The Arsenal squad has pretty decent strength in depth. If you’re an Arsenal player and you don’t perform over a few games, chances are there’s a youngster ready and waiting to take your place. With quality young players like Aaron Ramsey, Henri Lansbury, Craig Eastmond and Jay-Emmanuel Thomas waiting in the wings, some players may have to move on if Arsenal’s youngest and brightest are to get the chance to develop as best they can within the team. Assessing this Arsenal side, there are two or three players who just don’t seem Arsenal quality. With that in mind, these are the three players I’d be happy to see the back of at the Emirates.
The first is Manuel Almunia. Good thing too considering he’s likely to be the first Arsenal player out the door during the January transfer window. Almunia isn’t a bad goalkeeper by any means – he is, for instance, a good shot stopper – but the consistency of his errors have always been a cause for worry. Wenger persisted with Almunia for quite some time but now seems content to let the Spaniard move on. It’s likely that Almunia will attempt to engineer a move to a Spanish club in January. One benefit of this is that we’ll get to see more of 20 year-old goalkeeping prodigy Wojciech Szczesny.
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Another player I’m ready to see move on is Nicklas Bendtner. I don’t like to say it, but at the moment he isn’t quite good enough for Arsenal and I’m not sure I can see him becoming a force to be reckoned with any time soon. He has a tendency to lumber around the pitch, he’s slow and he has a bad touch. He’s also not the great goal-scorer people like to make out. Robin van Persie and Marouane Chamakh have the quality necessary to compete at a club like Arsenal. Bendtner, on the other hand, I’m not so sure about.
My final choice is Carlos Vela. I realise that this might ruffle a few feathers. He’s young, talented and looks to be a genuine prospect. However, he’s really struggling to get a look in this season. Arsene already has to contend with Theo Walcott who impresses and frustrates in equal measure. They are a similar age, but it’s clear that Wenger rates Walcott higher.
On the odd occasion we’ve seen Vela this season, he has appeared to be lacking in confidence. Given that Arsenal already have bundles of talent down the wings, perhaps the best thing Vela can do for his career is move on.
I imagine there will be a few people readying their “but so-and-so is a good squad player” defence. Yes, all these players are decent enough, but the three I’ve listed are players I don’t believe are capable of challenging for a regular first-team position at the moment. There must be competition for places at all times within the squad so that the team avoids complacency. Why settle for second-class squad players?
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