Season was not a failure -Clichy

Arsenal defender Gael Clichy has told setantasports.com that he feels The Gunners have had a positive season despite ending the campaign empty handed.

The left back says he can understand the fans’ frustrations with a blank season, but feels the future looks bright in North London.

“I think there are two ways of seeing our season,” Clichy told setantasports.com.

“Everybody has seen that we have a great team, we have qualities and we can play great football and we had some great results.

“But on the other side we haven’t won anything for three years now so we can’t say that the season has been positive but we can’t say it has been negative.

“Some people say Arsenal don’t deserve what they’ve got, some say the contrary, it’s up to anyone to have their own opinion.

“It has been negative in terms of trophies.

“Being at the top of The Premier League for seven months is quite impressive.

“We have shown everyone that we can play to a high standard in the whole season.

“Unfortunately we had some bad injuries including Eduardo, we lost Robin (van Persie), Abou (Diaby) and Tomas Rosicky.

“That kind of player can make the difference anytime in a game.

“That was a big shame for us, a big blow to lose them, but once again you cannot hide behind injuries or being unlucky, we didn’t win anything and that is what matters in football.”

Clichy feels he has improved on account of an injury-free campaign.

“Just talking about myself,” he added. “I haven’t been injured, which was the most important thing for me after all the injuries I had in the last couple of seasons.

“I think I improved a lot. I think I have room to progress.

“I work hard every day at training to do that. For me the season has been good but it could have been perfect if we had won something.”

Clichy has tried to explain the reasons for The Gunners’ failure and the Frenchman feels their lack of depth counted against them.

He added: “I think the main reason is when you have a short team like we have got at Arsenal it’s good because everyone has the chance to play some games.

“So the atmosphere is great but also when you miss players, like five of those, including Tomas Rosicky, one of the best midfielders in Europe, Robin van Persie one of the best strikers, Eduardo, that’s big blow and you can’t do anything about that.

“Look at Chelsea and Man United, you take Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez out, and Chelsea you take Terry, Carvalho and Drogba out, it’s not the same team.

“So it’s really unlucky, I don’t know if we would have won the league with those players but for sure we’d have had more chances of doing it.

“We’ve got five players injured and it’s really difficult to cope with that and we tried, we tried really hard, and of course when you make the mistakes we made against Birmingham and Liverpool away, it’s difficult.

“We have plenty of quality and next season will be better.”

Clichy conceded a late penalty in the 2-2 draw at Birmingham and reckons this game was the turning point of Arsenal’s season, as a victory would have helped them move eight points clear at the top of the table.

“Personally I think that Birmingham was the turning point because we lost Eduardo when he was performing at his best.

“It took him six months to settle in English football and he scored some great goals. I think with him in the team we could have done something good.

“And as well we lost two points at the last minute so that was the turning point, I think.”