If you read my last post, you would know that I will be writing a brief guide with my opinions and info for every team I manage. I have chosen to manage Arsenal to kick start my managing career and attempt to complete my challenge. I wont bore you with the wikipedia crap, just get across some useful information about managing them on FM2010.

The Squad

The current Arsenal squad has a wealth of talent, and as you should know from real life, most of the players are still very young. In my opinion, having a young squad is great, but there are some dangers when it comes to their performances, they are still learning and maturing as players so be careful. The Arsenal squad does come with a couple of oldies in William Gallas, Manuel Almunia, and Silvestre. Sometimes keeping one or two oldies in the squad can be good for experience and to nurture the youngsters through player linking etc. There are many top players in the Arsenal squad good enough to play for any premiership side, these include Cesc Fabregas, Andrey Arshavin and Robin Van Persie.

In my opinion, the star of the squad is Cesc Fabregas, Im sure you know, but just in case you don’t he is a 22 CM, i highly recommend you hold onto him for ever and ever because he is irreplaceable(that’s what I think anyway). The youngster to watch out for is Jack Wilshere, home grown in England, the 17 year old centre mid has a great future ahead of him. Same position as Fabregas, and what I normally do when managing Arsenal is to get Fabregas to tutor young Jack. This will be great for Wilshere because Fabregas is very experienced and one of the best in the world in his position.

Best XI

GK: Manuel Almunia

DR: Bacary Sagna

DL: Gael Clichy

DC: William Gallas

DC: Thomas Vermaleen

MR: Andrey Arshavin

ML: Samir Nasri

MC: Cesc Fabregas

MC: Denilson

ST: Robin Van Persie

ST: Eduardo/Bendtner

Transfer Dealings

The board give you 29m for title challenge, and 31.5m for winner on patch 10.2, I would suggest picking one of these, I usually go for Title Challenge wherever I go. Although picking winner gets you slightly more money, you may regret it if you fail to win the league at the end of the season and the board lose confidence. Anyways, the Arsenal squad could do with some strengthening.

Defence: Manuel Almunia is a decent keeper, but nothing more. He will do for the first season as money is better spent elsewhere, but once you have finished season one i highly suggest bringing in an excellent young keeper such as Hugo Lloris or Rene Adler. I think the wing backs are fine in Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna however I would say a new centre back is needed to partner Gallas. Gallas is 32 when the game starts but his experience can be vital in the first season, I suggest selling him after the first season whilst you still can. My suggestion for a partner for William is Nicolas Otamendi, the young argie wonderkid. You can pick up Otamendi at the start of the game for around 4m, but be quick because lots of top clubs will be lusting after him.

The midfield is perfect in my opinion, you have a host of great players for every position, the weakness is Denilson in DM, but he will do for the first season as other areas are more of a priority. You have great cover for all positions especially on the wings with Nasri, Walcott, Arshavin, Rosicky and Van Persie(depending on where you want to play him).

The best striker at Arsenal is without a doubt Robin Van Persie(or RVP as I will commonly refer to him as). I see RVP as more of a support striker than a 30+ goal a season guy, but that is just my opinion. You have two other great strikers in Bendtner and Eduardo, however I usually buy a top class target man such as Edin Dzeko to partner RVP. This way I have two great strikers who play different roles and can combine together to speed me into success. Edin Dzeko can be purchased for around 20m which is cheap for such a powerful striker.

Tactics

The Arsenal squad is so versatile with players having the ability to play in a number of positions, you have a big choice of tactics to play. I usually play a 4-4-2 with Arsenal, and change the wingers from AMR and AML to MR and ML depending on who I am playing.  If it’s a big team then I will set my wingers to make more runs on the counter attack and help out when we are in possesion.

Other tactics that I have used and have worked well with Arsenal are 4-1-1-2-2(DM and CM, AMR, AML, 2 ST’s) and a 4-4-2 diamond.

Ok, I said it would be brief but went into a bit more detail once I got writing. I apologise for that but hope this guide helped you incase you fancied a go at Arsenal. Feel free to comment on this post with your experiences with Arsenal or if you have any questions I will be happy to answer them  My next post will be my pre season friendlies and transfer round up as I eagerly anticipate the first season.