Manchester City it is tonight, touted to be our biggest arch-rival for the Premier League title. On other seasons, it would be downright scary to face the team likely to win the league. However, the fact that they don’t look particularly massive to defeat goes a lot to show how backward the top sides of the English league have been.
For all their riches and resources, Manchester City don’t look particularly invincible. Their weakness without the Kompany-Toure-Aguero axiom is well documented, and very true. Players like Otamendi, Fernando and even Raheem Sterling are moderately good players who can be brilliant under the right motivation. However, offering a huge pay packet and Premier League glamour to nearly everyone in their squad isn’t the best form of instilling them to be the best.
We of all people should empathize. Before the 8-2 against United, Arsene Wenger was hugely biased to offering fat paychecks to youngsters who perhaps didn’t warrant it. The likes of Denilson, Merida, Bendtner, Traore et al were fed huge chunks of £40K and £50K, when serious top clubs won’t feed them more than £20K. It decreased their incitement to go further, just as with Manchester City, most of the time. If they win a trophy it’s nice, but if not – hey at least they have a swanky apartment and a bulging bank account to console themselves.
They still remain our greatest threat to the league, but aren’t particularly toilsome to overcome. They look nervy against any respectable Premier League side. They crumble when attacked upon. Their players aren’t overly enthused for the badge in front. Manuel Pellegrini is a likable bloke with some Wenger-esque similarities, but not really with the personality to protect his club. At most times the sheer quality of their players pulls them through, but otherwise, they falter. Some contender. Some league.
If we get at them from the start, we could rip them apart in Manchester United fashion. They’re nervy, not bullish about their self-confidence and we have the home impetus with us. Title or not, this is a game we should not approach with oven mitts. If we believe in ourselves, we’ll shatter theirs.
For obvious reasons, we should look to play our best possible outfit. The players have had a week’s rest and will have another after this, and need to be geared for the Christmas period. When the chain of Southampton-Bournemouth-Sunderland matches come in quick succession that’ll be the time to rest and rotate, but not tonight. Tonight we show our strength.
That should mean obvious starts for the back five, and players like Aaron Ramsey and Mesut Ozil. Mikel Arteta won’t be fit enough for a start, which would give Mathieu Flamini another chance to play. However, one of Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Joel Campbell and Olivier Giroud look to be missing out, for there only remain three slots.
My hope is that it should be Joel Campbell. The Costa Rican has put in some decent showings for us, but that’s it. He’s merely decent. Wishy-washy. If you gave me the choice between Campbell and a thoroughly off-colour Oxlade-Chamberlain I’d still plump for the Ox, simply because I see much more of a future there.
I have a sneaky suspicion that Wenger will throw on Alexis Sanchez as quick as he can. I’d be very disappointed (but not altogether surprised) if I saw him starting tonight. There is no way even a machine like Sanchez can get over a hamstring injury and start that soon, but we’ve heard this narrative before already. Let’s just hope Wenger doesn’t manage to knacker him permanently.
I’m not even sure we need Sanchez to claim this win. If we come flying out of the blocks and do our jobs defensively, I don’t see how we will throw this away. As I said above, City have an acute motivational problem because they don’t seem to be fighting for much. It’s a bad, bad problem among the players and spreads like a parasite, like we saw at Chelsea.
I, like every other person not a Chelsea fan, really loved Jose Mourinho getting the boot in that fashion. I understand what he has achieved and the respect that has to commander, but I’d be lying if I said I liked one bit of his personality. His dismissiveness, his ego and his ridiculous stubbornness is absolutely vile. For a while, he really was the best manifestation of everything that was monetary and anti-football in the sport. Basically, everything wrong.
However, there’s an interesting insight to how the players simply switched off for all of the campaign. Jose’s actually supposed to be a great man manager, but the way he garners that hardly makes him a long-termist. You don’t publicly berate your players and your staff if you want to cement yourself there for long. Ultimately, he pissed off most of the players by dropping and bad-mouthing them, and lost the dressing room.
The power struggle there is illuminating. Every manager needs a bubble of ego and authority upon them, so they can stamp their ideologies on a new club and don’t have the players questioning them. However, should the project fail or start to rot, a refusal to show humility or mea culpa could wreck the club setting. Players aren’t idiots. They aren’t robotic machines who do the boss’ bidding all the time, especially if their popular personalities. They know when they’re being scapegoated or when things aren’t working out, and they call the manager’s bluff if he doesn’t do his talking on the pitch.
It’s why I think Manchester United could undergo a somewhat similar revolution, if Louis van Gaal doesn’t watch the back. At the moment he’s starting dressing room personalities like Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick to keep them happy, but he’s deflecting the blame off himself far too many times. His ‘philosophy’ is bringing dour nil-nil’s, and he doesn’t seem to have the dynamism to consider he may be wrong. Time will tell how he handles this delicate situation.
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Yup, Barcelona. Brilliant. Exactly what this team needs, a real challenge, not a paltry Premier League scrap.
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
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