Arsenal: International break gives Arsene Wenger chance to fulfill promise

Arsenal go into this international break beaten, hopeless and weak, but it does give Arsene Wenger a chance to live up to a promise he made not long ago.

There isn’t a lot of optimism in the Arsenal camp following the loss to Manchester City and that’s perfectly excusable. Everything was against the supporters at the Etihad. Arsene Wenger started the wrong guys, the wrong guys did the wrong things, Michael Oliver blew a big call or two and we go into the international break 12 points out of the race and 27 goals behind.

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Essentially, that horse has left the stable and barring a miraculous and epic tale of unprecedented proportions, there is no hope for the Gunners to make that ground up. You should absolutely never say never but… come on.

In the mean time though, international break, may actually be doing us a favor. As Manchester City, I would hate this break. As Chelsea, I would hate this break. As Arsenal, we should love this break.

For starters, it gives us a chance to just get the hell away from this game for a bit and let our players go wander off to their international outfits, where they’ll probably all do fantastically and they’ll win every match.

But it also gives Arsene Wenger a chance to fulfill his promise/hazy prophecy. Tell us, Le Prof!

“The time will come when the rotation can go another way.”

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That’s what he said, as quoted by the Guardian. And that’s a quote that I have been reciting to myself every night before I go to bed. This dull, faint hope of change. Maybe, just maybe, we won’t have to watch Mesut Ozil slog through the mud, or Alexis Sanchez tossing away possession like Oprah giving away cars.

Maybe we can watch Jack Wilshere fulfill his lifelong position. Maybe we can see Alexandre Lacazette lining up next to Olivier Giroud. All of these grand, fantastical maybes that probably won’t make a lick of a difference are hopes nonetheless.

And there just isn’t a lot of hope going around at the moment. How can their be? Both Alexis and Ozil are terrible, so we can’t rely on them. There is no hope of challenging for the title.

So what do we have? We have hope that Wenger will start actually making effective changes.

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At this point, I don’t care what he changes around, so long as he leaves Lacazette in the starting XI and preferably benches the dysfunctional duo.