Yes yes, I slacked. I know. Life gets busy, yadda yadda yadda. It happens. Deal with it peoples. What matters is I still watch the games and arbitrarily dress up my child in Arsenal gear… he is only 4… months old. Doesn’t matter. Start early I say (something Wenger has yet to learn in transfer dealings).
Well, it has been a good run/start. We have capitalized on our excitement with the Ozil signing and rushed out to a nice start. You can’t be too disappointed with 12 points from 5 games (boy that turd we dropped to Aston Villa really hurts now…). We sit atop the table early on and have even opened our Champions League up with a win. Aside from the fact that players keep dropping like hornets after gorging on meat we are sitting pretty (looking at you Theo).
We really have to be worried about our depth. We started a young-in because of a banged up Theo. Santi was another game-revealing scratch. Aside from that I am going completely bonkers over Ozil’s play and Ramsey acting out like a straight up beast! Seriously, Rambo is flat out playing like a stud right now. Multiple times throughout the game against Stoke I said aloud, “Damn Ramsey is looking good”. The lad is simply out-hustling other players and is quickly capitalizing on the lack of depth. At this point, I don’t see Wenger sitting him save for a brief respite spell or two. Until then, if he is healthy and rested keep marking that man as the little engine that could.
Now, we have to be a bit worried about pushing through the schedule. At this point, tater totts is the only reputable team we have beaten (aside from Marseille) and this Wednesday sees us up against West Brom in the Capital One Cup (oh boy, here is where depth would be nice). That game then gets followed up with a visit to Swansea Saturday and another quick turnaround with Napoli visiting us Tuesday for Champions League AND back at West Brom for the Saturday… Any serious knock to our starters really puts us in a bind and sees our youth getting shoved straight into the limelight. Four (4!) games between now and October 6 (2 weeks essentially, you could say we have 5 games in 2 weeks given we just played Sunday-and if you are one of those buggers that think the week starts on a Sunday and not a Monday; WTF is up with the Calendar anyway?).
Now, given my satellite coverage I welcome the addition of so many games to my DVR. However, I don’t welcome them to a thin lineup getting thinner by the week. Our one consolation is the apparent fitness of Arteta (Hey! Look! It’s like a new signing!) and his inclusion in the last game. I would be a whole hell of a lot happier to have Arteta, Santi, Rosicky, Diaby (Ha!) and Poldi back and featuring regularly (shit is this how other teams operate?!). Oh what a feeling it must be to have a full and healthy team.