Don’t believe the hype, we have no squad

We’ve had the chance thrice. Not once, not twice, but thrice to have a good look at Arsene Wenger’s squad players. The back-up who are expected to fill in once in a while whenever the calvary are unavailable or need to simply take a break.
In the category of squad players, belong the likes of Manuel Almunia, Kieran Gibbs, Seb Squillaci, Emmanuel Eboue, Denilson, Abou Diaby, Tomas Rosicky, Nicklas Bendtner and like it or not, Andrei Arshavin. They are the flotsam and jetsam that Wenger often calls upon to do a job for him when the regulars, whom I call the calvary, whom Jose Mourinho calls the ‘untouchables’ are unavailable.
Since the turn of the New Year, we’ve had the chance to have a better look at all the afore-mentioned players because the FA Cup and the Carling Cup have afforded Wenger to use his full team. So far, the squad players haven’t done themselves proud at all.
Twice, against Leeds in the FA Cup third round and against Ipswich in the Carling Cup semifinal, Wenger has had to wheel out the calvary to rescue the team after the squad players have had their chance to show what they’ve got – and bungled it. Firstly, it was at the Emirates where the ‘squadies’ huffed and puffed in vain against Leeds and even fell behind after Denilson hacked down a Leeds player inside the box. It took the introduction of Fabregas and Theo Walcott to save our bacon and force a replay two weeks later.

Night of a million stars..Arshavin destroying Liverpool at Anfield in 2009.
Since then, he has lost form and motivation.

Yet again, against Ipswich in the Carling Cup semis. The ‘squadies’ lost the game meekly and without guts, forcing Wenger to use the calvary to steamroll Ipswich in the second leg and book us into a first final in four years.
Looking at our ‘squadies’ individually, every single one of them, except Denilson, is a full international for their respective countries. But within the confines of Colney Creche, they are treated as tin-gods and serenaded by Wenger as the best young players of their ilk in the world. Such kid-gloves handling creates the impression in the minds of these over-pampered players that they are indeed very good, when the real truth is that they are basically very average players.
I can’t see any of the ‘squadies’ walking into any starting eleven of any of Europe’s top ten sides. It is indeed hard to imagine the likes of Denilson, Eboue, Squillaci or Bendtner displacing any player in Chelsea, or Man Utd or Bayern Munich in their respective positions. Trying to imagine them claiming a shirt in star-studded Real Madrid or Barcelona is just taking things too far. Too ludicrously far.
Arshavin perhaps could hold his own elsewhere and in any clubside of pedigree around the world. But the Russian had gone backwards, so alarmingly in the past one year that it is now a formidable risk to vouch for his effectiveness. I watched him plod around the ground against Leeds in the first leg that ended 1-1, that it was hard to believe he was the same player that scored four goals against Liverpool at Anfield in March 2009. So terrible was he that even the mightily-clumsy but egomaniac Bendtner looked a better bet than him. What a downturn for such a classy player!
Yes he scored a huge, huge equaliser against against Everton the other night, but such cameos are too far apart to rely on him game in, game out. The fact that he's coming off the bench is even an indictment with someone of his mercurial abililties.
Like them or hate them, those are the players on whom are silverware hopes rest upon. Even though they were not collectively good enough to beat the likes of Leeds and Ipswich Town, we will have to live with their limitations as we enter the serious part of the season where trophies are the be-all and end-all.
Let’s just pray and hope that nothing tragic in terms of injuries happens to the calvary. Because if it does, then we can kiss our trophy hopes goodbye for yet another season. Because also, I cannot for a second fathom Denilson doing the job of Alex Song; or Eboue stopping the likes of David Villa and Lionel Messi; or Bendtner attempting to score past Carlos Puyol or Victor Valdes.
If they couldn’t cut it against Leeds and Ipswich, they won’t survive against Barcelona and Man Utd when the chips are down.
Can you for a second imagine the incredibly-fragile Rosicky standing up to the hard-tackling Darren Fletcher? Rosicky can’t even stand on his own two feet for five minutes without hitting the turf at the slightest touch. How then can he ever hope to survive a ‘cuddle’ from the no-nonsense Fletcher if need be.
So far, Nasri apart, the scourge of injuries haven’t been too hard on us. Almost all of Wenger’s first eleven starters have remained fit till now. Fingers crossed, our luck will hold. Because if the unthinkable happens and we have to do without the likes of Fabregas, Wilshire, Djourou, Sagna or Chamakh, then our hope of winning anything this season would simply go up in smoke.
Because fact is, Arsene Wenger has no reliable back-up to these ‘untouchables’. Bitter, but true.