A flashy car with an inadequate engine and terrible navigation system. This is Chamberlain to me. Read on to understand the reason for this comparison.
In an alternate reality, Chamberlain is nominated for the Ballon d’ Or. This would make the third consecutive year he’s been nominated, having won the previous two.
After helping Arsenal to an 8th UCL trophy with the most goals and assists in the competition, not to mention some decent hairstyles along the way (Thank God), FIFA were unable to ignore the EPL any longer, AOC became only the second ever player to take home the trophy since the renaming of the competition to FA Premier League — the only other player being Manuel Almunia; can you believe it?!
It is important to note that in this alternate reality, Arsene Wenger is black, but don’t worry, he looks exactly the same, just black (Players get in FORMATION!) *beat drops*
*AUTHOR’S NOTE* To understand the context of the Formation joke, google “Beyonce formation”.
Chamberlain has been crap for almost a whole season. It’s like someone kidnapped the real Chamberlain and replaced him with a fraud; a fraud whose decision making is as good as a kid in a candy store, whose shooting is terrible 60% of the time and the remaining 40% is the woodwork — never the fans — screaming goal; a fraud whose name is Frauderlain.
At first I thought it was form, and there was an “old Chamberlain”, but looking at his stats for the past 4 seasons revealed that this is the same Chamberlain. The only difference is the missing illusion that he is a productive player. His natural talent hides the fact that he barely adds anything in terms of goals or assists to the team.
In Chamberlain’s best season (12/13) in an Arsenal shirt, he was only able to deliver 3 assists and 1 goal. THREE ASSISTS AND ONE GOAL in 25 appearances (1068 mins)! To fully understand how bad this stat is, one of Theo Walcott’s least successful seasons (13/14) has him with 5 goals and 4 assists from just 13 appearances (859 mins).
The first argument would be that they are different kinds of players, but comparing other stats in which the “creative & skilled” Chamberlain should be excelling at shows the same thing.
It became clear to me that Chamberlain is like a flashy car with an inadequate engine and terrible navigation system. His natural talent blinds us to the reality of his productivity but lately that stardust has been robbed off our eyes by the availability of a bench with some good footballers.
This is not a Chamberlain hate post, I love the kid (who am I kidding? ? We’re age mates ?) and I really want him to do well. He has a lot of time to develop — I mean, he hasn’t gotten to Wenger’s magic age, 23 — but he can be pretty frustrating at times. That’s what inspired me to do this post. The illusion that he was a productive player blinded me, so I expected too much from him. But now I see that he is just a talented player who needs to become a productive player and as such, needs time, a lot of practise and our support.
#ExpectLessFromChamberlain
