No More Doom & Gloom

So the new season is fast approaching and for once I feel rather positive about the situation at the club. Despite the best efforts of the media to insist that our club is dead or in crisis that certainly isn't transmitting through the most important people - the players. Despite having to deal with a want away captain the players have knuckled down to the task at hand and they seem to be enjoying themselves but does this mean anything in terms of how they'll perform on the pitch?

Well last August was very much doom and gloom due to the uncertainty and the inevitably surrounding the imminent sales of Fabregas & Nasri, without any adequate replacements linedup. We started with a bore draw at Newcastle and there was an edge to the support, Wenger and the team. This supplied countless amounts of ammunition to those with agendas and our club wasn't a very nice place to be. Thankfully Wenger manged to restore the belief piece by piece with some frantic panic buying.

This year one of those panic buys Mikel Arteta will go into this season as our Vice-Captain. That leads nicely onto Vermaelen, who has been officially appointed Arsenal skipper. Now I'll admit I'd have had Arteta and maybe Sagna ahead of him but that said Vermaelen has shown commitment to the club and he has learnt the ropes, so I am very encouraged by the choice and he has said he will "lead the team through the way I play", that's a pretty gungho philosophy we will be adopting, although I am hoping he is a touch more responsible. I think that is what I'm looking forward to this season, our ability to blow the opposition away.

There's no reason why we can't do that now that we have a play maker in the form of Cazorla. Last season we had to make do with Rosicky or Ramsey in that position and whilst both are still crucial to our squad this is a significant upgrade. Whilst Cazorla becomes the much needed link between midfield and attack, it is the latter that excites me the most. Yes, we've lost our best player but I don't think anyone is in a position to dwell on the matter but we have two international strikers joining the club, one of which is of the highest calibre. Lukasz Podolski will soon become a crowd favourite, as will deputy Olivier Giroud. Stewart Robson said on 5Live today that there's no way these two could fill the void left by RVP. I think that is incredibly harsh as we are a side that creates a lot of chances and now we have Cazorla too. Where's the logic? Of course, it's Robson speaking, there isn't any.

The big question is can we win a trophy? The title is probably still too much of a task for this side unless we strengthen defensively but we can surely have a good punt at the FA Cup and Champions League. Wenger appears ruthless this year and he seems to have grown tired of our failures and the departures of the likes of constant figures such as Alex Song can only demonstrate that the lack of success means he's taking a closer look of personnel and so he should.

The fact is this year we are probably going to attack like we haven't done for a couple of seasons. I even expect the likes of Gervinho to step up to the plate. That does bring with it the obvious pitfalls of being unable to defend but for now I'm just going to allow the excitement carry me through the beginning of the season and if we win comprehensibly tomorrow I will believe we can win the league, until Sunday that is.

Enjoy tomorrow/today and if you are going, get behind the team likes we did in crucial games last season. There's enough nonsense written about our club but when we are at home it's our opportunity to let outside influences disappear for at least 90 minutes.

Say we are top the league, say we are top the league...