To be fair, Wenger has brought in some decent players this past couple of seasons: Arteta, Monreal, Giroud*, Cazorla, Podolski, Jenkinson.
The only issue has been having to lose class players each season, which makes it that much harder. It would be damn hard for anyone to have replaced Fabregas, and then the season after RvP. If Arsenal had kept those 2, as well as the signings that have been made, I think Arsenal would be challenging for things.
* Not everyone is a fan of Giroud, but he is a decent player. The issue is people expected a replacement for RvP, which he obviously isn't - Doesn't make him a bad player though.
If that was the only lot that Wenger bought that is one thing, when he spent a hell of a lot more than that in the past 4 years and most of it was rubbish, that is the real problem.
I'll also point out Monreal, as I said might well happen, has been benched more than not since Gibbs got fit, no point spending 8mil on a left back who gets played behind a completely garbarge left back.
I don't mind Giroud, but he plays a very specific way, he absolutely needs smart players to play 1-2's with him. Giroud with Podolski left and Santi behind looks pretty good, Giroud with Santi left and no one behind, or Gervinho left, looks useless.
He's an interplay kind of player, not a 30 goal a season finisher playing upfront. The few times we played to his strengths he's looked actually very very good, when we play him as the guy to get all the goals and make runs in behind, he's looked very very poor, when isolated in tough games and we knock the ball up to him, he's looked essentially useless.
Its hard to judge at this stage if his goals and good games are mostly down to the opposition quality than the way we played, because naturally against worse teams Podolski will get in to the box and have more close interplay with Giroud.
we need a top right back and to give Jenkinson more games(again no point Jenks being good if Wenger outright refuses to play him), Arteta is getting worse the longer he's been at Arsenal(something common to every defensive purchase we've made for YEARS now), Santi still goes missing way too often in the bigger games to be yet be described as good enough for the role.
Walcott is a joke, he actually put in effort, but it was against Wigan, he's predictable and people choose to ignore it. I don't care if a player is as good as Messi if he outright refuses to play football in more than 3 games a season. He's a lazy a-hole who clearly doesn't care about anything more than his contract, he clearly put in more effort during the month before he got his extortionate deal, and he clearly put in more effort in his last home game of the season(then the fans randomly remember that performance, not his overall season), between the contract being signed and the end of the season there wasn't an ounce of fight, effort or quality in anything he did.
Wenger may well be sticking by him because he shows some quality in training but never shows it on the pitch and he hopes he'll suddenly have Ronaldo's drive in every single game, he won't, the sooner we get rid the better. With Walcott you get 5 mins of effort at the start of each half, or when he comes on, you get more effort at the start of the season, the last few games and if he's looking for a contract, everything between is lazy crap. You win leagues and cups on the 90min performances, not 5 minute ones, he's precisely the type of player that is the problem at Arsenal.
Arsenal won't win things because despite the players, its the mentality, the defensive organisation, the belief, the confidence and the attitude of players. That first half against Utd, I can't think of another performance like that in the past 5 years, if Arsenal could play like that EVERY game we could win the league with our current squad. The problem is that both because of Wenger, and the kind of players we have, the Walcott's, the Sagna's, the Gibbs, the combination of manager and the players he's bought mean they can't play with that kind of attitude, we've got the wrong types of player with the wrong attitude with the wrong manager.
