This could be Arsenal’s year

It may be our year


Damian Burke
Gunner

HERE we are again. Just a few games into the new Premier League season, and it promises to be one of the closest and most exciting for years.
Chelsea will be favourites, but I really believe that any five or six can compete for this year’s title. Arsenal will be there or thereabouts, as we have been every year. I can see us competing for the title, but I say that with a little bit of hesitancy. There’s just one reason for my caution – our goalkeeping position.
All our goalkeepers are very good on their day, but are they consistent enough over a season? Almunia and Fabianski are good keepers, but I don’t really believe that they are the most reliable. We have a very good young Polish keeper who spent most of last season on loan at Brentford called Wojciech Szczesny, and by all accounts, he is the real deal.
A friend of mine who supports ‘the Bees’ raved about him when he was with them last season. At the moment his is third choice and only 20 years of age, but expect him to make the breakthrough this season. That’s probably why Arsene Wenger did not go out and pursue or pay above the odds for any keeper before the transfer window closed. Here’s hoping anyway! If that position was sorted out I would be very bullish about our chances of winning the league.
We won’t be far away, yet how close I am not 100 per cent sure. We signed two centre-halves who look competent so far. Marouane Chamakh looks lively and has already scored. We have also kept hold of our prized asset, Cesc Fabregas, for the time being at least. I really believe that this will be his last season with us, even if we win the league title or the Champions League. Chamakh looks to be a very good, versatile striker with a good touch, good in the air and comfortable with the ball at his feet. Let’s hope that he and Robin van Persie can strike up a good partnership.
The Champions League draw has been favourable to us – on paper at least – and we will welcome Eduardo and Shakhtar Donetsk back to the Emirates as well as Sporting Braga and Partizan Belgrade. We should be able to come out of this group comfortably. If we don’t do well, it will be a disaster.
How will the league end up? Manchester United will be really competitive again and will be hard beaten. I expect them to finish first. This could be Arsenal’s year though. We’ll go very close. I’ll go for us to finish second. Chelsea will be up there again, and won’t do worse than third.
Manchester City will be more consistent than last year and could finish fourth. Roy Hodgson’s first year at Anfield will be tough, but he will turn out to be a great Liverpool manager. I’ll go for them to finish fifth, ahead of Spurs, where there’s a lot of expectation to build on last year.
Ireland secured a great three points against Armenia. The game could have went either way, but if we had lost it would have been really harsh. We created enough chances but we have to learn how to finish games like this off. Armenia will hopefully take points off our competitors in the group.
Next up are Andorra tonight (Tuesday). Four-nil or 5-0 would be good, but they only lost their first game 2-0. Three points should be the number one objective and then hopefully we can get a few goals to build our goal difference.