Where do you go from losing the last good chance of claiming a trophy this season? Do you keep hope that the Premier League is still an option or do you direct your full attention towards the Champions League clash against Barcelona? Do you give up on the Continental competition just not to lose any more players and consider the Champions League a closed chapter? I`m sure that after the defeat against Watford, Wenger and his staff sat down and thought of all these questions. Unfortunately, the honest answer is that Arsenal is so surprising that you cannot pick.
It`s about watching your favorite team dominate Bayern Munich or Manchester United with such ease that you cannot help but wait for the Champions League trophy. It`s about seeing youngsters like Bellerin or Coquelin dominate their adversaries who are worth dozens of times more. It`s about seeing Sanchez run circles around the best of the best and it is about Ozil assisting his teammates with such precision you’ll start thinking you are watching an Xbox game.
People need to stop and take a closer look at a team that even though has lost most of its chances this season, is capable of dominating any opposing squad. Let’s say Wenger builds the team with the players below:
If we exclude the keeper, this squad averages at around 25-year-old. If we include players like Iwobi, Campbell, Elneny or Paulista that average drops even more. Most of them are home-grown which is also something special. If these guys play together for two or three more years, there is no doubt the Premier League and the Champions League become realistic targets. There’s no point in spending huge amounts of money either. All that Arsenal need is probably a striker who can deliver more than 20 goals per season. Before going all out and criticizing this team maybe we can first take a closer look at how well they perform despite being so young. With time and patience, Wenger will get this generation to win trophies. If he manages to solve the injury problems and salvage talents like Wilshere or Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gooners could well be celebrating at least one major trophy by the middle of 2018.