A few posts ago, I talked about how Arsene was giving chances after chances to Bendtner despite his poor performance, and how he was going to capitalize on Bendtner improve in form and sell it when his value rises. Well, I was wrong. Bendtner is still with the team 2 years later, and it seems Arsene is really sincere about bringing him into the starting line up as often as he can.
But this season, something wonderful happens. This is bigger then EPL, bigger than soccer. So many times I have come across situations like this, with people and the story of Fabianski always pop up in my mine.
During the 09/10 season, Fabianksi has been used quite a number of times toward the end of the season, when Almunia wasn't healthy. He pretty much screwed up multiple times during the couple of Champions League game he took part in, and during the trashing defeat by Man U in the FA cup game. I assume everyone in the league, including Man U players would mock at Fabianski and you would think the Arsene would offload him the first thing during the Summer transfer season.
The summer came and gone, and we didn't get a new goal keeper. And shortly after the season got started, Almunia injured his hand and has to be replaced. And the faithful Arsene did not turn to anyone else but Fabianski again. All gooners much have kept on their toes everytime Fabianski is seen on the starting lineup. Two weeks, three weeks gone by and we did not see Almunia coming back. Not that Almunia would give any assurance at the goal, but at least he hasn't displayed the type of blunders as Fabianski.
The story starts to become interesting when Fabianski started to display qualities of a decent goal keeper. And after half a season, as soon as the winter transfer market opened, we started to hear news about Almunia going away. What a big change in just a short few months. I don't agree all the time what Arsene does to win title. The fact is he hasn't won anything for more than five years and what he has been doing was obviously not working. However, I salute him as a couch, a manager and a person seeing how he treated this Fabianski matter.
I think this is one of the most beautiful story that has come out of English Premier League and soccer as a whole. I get entertained a lot from watching soccer week in week out, but with a couch like Arsene Wenger, I certainly learn a lot of life lesson too.
