Visionary Wenger thinks ahead too much!

I absolutely idolise Wenger. I think he is a visionary leader who has transformed our club and laid the foundations for a very exciting and successful future. The youth development system, the style of play, the stadium, the financial management. All bodes very well.

I didnt truly expect to win the league this season, yes I was hopeful and yes, if we had been more fortunate in the injury department, I really feel we could have won it.

Chelsea are past their peak, but the tactics, the physical presence, the experience and the financial clout means their extensive squad and resources will be enough to win it.

Man Utd are also not as good as they were and have been over-reliant on Rooney, who has mostly delivered and will push Chelsea right to the end. Unfortunately for England, I think this will take its toll on our challenge for that particular trophy.

The only consolation I can take from losing to Wigan today is that we only have ourselves to blame and Spurs cannot claim that they are responsible for our demise.

We should never have still been in the race, and it was not really realistic to expect to win, but it would have been fun for a few more weeks to go close. So what happened today?

Wenger seemed to have half an eye on next season. The website has been full of articles that are talking about next year. The team he put out today suggested as such. He had a rookie on the bench. He put in our reserve keeper - I guess as a message to him saying, "go on then, last chance to stake your claim" and once again 'Flappyhandski' made a crucial mistake in an important game.

Paul Merson was absolutely right when he said that all keepers make mistakes, but its how many mistakes you make. Fabianski seems to make one every time he plays. I am not interested in a keeper with good instincts when it comes to shot-stopping - we have that with Almunia. We need an experienced, commanding keeper. Lehmann was better, mental but at least he was commanding. So a keeper is vital and Wenger knows it.

There is no excuse for not only throwing the lead away, but losing it too. Yes it mattered more to Wigan, they were fighting for their lives, and now have all but secured their position in the best league in the world. But we should have been prepared for an onslaught in the last 10 mins, what did they have to lose?

We weren't ready for that, we took off Theo who was a threat and was growing in confidence and Rosicky who wasn't as threatening as he can be, but was a real handful and actually was putting lots of energy into tackling back so we could keep posession. We also should have brought on Van Persie with 30 mins to go. I was looking forward to this purely from an entertainment point of view as the game was a little stale and he makes things happen. It also would have kept us on the front foot and give Wigan even more to think about, rather than mount their own challenge. With those 2 gone and RVP not on the pitch, we gave Wigan a chance. We should still have been up to the challenge, but no one really took the game by the scruff of the neck and once again we showed defensive naivety. Clichy is good, but regularly leaves gaps behind, as does Sagna.

The series of corners etc that came in that last 10 minutes largely came after a poor refeeing decision that gave them a free kick near our corner flag, when it was only a 50/50 coming together of sagna and their player. But he had been making poor decisions for both teams all game. But does it matter. We should have been ready for an onslaught and our defense is makeshift and not fully up to it and we didnt have the attacking threat to take the pressure off our defense at a time when we could have been dominating and not even given them a sniff.

Perhaps Wenger thought the game was won, felt it was not necessary to risk RVP who is still recovering, and wanted to save Theo and Rosicky for next game by taking them off early. This could be a sign of him thinking ahead - but this time this thinking ahead went against the whole team. Perhaps he had already decided that we weren't going to win the league, so he was trying out Merida as a way of trying to persuade him of staying next year. Again long term this might be to our advantage, but in the short term our team was weaker than it could have been (which is significantly weaker than our first team when fully fit)

So I, like Wenger am looking ahead. Although mathmatically possible - the league is gone. There will be a few surprises yet and Man Utd could nick it, but I think Chelsea will just be strong enough.

So lets start thinking about what the AFC experience will be like next year.
A fully fit side with World Class players like Fabregas, RVP and Arshavin.
Players who are beginning to perform like top, top quality players - Song, Vermaelen.
Players who could and should continue a steep learning curve and perform even better - Bentner & Walcott
Perhaps Clichy and Sagna fit into that category too - but all have areas to improve.
There are other players too who have bags of potential but need to step up and stay there - Diaby & Eduardo, along with Rosicky and Nasri too.
I hope we keep Campbell and Gallas - who provide experience and passion. But we do need to strengthen the defense in the short term, but also thinking about the long term.
There are some other fringe players who might stay and might make a difference (don't forget how Song has surprised us all) - Merida, Denilson. Ramsey might recover from his injury and be a Cesc mark II.
Then there will be the reinforcements - A keeper, surely! Chamakh - more firepower and competition up front; Then there might be a high quality creative player - not sure who, but Wenger loves those and finds them. He has hinted that there is money to spend, could i be in cloud cookoo land to suggest David Villa?

So major improvement this year - probably finishing 6 points adrift from the champions rather than 18.
Challenging for the title right up to mid April, rather than February.
More shots from outside the box than anyone else (at least last time I checked)
Generally the best football to watch in the league.
Can we be as good as Barcelona? Maybe.....