2008/09 could be a long hard season for arsenal

given that arsenal looked to be heading for a table topping finish for most of the season, the thought of having to deal with the problem of champions league qualification never really occurred to anyone. but now that we have (let's be realistic) surrendered not only the title but also the runners-up spot, it looks like we'll need to come to terms with having to play a round of champions league qualifiers at the start of next season.

while negotiating the qualifiers themselves will probably not be beyond us, simply having to play them at all could cost us...

just imagine how knackered our players will be by the end of next season if, after they play euro 2008, their already short summer rest period is cut short even further by having to go through champions league qualifiers again. it pretty much means that most of arsenal's first team will not have had a proper break since summer 2007.

if you think that our current end-of-season slump is probably partially a consequence of us having to start this season early to qualify for the champions league, it's probably not too much to say that our ability to sustain a challenge through the whole of next season already looks seriously in doubt.

it depends though...having an exhauted squad next year is not inevitable...

wenger has relied too much on a handful of players to play almost every game this season. adebayor, flamini, hleb, fabregas, clichy and sagna have been the players of the season, but they have played non-stop, and have all begun to look jaded. if we are going to have a better finish to next season, these players will all need to be fresher for the run in. if wenger can demonstrate the trust that he says he has in players like alex song, denilson, diaby and bendtner by letting them play a bit more, then the first-teamers mentioned above can all get rested from time to time to stay fresh.

i've also assumed that wenger will not spend in the summer and that the squad will pretty much stay the same, minus the old farts lehmann and gilberto. but if wenger brings in a couple more players, maybe players who are already used to this league but who will not be at euro 2004, then who knows what we'll be able to do.