Will Arsenal Prosper In the Champions League Without Vieira?

This is something I have been thinking about..
I wrote most of this article on 29th September, but it's more apt now than ever..
At the moment I think we are lacking a little bit of physical ness in the midfield, especially in the premiership. In Europe I don't think it is such an issue because the pace is slower & it is more about tactical awareness. Look at Liverpool, Biscan is not the world's greatest player by any means, & no one can say he was a success in the premiership, but the guy is a European Champion. Fact. He was told to do a job, fit into a system & he did it.. Well. The Champions League requires something different to the week in week out battle that the Premiership provides. It is more about tactical awareness opposed to physical ability. To a certain extent at least.

I truly believe & this may sound odd to some people but.. We have a better chance to win the Champions League without Patrick Vieira. This is surely one of the main reasons (the other possible being he has one leg longer than the other & so is more susceptible to injury in the latter stages of his career, possibly just hearsay) that Wenger sold him. We will miss him in the hustle & bustle of the Premiership, no doubt about that. However, in the Champions League I think, we can prosper without him.

I think we will sacrifice a bit of physical power for tactical awareness & the ability to play as a team & not just through one player, whom you expect something special from. I believe that now we can play in a system & no one will overly rely on one player & will fully appreciate their roles in the team.

A classic example would be the Inter Milan away game. Our best ever result & performance in the competition. No Vieira, Parlour (a workhorse) & Edu in the midfield. No ego's, no expectations, no shackling of our play as the load was spread evenly & everyone did their jobs. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for what Vieira did for us. He was a giant. But it was harder to win in Europe with him in the side.

We remind me of Liverpool, they lost to Palace and we have lost to West Brom, the Premiership has gone we accept that, for once we seem to look forward to the Champions League. We are more tactically aware than before as each players know they must perform a specific job and they have been doing that. We look more compact and less nervous. A few early wins can be key to us having confidence something we have lacked in the past.

Maybe this is why we look a bit more comfortable in the Champions League, that & the fact we have Sol Campbell back. We seem to be a lot more defensively stable now that Sol is back. That is the Key for the Champions League, if they don't score they can't win. Like 2003/4, Juventus got to the final. They were boring but had an equal chance to win the trophy. No-one would have remembered as boring now if they had won it..