So it’s all finally over, in more ways than one.
This has certainly been a roller-coaster of a season, but a faulty one with more downs than ups.
Let’s take a look back over Arsene Wenger’s final campaign at the club in an A-Z of Arsenal’s season…
A-C
A is for
Away days
If the dedication of Arsenal’s away fans was ever called into question (which it wasn’t) then this season smashed all doubt.
It took real dedication to keep turning up to away matches knowing that the end result was likely to be defeat and a miserable journey back home.
But turn up in their thousands every week they did.
B is for
Bricks for hands
Hopefully this is also the last season at Arsenal for David Ospina, who has done remarkably to make it to the top level despite having bricks for hands.
Perhaps a new goalkeeping coach would make a difference, one able to coach out incompetence rather than specialising in embedding it.
But I’d much rather a parting of the ways.
[Yes, I know Ospina made a worldie of a save at the end of the Huddersfield game, but I’m pretty sure, by that point, the footballing gods had taken over the controller to make sure Arsenal didn’t mess up Arsene Wenger’s final game.]
C is for
Cazorla and Cech
Santi Cazorla managed to be one of the brightest lights in a dark season despite not playing a single second of competitive football.
His unexpected appearance on the pitch prior to the first leg of the Europa League semi-final lifted the hearts of Arsenal fans around the world who genuinely feared we would never see the tiny magician play football again.
He still hasn’t taken to the pitch and it’s easy to get carried away, but to even have hope restored that he might possibly play again is a thing of beauty, much like Santi himself on a football pitch.
Petr Cech, meanwhile, continued his slow decline although he did astound us all by finally saving a penalty.
Even though he was capable of making as many errors as David Opsina, somehow just having him play felt more reassuring.
His contract expires next season, he turns 36 soon but wants to play til he’s 40. He might be able to do that and I’d be happy for him to stay at Arsenal, but as no more than number two, perhaps with a look at moving him into the coaching department.
D-F
D is for
Defence
2017/2018 was less about how many mistakes Arsenal would make at the back than what sort of stupid ways would they come up with making them next.
The absolute peak Arsenal defensive moment of the season came in the most important match when, in the dying seconds of an incredible game against Atletico Madrid that Arsenal looked set to win, while also keeping a cleansheet against all the odds, Laurent Koscielny kicked the ball into his own face, David Ospina stepped out of Antoine Griezmann’s way and Shkodran Mustafi fell over just as you thought he was about to save the day.
Griezmann’s celebratory jig gets an honourary mention as the most annoying goal celebration against us of the season.
E is for
Europa League
We didn’t win it but, Arsenal semi-final idiocy aside, the competition brought about far more enjoyment than we’ve experienced in recent Champions League campaigns.
We went into games with the expectation that we would win, not get a pasting.
We travelled to new and weird places, faced teams we’d never heard of and even managed to lose to one of them.
It was an eclectic trip through a tournament that felt more like the old European Cup before the days of seeding and group stages.
While the Champions League has been polished for tourists, the Europa League felt more like a trip around town with the locals.
I’m glad we’re back in it next season.
F is for
Failure
Ultimately, what 17/18 will be remembered for is being Arsene Wenger’s final season at the club.
That it was also his worst season will largely be forgotten.
G-I
G is for
Goalkeepers
We saw, once again this season at Manchester United, how a world class goalkeeper can be the difference between second in the league and sixth for a bog-average side.
Arsenal are in desperate need of a new goalkeeper with Cech rapidly on the decline and Ospina simply not good enough.
If the club are serious about moving forward, neither of these two can be our number one next season.
H is for
Henry
Thierry Henry lost a lot of love from a large section of the Arsenal fanbase this season.
Touting himself for the Arsenal job despite turning down a coaching role at the club because he wouldn’t give up his well-paid Sky Sports job, seeing him working the Manchester City title presentation instead of being at the Wengerdrome to say thank you to Arsene Wenger, didn’t sit right with many.
Some have suggested he was contractually obliged or at the whim of him employer, but jobs tend to let you have days off for important events. They even supply a certain number of days you can use when you please. They call these ‘holidays’.
Henry will always be a legend for what he did with Arsenal, but this season his devotion, to the club he claims he would love to manage one day, came into question.
I is for
Injuries
Arsenal didn’t suffer quite as much this season as they have done in recent years, in fact, just like in the league, they finished sixth.
Serious injuries were still a theme but not to the same degree as we are used to.
Santi Cazorla was the only player to miss the entire season.
J-L
J is for
Joe (Montemurro)
Arriving as a relative unknown, Montemurro guided the women’s team to a Conti Cup final win over Manchester City and generally steadied a wobbling ship.
K is for
Kostantinos
He might have got himself sent off for a rugby tackle in his last match after getting another deserved start, but how much does this youngster look like an actual centreback?
Reportedly signed by Sven Mislintat behind Wenger’s back and dismissed by the manager as ‘that Greek boy’, Dinos has looked like a player who could well be ready for some serious first team action next season.
L is for
Losing. All. The. Time.
Arsenal lost a total of 18 games this season. Given they also drew 12, Arsenal finished his season winning exactly the same number of games as they failed to win.
M-O
M is for
Mesut
Carrying a back injury all season, Mesut Ozil still managed to out perform most of his peers. That, of course, wasn’t enough for many in the media who continue to distort reality with their version of events.
Mesut Ozil is not lazy, he does track back. He covers more ground than anyone else in the side except, perhaps, Aaron Ramsey.
Against Atletico Madrid in Spain only the Welshman made more tackles than the German – from both sides! Yet after that game he was widely castigated, especially by Martin Keown, resulting in the most amazing tirade from Ozil’s agent.
While Dr. Sogut might have been a bit harsh with his criticism of Keown as a player, it’s not hard to understand where the anger comes from.
Time and again, Ozil is the most important player on the pitch while being written off as a waster by many in the media, some of whom should know better.
N is for
Newbies
This season Arsenal spent some serious money and not one dud could be found among them.
Alexandre Lacazette looked, initially, like he might struggle, but when he was freed from his knee injury he really found his feet.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang needed no time to acclimatise. Henrikh Mkhitaryan seems reborn now that he has escaped Jose Mourinho’s clutches.
Sead Kolasinac perhaps didn’t play as much as many of us might have expected, but when he did get a chance, he set about winning the fans over with his no-nonsense ‘Look, I’m a tank’ approach to football.
And, of course, there was Dinos whom we already talked about earlier.
O is for
One Arsene Wenger
Do I need to add anything else?
P-R
P is for
Pierre
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was both an incredibly weird, yet amazing signing.
Arriving in the January window despite Arsenal spending more than £50m on Alexandre Lacazette in the summer, and the fact he couldn’t play in the Europa League, it seemed a signing that made little sense.
How wrong we were.
Auba landed in England and made a mockery of the myth that players need time to acclimatise to this league.
10 goals and 4 assists in a 13 games is a phenomenal return for a player making a mid-season move to a new country.
Throw in his Borussia Dortmund goals and Arsenal’s newest striker, who is well bedded in ahead of the new campaign, scored and assisted 38 goals in 38 games this season (31 goals, 7 assists).
Not since Henry have we had a player so deadly in front of goal and although he’s approaching 30, he shows no sign of losing his explosive pace – not that that is all his game relies on.
Given he has scored 151 league goals over the last five seasons, if he stays injury-free for Arsenal he should challenge Harry Kane and the rest for the Golden Boot next season.
Q is for
Quality
This was rarely on show this season but when it was, it was often found at home where Arsenal showed glimpses of the team Arsene Wenger really believed they could be.
As tends to be the way with latter day Wenger teams, their quality really came to the fore when the pressure was off.
R is for
Records
This season will be remembered for a host of unwanted records including away defeats, goals conceded, penalties not saved, teams getting wins for the first time and generally doing as much as possible to be the best ‘hold my beer’ team in the country.
S-U
S is for
Stoke
Stoke City were relegated from the Premier League thanks to a Ryan Shawcross cock-up.
If you could have picked a way for them to go, that surely would have been second on your list after ‘sent down by an Aaron Ramsey hattrick’.
T is for
Trees
“I have 20,000 trees out there and I saw everyone like that [making a small gesture],” Wenger said at his final press conference.
“They are now massive. I will greet every one of them before I leave and say ‘thank you’.”
U is for
Unlucky
There’s no doubt that Arsenal were, at times, unlucky this season. There’s also no doubt that they didn’t help themselves with their own stupidity.
The game against Leicester during the week encapsulated it all best. Arsenal were unlucky to conceded a penalty and go down to ten men, but they made both challenges, offering the ref the chance to make the calls.
Nobody who watched that game against the Foxes would think Arsenal did anything other than play extremely well (by their recent standards, at least) yet they still lost 3-1.
V-X
V is for
Victory through harmony
Arsenal’s motto has seemed something of an ironic joke over the past few seasons but for now, at least, we all seem relatively united.
Will it last?
For a little while.
At least until Arsenal appoint their new manager in a few weeks.
W is for
Women
Arsenal’s Women have endured a tough few seasons but this campaign a sense of direction was instilled in the team. They’re also still in with a shout of making the Champions League this season with one game left to play after beating Manchester City, again.
Another trophy in their locker in the shape of the Conti Cup, they also lost the FA Cup final. That defeat to Chelsea was only the second time Arsenal have lost a cup final in 16 appearances.
Beth Mead was the standout in the squad. She’s a prolific player who made her home on the left wing.
Following a disappointing Spring Series, she elevated her level and performed at the highest standard.
X is for
Xhaka
Granit Xhaka is perceived, by some fans, as so bad he needs a song telling the world he gives the ball away all the time.
The thing is, he doesn’t.
The Swiss midfielder is one of the best in the division at keeping possession and there is a reason he was the most-used player of the season – we are better with him in the side than without at present.
Yes, he has brain farts but in total he has played in 49 games for Arsenal this season, scoring four, assisting seven with an average pass completion rate of 87.4% – 3% above Arsenal’s average and the best of any player at the club who isn’t a defender (or Reiss Nelson, who only played twice, averaging a quarter of the number of passes per game as Granit).
Y-0
Y is for
Youngsters
If there is one thing we can look back fondly on this season, it’s the emergence of a number of youngsters who really look like they could trouble the Arsenal first team.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles is already doing just that and he has impressed many with how well he has progressed.
Eddie Nketiah brought himself to the attention of the world with his goal scoring cameo against Norwich whilst Reiss Nelson, and Joe Willock both used their chances well.
The youngsters were unlucky to lose against Porto in the final of the Premier League International Cup. Had the aforementioned players not been with the first team, there is no doubt they would have won it.
The u18s made the FA Youth Cup final and the u23s won Premier League 2 for the first time in 28 years, thanks to, yes you guessed it, Nketiah, Nelson and Willock.
It’s also easy to forget that Dinos and Maitland-Niles are only 20, Alex Iwobi and Rob Holding, 22, while Hector Bellerin and Calum Chambers are only 23.
Z is for
Zombies
The apocolyspe may not have arrived but there is no denying that Arsenal, at times, played like complete zombies this season.
Not only that, watching them resulted in the disorientating feeling that your brain was dribbling out of your ear.