Lazio beaten in Amsterdam - Looking good

Last updated : 03 August 2007 By Brian Dawes
He's excited at the prospect of what could be - and not knowing gives it all a bit of an edge. I've said it before but I will say it again - I've always preferred the youngsters coming through rather than the big signings. Sammels, Neill, Simpson, Storey, Kennedy, Radford, George, Kelly, Armstrong through to our current batch. there is always a willingness for them to do well in the crowd and most Gooners are prepared to give them time, or at least used to be.

For all the wringing of hands we were still only a missed Baptista penalty away from third place last season. A good start and we'll be on our way to a fine season. I've no idea how good but I'm pretty hopeful. Who knows what might happen? Other than defensively in the air at the back I'm confident that we have what it takes to give it a bloody good go.10-1 for the league is well worth a punt and Van Persie at 16-1 for top scorer looks good to me.

Difficult to tell with the match against Lazio but I felt we looked like a team that had done a lot of hard training. We were not all that at the back but the back four that played were the second string as were most of the rest. Another game and another goalscorer - an easy header for the new boy who was unmarked but is was a goalscorers header - he aimed it down into the corner with power - that's as much as you can hope for. Eduardo also linked well, played some intelligent balls and was outstanding for his workrate and willingness to work for those around him as a team player. He looks to have a bit of pace and clearly understands about getting into the box to get on the end of things. Given that there will be more to come I think he'll fit in very well indeed.

I only saw the second half against Lazio, we were not great but we won without benefit of many of the first eleven. That's two and a half games I've seen where we looked ok, nothing too special but beat half decent opposition. This is clearly the year of the team - we've had the cult of the mega-stars - what we have now is 'the kids'. If this group of youngsters continue to mature the future is almost scary - what they could achieve knows no bounds. There is no limit to the potential of their abilities - if they do well this season then they will absolutely brown trousers the following season and will still be a couple of seasons away from their peak.

If only our board worked as well as the team does.