do you honestly think Arsenal will finish this season? Champions? Top Four? Fifth? All are reasonably possible. If you were planting a hundred of your hard-earned into the hands of the nearest bookie, who would you wage it on? No points for saying Chelsea just because they won it last year.

In part its a measure of how tentative change has been this summer amongst the established elite. Arsenal have added interesting but quiet pieces in Marouane Chamakh and Laurent Koscielny. United have turned to talented youth in Smalling and Javier Hernandez. Title winning Chelsea have even shed big names, losing Michael Ballack, Joe Cole and now Ricardo Carvalho while gaining a small Israeli girl in Yossi Benayoun. Ashley Cole looked immensely unsettled at the weekend, a sign of further change afoot?

The point is that nobody seems quite sure. Even football’s anointed Del Boy, Harry Redknapp has done diddly-squat. The obvious exception to the rule are City, but its not like anyone is confidently predicting all-conquering glory on their part. Liverpool have started brightly, added Joe Cole and a steady hand in Roy Hodgson, yet most Scousers I know are, for the first time in several seasons, looking to fourth as both a positive and realistic aim.

All of the six sides realistically aiming for a Champions League berth have strengths, but all have weaknesses too. United’s refusal to replace Scholes and Giggs; Chelsea’s increasing age, Terry’s sheer cuntishness; Liverpool’s paper-thin squad; City’s massed ranks of overpaid, overrated players; Fabianski.

Surely though, none of the other title challengers are approaching their first fixture in quite such mysterious shape as Arsenal. There are currently rumoured to be fitness issues for Cesc, RVP, Diaby, Song, Denilson, Arshavin and Djourou. Not that anyone in the media appears to know how long for or why. Still though its unsettling. I’ll have played more pre-season than most of the Arsenal squad by Sunday afternoon and I’m a very unfit, very average footballer. God knows how many of the above will make it for Sunday, and if not for then just how long are they out for? We all know just how long what Arsene perceives to be a ‘small, small’ injury can actually last.

We may actually start our first fixture of the season with Wilshere and Frimpong in central midfield. Quite some climb for young Jack, going from a Ramsey-like position of promise, to Great White Hope of England, to Great White Hope of Arsenal in little over a week since the Emirates cup. And Frimpong? Be honest now Arsenal fans, how many of you had seen him play before this pre-season? My Dad still can’t remember his name he’s so new.

A whole post on uncertainty and we’ve barely dealt with the most mind blowing question marks hanging over Arsenal. Surely we’ll buy a fourth centre back, right? With you know, experience and that, more than 6 foot tall…no? And a goalkeeper? Again, the gentlemen of the press are no better informed than you or I. We have at one point or another been linked with Given, Hart, Buffon, Stecklenburg, Rubinho, Abbiati, Schwarzer, Reina, Lloris, Handanovic, Frey, Marchetti, Neuer, Romero, Eduardo and Akinfeev among others (no, really.) Excluding the Premiership I’d genuinely struggle to name that number of keepers over again.

So sure, the start of the season will be exciting, but its also going to be fucking nerve-wracking. Liverpool away? God knows what will happen. It’s an odd sensation to feel that things are probably going to be just peachy while being rather painfully aware that an awful lot is wrong. So on the one hand the ever present optimist in me envisages free flowing destruction. Indeed, my fantasy football team is currently resting on the three pillars of Nasri, Chamakh and of course, Emmanuel Eboue. But a far greater part of me than normal is also horribly worried it could all go rather pear shaped.

Yet while its frustrating right now, its at least comforting to know we’re not alone. The first few weeks of the season and the end of the transfer window are going to be even more pivotal than usual, at the very least in terms of shaping people’s perceptions. Please don’t read this post be read as a sign of crippling doubt. As I said at the outset I honestly think we could finish anywhere between first and fifth. We, like all the other title challenging sides have both brilliance and flaws in equal measure.

I could lie and say I’d rather be a neutral to sit back and watch all the carnage but I cant because I am at heart, a believer. And in this heart of believing hearts I really think we’ll sort all these lingering problems, just not before Anfield away.

So here’s to a crushing win at Anfield the arrival of A. Cross-catcher in goal and the enormous Baron von Strikerkiller at the back.

Come on the Arsenal!