It's Been Great

So it was finally over. I am sure there will be many who will give in-depth analysis of the game, what went wrong, who the culprit was, etc. Surely the ref would not be spared for his poor judgment. So I don't think there is a need for me to go into all these details. After all, it will only remind me of the pain and most importantly, it will divert myself away from the single major feeling that I have right now.

I am sad, yes. But that feeling is totally eclipsed by the pride I have right now. I am proud because we lost the match, but never the battle. I am proud because our young players didn't lose their cool and courage when we were at disadvantage. I am proud because although the captain was effectively missing during the match, the other players defended vigilantly and fought hard. Yes, they FOUGHT hard. I am proud because they have made such a great journey right to the final. I am proud because this is the club I supported. Are you watching Sp*rs? Are you watching Roman?!

I believe we have what it takes to play our way into another CL final with these young players we have. If there is one thing I'd like to point out with regards to our failure to stop Barca, I would say that it is down to the inexistence of one type of player, a ball winner. A box-to-box midfielder who can win the ball and charge into the opponent's area. Mentally speaking, we need a midfield general with never-say-die attitude. You can't defend near your own box for 70 minutes against such a good attacking team without conceding. You have to stop them before they are even close to your box. You can't just wait when you only have one goal advantage, especially when you are 1-1 draw with 10 minutes or so to go.

Having said that, I don't think we would need to defend that deep if we were 11 against 11. In fact, all the neutral would tell you that we were more than capable of hurting Barca and especially from the left flank. Of course, it turned out that we had to do the heroic of keeping Barca at bay. The old Arsenal were able to defend and break with 10 players because there was a certain Patrick Vieira playing. Again, I am not criticizing anyone here, and definitely I am not suggesting that PV would have won us the game.

I said before that I have considered our CL campaign this season a great success regardless of the final result. This is more of my thought on how Arsene Wenger could improve our team for next season's campaign.

So we do need a 'Steven Gerrard', in other word an old 'Patrick Vieira', and in other word a 'Wayne Rooney'. Abou Diaby was expected to fill in that role but he is now suffering from THAT injury.

That's the main thing we need to solve this summer.

So the season is over. We are fourth, and we were in the CL final, were 15 minutes away from winning it. It has been a great and memorable season for me. It has been one of the most unforgetable ones. It has been great. Thank you Arsene Wenger, and thank you Gunners.