The final whistle will blow on May 22nd and we will have (hopefully) beaten a downtrodden Frank Lampard and clinched some sort of European football, although that far from a guarantee. We will look back at the recent defeats to Crystal Palace, Brighton, and Southampton as a pivotal turn in the season, and that is a fair argument. However, I would argue the January transfer window marked the turning point in the season for what we did and did not do.
I find myself conflicted because I look out the outgoings in January 2022 and I don’t disagree with any of them. Kolasinac should have been gone long ago, Balogun needs playing time, Maitland-Niles made his intentions clear and his relationship with Arteta is untenable to a degree, and we decided to do Chambers a solid and let him leave for a nominal fee. I would have loved for Aubameyang to stay and repair his relationship with Arteta but we have seen this style of management play out before and there was no coming back, and dumping that salary is a net positive.
The problem was we didn’t bring anybody in (Matt Turner aside) to bolster what is a bare-bones squad. As Andrew from Arseblog has said time and time again, it isn’t getting someone to compete and to be the number one, it’s getting someone that is better than Nketiah. That is the bar, and the fact our management team decided it wasn’t worth it speaks volumes to the ambition of the club and what they see as our natural progression. I could say the same thing about central midfield which we have avoided strengthening, Partey and Lokonga aside.
You reap…
Did I just write a January transfer column in April with the benefit of hindsight? I sure did, and that doesn’t change anything! This was always a gamble and relying on players to stay fit who have proved to be injury prone was naive at best and reckless at worst. We had to invest in the squad and take advantage of our position in the table. We didn’t, the sh*t did, and I have a hard time seeing us keeping pace and competing for the 4th spot.