Wenger has learnt nothing

Arsène Wenger's latest quotes have got me on a bit of a downer, despite the good news of Gervinho's signing today.

Gervinho, unlike a lot of our players, has won a title, having been a key part of Lille's Ligue 1 win last season. Needless to say, he'll be an improvement on Nicklas Bendtner, who looks certain to be leaving the club.

But the fact that so much time and effrort has been spent on this one player, who is arguably something of a luxury, rather than the desperately needed signing of Christopher Samba or Gary Cahill, is worrying.

Especially when Wenger than comes out saying he wants to stick to his principles of making us an 'attacking' team.

The boss said today: "This team is getting mature, strong and we do not need to change our philosophy. We have to even be better in what we want to do.

"We are an offensive football team and want to be better in our offensive game than we have been, to continue to develop it and be stronger in what we want to do."

Whatever you say about the lack of penetration, plan B or whatever else in our attack, I really wouldn't say it's the main problem. 0-0 draws at home to Blackburn and Sunderland would not matter much if we hadn't lost 3-2 at home to West Brom and Spurs, and been able to hang on to a 4-0 lead at Newcastle.

Sure, we missed Thomas Vermaelen last season, and arguably Koscielny and Squillaci will be more up to the task this season, but it's a big gamble not to sign a quality defender like Samba, who is available and has the kind of experience and aggression, not to mention physique, that our defence so badly lacks.

It would be naive to think Vermaelen will necessarily be back to his best straight away, and that he won't be picking up niggling injuries here and there. And let's not forget, he was ever-present in our defence the previous season, which was not much better.

The fact is, Wenger can't coach a defence properly, there can be no disputing that when you look at the evidence. The more outside influence, the more players who have learnt defence elsewhere, the better.

Someone needs to remind the boss that we were an attacking team in 97/98 when we had a solid back four. Signing defenders won't suddenly make us defensive, it will just give our attack more of a chance to shine.

And finally, Wenger came up with this gem: "We are very close. The season did not finish in a good way for us, but that should strengthen the resolve of the players and the staff to come back and say we know we can do it and that this season we will."

Why am I not convinced? Why did the Carling Cup final not strengthen our resolve last season? We had the easiest run-in, but finished the campaign with relegation form. Why is a few weeks off in the summer going to suddenly toughen these guys up?

Welcome to Arsenal, Gervinho. You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into.

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