Buzzin Football

With the new Premier League season less than a month away is one of the coolest managers in football starting to feel the heat of a thin squad with a group of youngsters not ready for the big time yet? Wenger has recently come out and said that he thought his squad was ‘level’, however yesterday he changed that, saying he needed another midfielder to strengthen the Gunners. This sent alarm bells ringing in my head that Wenger now believes that his squad aren’t ready for the challenge of playing on possibly four fronts. There are those that also believe Arsenal aren’t ready for the new Premier League season.

Much has been made of Arsenal’s seeming inability to keep hold of their top players following the departures of Matiehu Flamini, Alexander Hleb, Gilberto Silva and Jen Lehmann .There transfers have left Arsenal with few options in midfielder, adding on to there lack of cover in defence. Wenger has brought in Aaron Ramsey and Samir Nasri but with both new signings being young you have to question the impact they will have at Arsenal this season. Certainly at only 17-years-old Ramsey is definitely one for the future rather than the here and now.

Arsenal’s transfer worries may not end there with the loss of last seasons top goals scorer Emmanuel Adebayor still a real possibility. It seems then that the sharks are beginning to circle the Emirates Stadium in the hope that they can take a large chunk out of the team that ran Manchester United so close last season. As always Wenger will place the majority of his faith in the ‘Young Guns’, however judging by some of the Arsenal youngsters performances last season it seems as though many are still either to young to compete at the top level or not good enough.

The 5-1 pasting by Tottenham and the 4-0 humbling by Manchester United gave some indication of how far off these kids are of making the step up. There are a few in those sides that probably have the potential to become an Arsenal regular such as Denilson, Alexandre Song and Armand Traore. However there were more out there that looked as if there destinies lied elsewhere, such as Nicklas Bendtner, Emmanuel Eboue, Justin Hoyte and Lukasz Fabianski.

Those two showings last season seemed to have got the Arsenal fans worried and for the first time they seem to be questioning whether Wenger’s faith is misplaced. Despite the £11million plus signing of Nasir many Gunners fans are hoping for another, more experienced player to come into the ranks. Much has been made of Gareth Barry joining Arsenal but that seems unlikely with the Aston Villa man and Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard now being best buddies and his most likely destination seems to be Anfield.

Apart from depth the one thing the Arsenal squad will now lack is experience. Everyone knows that Wenger’s policy is to build for the future but there needs to be some experience in there to help the young prodigies out when they get into trouble. Having said all this Wenger could pull another rabbit out of his hat and prove us all wrong by leading his side onto glory in the new season. Wenger came so close to doing it last season that no one can guarantee that he will not do it again this time around. Arsenal will need to make a good start to the season with a lot of winnable games coming up before they face Manchester United at home in November, read more about Arsenal’s odds for the new season here.