Our Arsenal correspondent Tony Attwood is the editor of Untold Arsenal, an excellent blog site which takes a positive look at everything Arsenal-related. To read more from Tony, please visit www.blog.emiratesstadium.info
Could We Possibly Win The League?
by Tony Attwood
Suddenly there is hope again. After the staggering start to the season (that 6-1 away win at Everton seems like centuries back), the loss of Robin van Persie knocked us back horribly. With Eduardo in and out, and then Bendtner missing for a couple of months it looked fairly awful... and a horrible home defeat to Chelsea didn't help. But we kept plugging away.
And what do we find?
Manchester United have lost the same number of games as us, and have scored the same number of goals as us. Indeed, even Chelsea with their supposedly unbeatable forward line have scored the same number of goals as us.
Which makes you think, where would we have been if only Robin had not gone off and played a pointless friendly match for Holland?
So now people are writing into the Untold Arsenal blog with their analyses of the rest of the season, and they are starting to believe that we could win the league.
Of course not everyone thinks this - there's a massive number of 'doom and gloom' merchants who tell us that most of the squad is useless and without half a dozen new players we don't have a chance. Indeed even my own blog, which portrays the message "supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does" on the banner headline, gets emails from fans saying that Wenger must go, and go now, for the long term good of the club.
But against this background, there is a real upturn in belief - and if it is there in the crowd it is there in the team.
Being one of the lucky ones with a season ticket I not only see the games but also appreciate the atmosphere in the ground, and it is positive in a way that seemed impossible after the Chelsea and Man U home defeats.
As to how it turns out, I suspect a lot will come down to the injury situation. As I write this we have Djourou, Van Persie, and Gibbs all out with very long term injuries, while we have Gallas, Arshavin, Eduardo and Diaby all out (hopefully) for shorter periods. Quite why we get so many injuries (this run has lasted three years) I don't know, but it shows the need for a huge squad. If we can get some of those players back, and avoid any more major problems, then we could do it.
But it is necessary to keep feet on the ground. I do this by writing a second blog on the adventures of Arsenal 100 years ago. Having just played Sunderland in 2010, I find that the record books show that we met them just one week later in 1910, but how different the scenario was. In 1910 the club had announced that it was on the edge of administration, and it was struggling to avoid relegation. Players were being sold, there was no forward line to speak of, and crowds were on the way down, not least because someone in government had mysteriously forced the closure of the Woolwich torpedo factory - where many of our supporters worked. It wasn't looking good then at all.
It is not that I want to be a doom and gloomer myself, it is just not a bad thing to remember where we came from.
Tony Attwood's novel Making the Arsenal, which tells the story of Arsenal in 1910, is available from Amazon, and from www.woolwicharsenal.co.uk
To read more from Tony, please visit www.blog.emiratesstadium.info
