Misplaced fury? and Petit hits nail on head

Arsene has publicly vented his fury at the performance against Milan and he has also apparently stunned the squad with a furious training ground tirade.  It is good to know he still cares but as Arseblogger has said this morning, how effective is this likely to be when a lot of our problems cannot be remedied by the current playing staff.  Many of the problems we currently have are not down to a lack of effort, they are down to the weak squad we have and the tactics that we employ, both of these are in the manager's domain and the former is also down to the board.

All those who turned out against Milan were players the manager has signed or had faith in, all those sitting on the bench such as Park and Chamakh are the same.  Emmanuel Petit is no fool and some of his comments ring very true for me:

"Certain young players haven't done enough to justify the confidence that Arsene has in them. Walcott - somehow he's going to have to reach the next stage. It's been years that he's been at the same level.......Ramsey, against Milan, I got the impression it was his (twin) brother on the pitch. In the way they behave, in their body language, we see they're not there anymore"

"You have to send out a strong signal. You have to say to Arshavin, and to Rosicky: 'Gentlemen, thank you, but goodbye'. And soon.  What's needed is five or six players of real stature, great experience. Players who are 27 - 30 years old at most.  Players with technical qualities, obviously, but also strong character. A group of guys who refuse to accept defeat, who inspire confidence in the rest of the team." 

I could not agree more.  Walcott has not been developing and his performances have been too average of late, Ramsey has also not been at the required level but he deserves patience.  The likes of Arshavin and Rosicky should have been moved on a while back, for various reasons that only those within the boardroom know, many inadequate players have been paid too much money to provide very little quality on the pitch in recent years.  We have numerous players who need to be cleared out including these two and the likes of Squillaci, Almunia, Diaby, Vela, Bendtner, Denilson, Park and Chamakh.  Dennis Bergkamp's comments on the current squad or lack of it also look extremely wise, especially in retrospect of the Milan performance.  

We need a major shake up at the club, not only in terms of the playing staff but also in terms of our management team in my opinion, at the very least we need to think about involving some of our retired players who have that knowledge and winning mentality, the likes of Keown, Dixon and Bergkamp need to be considered as additions to the club's setup.  The board also need to sort their act out and back the manager properly both in terms of funds and in assisting him sort these problems out, it appears that the manager has taken a lot of heat that should have been directed at the board in the first place.  It is simply not good enough to accept mediocrity, we must rediscover the fight that made us great not so long ago, and we need the manager and board to pull in the same direction to get us out of this mess fast.