moving forward

Today's game against Aston Villa was for want of a better word 'strange', but largely stereotypical of The Arsenal from the last 5 years.

Statistically we battered Villa on all accounts except the scoreline, a number of key players had very good games and some of our lesser players didn't have complete 'mares, however there is nothing about the game today that gave me confidence looking ahead to Spurs & Everton.

Giroud looks shot of confidence, Walcott was anonymous again, Diaby was at his static meandering worst and despite boasting one of the best technically gifted midfields in the league we really struggled to impose ourselves on a Championship quality team.

Despite the unconvincing performance, the 3 points were vital in our chase for the top 4, and we should be guarded against making snap-judgements, but the lack of 'purpose' I see in this Arsenal team is alarming, and isn't limited to one or two individuals. We've now got a team full of Denilsons.

The number of goals we've conceded as a result of us having a corner or a free-kick in the opposition's half is ridiculous for a professional team. In the first half today Weimann took the ball from a Villa clearance inside their own box and proceeded to run directly at our defence till the edge of our area, where he eventually lost the ball, but the precedent was set. When Guzan started a quick counter from a corner and Benteke headed the ball to Weimann inside his own half, the only players who started to bust a gut to get back were Vermaelen & Mertesaker. The resulting goal wasn't a shock, neither was the fact our defenders refused to challenge Weimann or the Szczesny should have done better with the eventual shot.

To me, that's unacceptable, but it happens pretty much every time we lose the ball. Repeatedly our players have a mini-strop after losing possession, and spend time complaining instead of staying switched on and trying to win the ball back. Surely this can't have gone unnoticed by Arsene Wenger? Thinking back to the Bayern game, their 3rd goal came from Cazorla losing the ball and then not working back. What use does staring at the floor or throwing your hands in the air have to getting the ball back, or help your teammates defend against the resulting pressure?

This apparent lack of will to do the 'dirty stuff' is why we find ourselves where we are, 5th and out of all the cup competitions. Few of the goals we concede are wonderful team goals or 'worldies' from the opposition, most originate from basic errors on our part or are a result of a downright lack of effort. For all the collective wanking over how good Bayern were, all 3 of their goals were entirely preventable. Yes it didn't help having to play without a real left-back, but I still don't understand how Vermaelen & Podolski managed to fuck themselves royally for the Kroos goal last Tuesday, nor why none of our midfield thought it would be a good idea to track back towards our goal after the Belgian-German axis had royally fucked itself.

Ultimately when we play against teams that can break quickly, namely 90% of the teams in the Premier League, we will continue to struggle until these traits of our performances are rectified or we change our system. Can this happen with the current squad? In my opinion, no. There isn't enough ownership of our issues within our squad, and very few players ever want to take responsibility of digging us out of the shit-heaps we oft find ourselves in. See the continual slow, drawn-out, purposeless, meandering passing we conduct nearly every game as evidence of this. So many of our players would rather make a simple 5 yard pass sideways or backwards than try to play a more attacking incisive pass forward. Using Wilshere as an example how often is his first movement forward, and burst of energy to take on a man or to pass to our attackers? Today 63% of his attempted passes were forward (58 from 92); now think about Diaby, today only 42% (26 from 61) of his passes were forward. 

Maybe this is down to a lack of confidence and the players are petrified of making mistakes & becoming the next boo-boy, but if the players can't handle the pressure or expectations associated with representing The Arsenal then we must to be brutal and cut them adrift in the summer. 

Otherwise we'll never move forward.

UTA

Season starts now?

Having grown to become more "meh" with the state of The Arsenal over the last year, writing a blog regularly became a chore. I was bored of typing out the same thing, over and over and over.

Not sure why, but despite our current league position things 'feel' different now, maybe it’s because the fanbase seems more divided than ever (on twitter at least) that it's shaking me from my 'meh' state.
With the game against Stoke today it's the first time in a while that I’ve sensed the whole of our fanbase actually wanting to win the game. No knobheads spouting nonsense about "wanting to lose to force Wenger out", no "Giroud is no Van Persie" bollocks, no "Theo's an idiot" blah blah blah.

Maybe it's because it is Stoke. The Orcs. The 7th Nation. Pubis' Cunt Army. Regardless of how much we dislike the stuff going on & off the pitch at The Arsenal, we all hate them for Ramsey and because their manager wears a fucking baseball cap.

I also think the logical move of buying a new left-back has perked a few people up. It was very last minute and may not have been done had Gibbs not been injured but who cares it's done, and, most importantly, he's decent (according to the footballing hipsters). I'm not going to lie, I’ve only watched Malaga a handful of times this season and I was never watching because of him, but by all accounts he's a big improvement on Santos and will provide genuine competition for Gibbs. If that's not the purpose of the January transfer window I don't know what is. It’s also nice to buy a player who comes with a readymade chant.

Fingers crossed the front 3 can keep up their recent form and our defence can try and find some. 3 points please lads.

UTA

@UTAblog

Broken Records

So a fairly traumatic week following The Arsenal has passed and quite frankly we're deep in the mire.

With the defeats in Milan and at Sunderland yesterday our season is over and as Arse2Mouse says we're going to hear a lot of tripe coming from the club regarding 4th place being and achievement, 15 years of consistency etc etc. What’s the point of qualifying for the Champions League if we aren’t going to try and win it?

Flying out to Milan I knew we wouldn’t win the competition, and as such I said to my mates that if we lost in Milan we'd lose at Sunderland. I said that because the way this team deals with pressure and defeats is akin to a child running to their room and crying after being told off by their dad. When the going gets tough Arsenal get beat. I don't like knowing that, but it's sat there in my brain 24/7. You could hear the excuses for yesterdays defeat before the game kicked off...scheduling....pitch....injuries

When we went 1-0 down I wasn't the least bit surprised, nor was I surprised that the 2 'culprits' of the goal were Djourou and Squillaci. Time and time again Djourou has brain farts where he does needless things that lead to goals (yesterday's freekick wide out on the right), whilst Squillaci just has no luck at all wearing the red & white (of Arsenal). That's not to say that I think either is a useless player, but I don't think the correct course of action is rewarding either with a fancy new contract (as has just happened with Djourou).

This Sunderland match really has shown the gulf between the current Arsenal squad and those previous, and as many have said this Arsenal team doesn't need a few tweaks here and there it needs to be reconstructed from scratch. 

We have a nucleus of players we should fight tooth and nail to keep - Wilshere, Ramsey, Chamberlain, Van Persie & Sagna.

Whilst all the others simply aren't good enough to get this team back to the top of the premier league, there are some very good players who can have very good runs of form, but if they were good enough we wouldn't be getting beat by Sunderland, Fulham, Blackburn, Swansea et al. with our season done and dusted February 19th.

I think there will be a large turnover of players this summer, but the biggest changes of all need to happen at the board level. We've been in the Emirates for 6 years now and let’s face it we've cruised through those years, making the Champions League every year, making profit and occasionally challenging for honours. To think that we had a player as good as Cesc Fabregas in our side and we didn't win the league; it beggars belief and verges on being criminal.

Why weren't the obvious flaws corrected? We've heard from Hill-Wood or Gazidis that Arsene has had oodles of money to spend and he's unearthed some rough diamonds along the way, but the strategy,started after Flamini left, of handing out big money contracts has backfired dramatically. How can we have the 4th biggest wage bill in the league yet have Sp*rs managed by Harry Redknapp who’s won 1 FA Cup above us in the league? Ultimately they've got better players than us who are earning less money, meaning their players have to fight for greater rewards.

Our players cruise, knowing that when they get to 2 years remain on their contract if they've done ok, they'll get an extension and a pay rise. It really shouldn't work like that. A case in point is Carlos Vela, a decent football player who showed much promise, but a player who's done nothing of real note for Arsenal. This year he's out on loan and has publicly stated that he doesn't want to come back to Arsenal. This is a young player who Wenger publically stated was the replacement for Adebayor back in 2009, yet no longer features in his plans. He was rewarded with a new contract in the summer 2010, and is paid handsomely no doubt, yet has given the square root of zilch back to the club. Adebayor has never been replaced, meaning we’ve currently got 1 striker and we had to resort to having Thierry Henry for 6 weeks to try and galvanise the squad and get us to the 5^th round of the FA Cup.

The club needs to assume a much more 'cut-throat' attitude to its employees, and demand excellence, not just talent. I can demonstrate all the talent in the world in my work, yet if I'm a lazy prick and show no development I'll never get promoted or get a pay rise.

Sadly I think don't think Arsene can do this for us, it needs to come from the board and the owners, and they should be demanding trophies, not healthy bank balances. 4th place isn't an achievement it's failure; we've had 7 years of failures. We also need to face facts, we're simply not that good anymore; I don’t expect success, but as a fan of The Arsenal I expect the players to fight for the badge. This group of players doesn’t.

I still think Arsene is one of the best a mangers around, and we’ve had some terrible luck with injuries, yet he needs his hand forced here. I think he deserves one more summer to put right the wrongs and get the club going in the right direction again. Sadly I don't think the current owner-board structure is good enough to right all the wrongs, and give him the backing he desperately needs.

This season has been a right off since Cesc was sold last summer and the players brought in on deadline day were simply Arsene filling the gaps. They weren't the players he wanted, but then we never seem to get the players he wants. For his sake and ours, I sincerely hope he’s able to get the players he wants and needs to bring this club back to life, or I’m afraid his legendary status with the club will continue to spiral downwards and out of control.

RC

The time is nigh

So lots has happened over the last 3 weeks, and it must be said it's mostly been shit; 3  defeats and 7 points lost from point scoring positions, which would see us in 4th place.

Much has been said about the 3 games and the fallout of the Chamberlain-Arshavin substitution rages on (no idea why, it's 1 substitution?). But the biggest effect seems to have been the unity of The Arsenal. By that I mean the manager, the players & the fans. To say there has been a fallout between all 3 wouldn't be far from the truth.

The fans showed their obvious disquiet towards the manager with some frankly idiotic and mindless chants, whilst although the booing wasn't directed at him, Arshavin must feel like an absolute mug right now, as the booing continued when he replaced The Ox. I have no issue actually with booing the substitution of Chamberlain, but what shouldn't have happened is the booing once Arshavin had stepped onto the pitch. How moronic do you have to be? The bloke's at his lowest point since joining the club, yet we contrive to make him feel even shitter. All the nonsense afterwards from fans, especially on Twitter, of blaming the Russian for the goal need to take their Vermaelen-tinted goggles off. TV was at largely at fault for the first and should have stopped Wellbeck once he had evaded Arshavin, That's not to say I'm him blaming him solely for the goals, as Song was culpable for the second too, but we fans do love a scapegoat don't we.... Senderos, Eboue, Denilson and now Arshavin.

One 'pleasing' aspect of the fallout has been that the players appear to have had some frank 'conversations' in the changing room post match, which can only be a good thing. Former players have spoken about how such talks from previous campaigns ('91 can't remember the game and '98 post Blackburn) can have a positive influence on the remainder of the season, helping to get everyone reading from the same page, and focused on the job in hand.

The other positive is that we're only 5 points behind Chelsea. Yes we realistically need to get a few of our players back from injuries, but with  Sagna and Wilshere back, I genuinely can't see us playing as poorly as we have been of late. Lets not forget before Sagna and Santos got injured we had won 10 out of 11. That's not bad is it? With Sagna due back in 2 weeks (or so) and Wilshere, Gibbs  et al. not long after we've got every chance of hauling ourselves up the table. We've also got to remember we've got to play the Spuds and Chelsea at home yet, both of which we can win.

So what about Arsene then? I think it's fair to say that he's not covered himself in glory since the summer. Before the Fulham game he said that it wasn't worth losing games because we don't sign a left back. We haven't signed a left back and we've lost 3 on the trot. Add this to his comments about selling Cesc and Na$ri  in the summer and the picture doesn't look too rosy for him, long term.

I say long term as there is no chance of him leaving mid-season. There's no point even having the debate as it simply will not happen. Not that I want him to leave, but I do wish he would take his head out of the sand.
His stubbornness in always getting 'value for money' when buying players has allowed this squad to become very average.

There are 8 or 9 players on our books, at the club or out on loan, who shouldn't be and must be sold in the summer (at the latest). There's no need to name names as they're all pretty obvious, and hopefully Ivan Gazidis does "trim the fat" from the wage bill. We can't keep relying on injury prone players to be fit and pay them £60K+ contracts for nothing in return, it just doesn't make sense.

Hopefully, once the board lock-out ends before the season is out, we'll see a new board formed which can drive the club on to further success and insist on intelligent investment in the team. By intelligent I mean not scrimping on 1 or 2 million if it bags us a top quality player (i.e. Xabi Alonso in 2006) and demonstrates to our best players that we do want to build a title challenging squad.

All this is by the by though, right now our current squad, the manager and the fans need to pull together put aside our differences and drive the team on to the minimum of 4th place. We've still got the champions league and the FA Cup as opportunities, though not realistic, of silverware to aim for.

This is when we all need to stand up, be counted, and put the the Chavs and Spuds firmly in their place.

Va Va Voom 1 Dirty Leeds 0

So we all knew the script didn't we? It just had to be. King Thierry. 1-0 to The Arsenal against Dirty Leeds.

What can you say about the man, other than he's still got 'IT'. 5 Years since his last goal for us, it took him 10 mins to clock up number 227.

'IT' is also something the large proportion of our squad lack. It is also very worrying that our 1st team midfield trio really struggled to put Leeds to the sword. They obviously weren't helped by the pathetically impotent Chamakh, and the hugely wasteful Arshavin, but still for large parts of the game we were really poor.

Ramsey, Koscielny and Arteta were again our best players, whilst Chamberlain, Miquel and Yennaris had solid games without really excelling. But we really do lack the cutting edge in the middle; it was like watching the Arsenal of 3 years ago tonight, no drive, no conviction, no 'want'. It was just pass, pass, pass......

Thankfully the result was the important thing, as it always is, and overall a controlled performance with a very makeshift defence can be seen as job done. However, if it wasn't obvious we were lacking in creativity before, it's blindingly obvious now.

Too often Ramsey slows the play down at the point of the midfield trio, when he should be looking to release sooner; whilst I've no idea what we do with Chamakh. He started quite well with some decent hold up play, but then he just stopped. He knew he'd be subbed if he played shit enough and his blushes would be sparred by Thierry. As ever. Always the saviour.

I'm not meaning or trying to put a dampener on the night, as it was one of the moments that will live with me for a long long time, but if we're having to rely on a 34 year old returnee to provide support to RVP it really doesn't say much for the 'talent' that Wenger has brought through in the last couple of years. Park clearly doesn't have an arsenal career ahead of him, so it's imperative that we do bring in another forward over January.

Hopefully TH can spread his wisdom, calmness and composure to the young lads in the squad and the next 6 weeks will help the majority of this squad improve.

His finish tonight was the TH we all knew, know, loved and love again. Classic Henry.

Theo watch and learn.......

So what next....?

The defeat by Man City was a tough one. We deserved something from the game, no questions, and on another day Phil Dowd might not have been the complete tool he always is and given the penalty for the blatant handball by Micah Richards. That said the defeat did raise the same questions about the 'depth' (I use the term loosely) of our squad, particularly the attacking options.

I think it's clear for all to see, that Arshavin is a spent force, not through lack of effort, but his confidence is so shot, I think there is no of him re-discovering (if he ever really had it) his form. Chamakh is frankly useless to us as a team now. He comes on, ambles about a bit, does nothing and then runs off the pitch as fast as he can. At least Arshavin still tries to make the odd pass and will waste the odd opportunity, Chamakh doesn't even do that now, he is our Emile Heskey.

If these are our 2 best attacking substitutions and are to remain so for the remainder of the season then I think we'll struggle, simple because Van Persie can't play every game and without his goals and attacking prowess we look powder-puff at times.

So what the alternative? Again I think most fans would say it's blindingly obvious Wenger needs to buy in January. A striker is a must, as Chamakh will be gone for up to 6 weeks, and Park hasn't as much made the bench for the last few games (if Chamakh is getting onto the bench ahead of him, how average can Park be in training?), so despite Arsene saying Park, Arshavin, Chamberlain etc can play there, we really shouldn't risk it.

I think we're covered in midfield to be honest. The return of Jack will give us options to rotate the trio of Arteta, Ramsey and Jack. It'll also force both Arteta and Ramsey to play out of their skins week-in week-out as Jack ought to be starting every week when he's back. I would go as far to say that our best midfield would be Song-Arteta-Wilshere, as I personally think Ramsey is more suited to the Arteta role by controlling the tempo with his passing and Jack has the greater potential to play the 'killer' pass.

The next position that I think needs investment is out wide. I think Gervinho has done well since coming in, and despite the glaring misses, has added a much needed impetus to our forward play, that was sadly lacking with Arshavin out on the wing. I would love to see the Ox play, I'd have loved him to come on for Theo at City and just run at Zabaletta; that said I don't think Chamberlain is ready to play every week during the African Nations and I really don't want to see us return to the having the Russian out wide again.

I do however think Chamberlain should be our first choice substitute winger right now (followed closely by Yossi), ahead of the Arshavin. If we're losing and need some drive and spark to get back into the game, the Ox has shown he's more likely to produce, whilst Benayoun has played well every time he's come on. He's delivered whenever he's had the chance to play a full game (carling cup & Olympiacos) and I think he deserves more opportunities over the Russian.

Who we actually buy, I've no idea, but I think there are a few players who have just been dumped out of the champions league who could be available (from Dortmund & Lille), but I doubt we'll get them; Whilst the players I would like Cavani and Ayew are still in the competition so probably wouldn't move.

Whilst it's not all doom and gloom right now, I'm worried that due to the size of the squad it could all collapse in March. Again.

Arsene don't let it happen. Please.

Up The Arsenal

Ricky

The Chocolate Leg Does It Again

So we got the result and the 3 points from the potentially tricky fixture of Norwich away.

Overall it was a satisfying performance. We should have scored 3 times before they scored their first and we could/should have been 4 or 5 up by half time. Our profligacy in front of goal was worrying, but Norwich were playing so open at times we would always end up taking some of our chances. That said, Norwich did get lucky with having a player in position to clear off the line 3 times, especially with Walcott's first half effort.

The most pleasing aspect of the performance was that we are creating more chances; the front 3 are really gelling now, and baring injuries, we should be scoring more freely  moving forward through the season than we had up to the Chelsea game. As this team was struggling at the beginning of the season to create chances, let alone score, it's pleasing enough to see Gervinho and Theo get into positions. The goals will start to flow from these 2 and I'm now reasonably confident of our chances going into the games over the Xmas period that we're enough in our team to get the results even when Van Persie is rested.

I thought Walcott was our MoM yesterday, but I think Ramsey was outstanding as well. The guy is so tidy in midfield and has bags of energy, the thought of him and Wilshere playing centre midfield for Arsenal is well verging on orgasmic. Verging, not actually. It'll be interesting to see what Wenger does with player rotation when Jack is back and where he'll play him, but that's a while away yet, so it doesn't need worrying about now.

Obviously our mandatory defensive mistake cost our clean sheet, I've no explanation for what Mertesaker was doing, but overall I thought we looked quite solid yesterday, and Norwich only looked a threat when we played a too-high a defensive line and bar the goal I can't remember another time that we were genuinely worried by them.

As ever the criticism of our defence was over the top and media love to shit on The Arsenal, but they can't argue with the current run of form, 5 straight wins and now 3 points off third place. Quite frankly the media can go fuck themselves and go rim John Terry's racist ringpiece as we're all bored of the "Arsenal in Crisis" headlines, and today is the "Battle of the Racists". I do hope SKY are calling it that.

right to an awesome post-Arsenal win Sunday, and Dortmund midweek.

UTA

marvelous

3 points is all it's worth but oh they taste sweet.

The 'crazy' results keep coming in this years Premier league, and today's 3-5 win was quite frankly mental. How we weren't 2-0 down in the first 5 mins was anyone's guess but how Gervinho and RVP missed from point blank range inside the first 10 mins was a mystery. My mind very much went back to Chamakh's miss of last season, fearing the worse.

As it was I was right to have such fears, Lampard stealing in behind Per Mertesacker to give the Chavs the lead.

We managed to level it up, deservedly, with Aaron Ramsey playing a delightful slide-rule pass through to Gervinho who sucked in Cech before setting up RVP with a simple tap in.

You knew they would score from the corner and only Arteta know's what he was doing. Sky's 'pundits' slammed Per again, but if Arteta had stayed where he was meant to be then we'd have gone in at HT 1-1.

That said our defence (Koscielny apart) was woeful in the first half. I thought it was a bad idea to play Djourou at right-back and he was skinned time and again by Cole. Both Per and Santos looked tentative, which can be forgiven considering this was their first London derby, but these guys have 100+ international caps between them.

The team that emerged for the second half was more intense and tenacious with their tackling and hassling of the opposition. it paid dividends as Santos grew in confidence throughout the half and by the end of the game, looked almost 'comfortable' at the back. Per too grew into the game, reading the danger on the odd occasion that Chelsea threatened second half, bar Mata's long range effort and a Lampard free-kick I can't remember much else from the home team.

I think it's fair to say that we were lucky to still have 11 players on the pitch at the end as Chesney should have gone for taking out Cole, but it's nice to have some luck for once.

It goes without saying that RVP was clinical as ever (without actually doing that much) but our stand-out performers for me were Koscienly, who's growing into the defender that Wenger insists can be 'world class', Ramsey and Theo.

Ramsey is definitely back to his pre-stoke form and Theo has learnt that he can be so much more dangerous by running inside at the goal, not just down the wing. His final ball today was outstanding and his goal showed that his extra work on the training ground has paid off; the quick feet to recover from being on the floor to jink past Ivanovic and The Racist was something we've never seen before and the finish was emphatic.

For all the post match euphoria we need to keep our feet firmly nail-gunned on the floor, it's only 3 points, just like United only got 3 points from us and City 3 points from United. We do need to sure up the defence and we do need to keep RVP fit.

If we can do of that, then who know's where we'll be come May....

Much better

So we won back to back games for the first time this season and sine god knows when. A 3-0 win over a poor Bolton side was a great result and well deserved.

We struggled to get going in the first half. As Wenger pointed out our midfield was too deep to cause them any problems and RVP became too isolated as the half went on.

Pointing this out to his team at half-time seemed to do the trick, as straight from the kick-off Ramsey and Arteta started playing further forward and we got the break through we needed. Their 'keeper will be disappointed to concede at his near post but Robin won't be too bothered.

The sending off was weak, Theo went down far too easy, but that's par for the course now. It's the accepted thing to do, go down upon minimal contact. In a way I'm annoyed Theo did that, he should have wanted to score and put the game to bed, not get their player sent off, but that's just me. I'm also aware that going down so easily in situation like that may lead to us not getting a decision our way in the future, we don't want him getting a reputation for it.

Overall Theo had a mixed game, he was the game changer on Saturday, what with the sending off and the assist for Robin's second, but he also fluffed his lines with his 1 on 1. He took it far too early and that should have been his 4th goal of the season. If he wants to be playing further forward and through the middle he needs to start slotting them in regularly. I think he should pipe down with his media comments and start walking the walk. That's the only way he'll convince Arsene to play him through the middle.

Song was again our best midfielder, there were flashes of Songinho again with his fantastically taken goal, but overall (bar the odd exception - i.e.the Bolton break away that led to the Eagles shot) he did his job of sitting in front of the defence and breaking up play extremely well. He does need to communicate better with his fellow midfielders when he does turn into Songinho though, he simply can't push that far forward without someone taking his place, we'll be caught time and time again and a better player than Eagles may well have punished us on Saturday.

That said he was fantastic and in my opinion our best player. I know RVP is getting all the plaudits but I like the way Song goes about his work, he seems to have got rid of the 'stupid' fouls on the half-way line and has got a better idea of how to play his position now. Chipping in with the odd goal always helps too.

So to Wednesday now and Olympiacos. I expect a  few changes, with Arshavin for Theo and maybe Rosicky for Ramsey, and Santos for Gibbs but not a lot other than that. We need to keep the momentum going so playing the same side consistently should bring greater familiarity within the squad, in turn providing greater fluidity in both attack and defence and ultimately results. Hopefully......

Right that's it.

Up The Arsenal

Better...but more to come

So despite a rather nervous defensive performance we managed to turn-over the 4th division Shrewsbury Town team and ended up with a 3-1 win.

Much of the media focus today is on the Wenger press conference, I couldn't be less interested in that if I'm honest. Gazidis said some guff at a media meeting yesterday and Wenger effectively told the press to "jog on" when questioned about it. I can't remember the last time Arsene gave a straight answer to a question or actually said 'something' amongst all of the words he babbles out during his pressers. Always. The. Same. Shit.

So onto the game and a team of mixed experience performed ok bar for 20 mins in the middle of the first half, where Djourou was reminiscing about his school-boy football days and completely forgot that as a central defender you need to jump to win headers.

There was a lot of 'chatter' on Twitter having a go at Johan, but overall bar this mistake, when I think Ignasi Miquel had gone walkabout and left Djourou with 2 men to mark, I thought he dealt with the physical nature of their attack quite well. Bearing in mind this was a team from the 4th division I need to keep my praise in-check some what, but overall I as happy enough, and not being a miserable bastard, but someone who is naturally more optimistic, I prefer to focus on the good stuff from last night.

I think Coquelin was outstanding last night. His composure on the ball, his temperament & tenacity in the tackle and his general enthusiasm was fantastic, and something that seemed to rub off on a few others at times yesterday. At this moment in time I would happily play Coquelin ahead of Frimpong, mainly because Frimmers clearly sees the 'red mist' when wound up and at the moment we can't afford to have any more players sent off (if he hadn't have gone against Liverpool would we have lost? doubt it). I think the turning point within the game came when Coquelin had actually lost the ball in the middle of the park leading to a counter attack. The manner in which he sprinted back into position to rectify his mistake is the kind of attitude I love from Arsenal players, and vast difference to the attitude seem from certain 'amblers' over the last few years.

Chamberlain  was a good performer (in the 2nd half more so) along with Benayoun who was a constant threat throughout and was always looking for a opportunity to take the team forward, ending up with a goal having got himself into the 6-yard box. I like that. He is clearly better as a wide player than centrally, and I think he'll offer more defensively when we do look to contain the opposition compared to Arshavin, Gervinho or Walcott currently do.

I saw a few reports saying that Park was poor, I personally couldn't disagree more. I accept he didn't have the most flamboyant of matches, but he kept everything simple and showed flashes of what he can do, with a few lovely through balls to Yossi and one shot flashed just wide after some good footwork on the left to work some space for himself.

I'd liked to have seen more from Chamakh but overall his play overall is getting better, his 'hold up and distribute' style was much better than the rubbish we were treated to in the 2nd half of last season. Hopefully coupled with his goal against Blackburn he's returning to the form from his purple patch at the beginning of last season. One thing I would add to that is he always looked super-pissed when he does miss a chance of the keeper makes a save, clearly he's trying his nuts off so it's another reason I'm confident he'll turn it around.

So a 3-1 win and overall I would say a 6.5/10 performance. Things always look better after a victory, and with far tougher assignments ahead it remains to be seen if this excruciatingly slow moving tanker has turned the corner.

Up The Arsenal

So we start again

So the season hasn't really got off on the best foot has it?

Thus far I would say we've dropped 5 'bad' points, the 2 from the 0-0 Newcastle game and the obvious 3 from Blackburn at the weekend. Personally, I expected to get beat by Liverpool & Man Utd due to the various injuries and bans we had accumulated so early in the season.

That's not to say the performances weren't below par in those games (bar Frimpong in the Liverpool game, where, despite his dismissal, he was MOM).

The draw with Newcastle was all too obvious once Gervinho had got himself sent-off, but overall that was a game we dominated and should have got 3 points from, but to come away with a point from St. James' isn't the worse result in the world.

Blackburn was, well, a mess. Right up there with Wigan away 2 years ago. Should have been 3-1 up at half-time (but wasn't due to Gervinho being greedy), to being 3-2 down 10 mins after the restart. It was all rather absurd.

There are 2 ways to look at it, and I think you need to do both to really see how the game unfolded:

1) We battered them in the first half, but showed our usual generosity when it came to our finishing, and the lack of concentration that has blighted us for the last 5 years to allow them to score from nothing. The goal itself I wasn't that bothered about as it was a classic "this defence has never played together before" goal, neither Santos or Koscielny got their bearing right and Yakubu scored a very good goal. We responded to that by scoring ourselves, showing some of the "character" that Wenger refers to so often. Overall a happy 1st period.

The 2nd half was a tail REALLY bad luck. Firstly a foul was given for a perfectly legal tackle by Arshavin, from which a poorly taken freekick somehow missed the first man and hit a surprised Song who couldn't get out of the way leaving Szczesny stranded. The 3rd goal was offside, how the linesman missed that is beyond belief, but it's one of those errors similar to the Arshavin 'offside' goal against Sunderland last year. The 4th was another own-goal, and Koscielny did everything right except kick the ball away from goal.

2) We were dreadful in the 2nd half. After a encouraging first half that contained the stereotypical opposition goal from their first attempt on target, in a game they were being dominated in, we completely fell apart. Confidence drained from the team after their 2nd goal, you could see their heads drop. The experienced players we had just brought to the club, didn't show any of their experience to help battle through and get the 3 points. Our passing was atrocious though out, and the manner in which we made 'tackles' was appalling. Why did Djourou go to ground 40 yards from goal? How, once he had decided to go to ground, did he contrive to not only miss the man, but the fucking ball too? His decline since the Carling Cup final has be dramatic and is still clearly in full flow.

It really did seem that once Sagna went off you knew that we'd end up losing, without Mr. Consistency back there we fall to pieces. Hoilett is a good player with lots or pace and tricks, but even with a dead leg, Sagna gave him nothing; when Djourou came on he had been given a yellow card within 2 mins for fouling Hoilett.

I don't solely blame Djourou, but fucking hell he's playing shit right now.

So that's how I view the match, all-in-all a complete fuck up after he dominated the opposition and laughable that after scoring our 3rd we created 3 more golden opportunities to win the game.It leaves us in a mess that needs to be rectified sharpish.

Yes the players have to take a HUGE amount of criticism for the collapse on Saturday but I think the manager has to take his share to. I blame Wenger for picking the wrong team and making the wrong subs. When you're stuck in a rut (which we are) you always play your strongest team, regardless. Why did he elect to give  a debut to Santos? Why not play Gibbs who knows what Blackburn are all about and give the defence that little bit extra familiarity it needs away from home? Also, why play Arshavin away from home? Absolutely pointless. We saw how dangerous Walcott was when he came on, and he's our top scorer this year, a truly bizarre decision.

The other decision I don't understand was bringing on Djourou for Sagna. Does it not make more sense to bring on another full-back (even though Gibbs would have be playing on the wrong side), as they are more positionally aware in their role, than a centre-back?

Fucking bizarre.

So that brings me back to the 'feel good factor' of the club, and that's the Carling Cup a chance to see the kids and the players on the fringes. Playing Shrewsbury 'should' allow the players to play with a bit more freedom, and see us win comfortably. That said this is Arsenal and we never do things easy.....

Hopefully we see Ryo and "The-Ox" tonight and we'll get our first glimpse at Park Chu-Young. There's also hope that our now bang-in-form striker Marouane Chamakh will continue his hot-streak of 1 premier league in 2011.

Hopefully the kids bring in a breath of fresh air and sweep away (most of) the negative stuff surrounding the club at present. We desperately need it.

More soon(ish)

Up The Arsenal

2 weeks of boredom

So today was Members Day at the home of football, which happened to be my first time at such an occasion. Overall it was nice to be at leaving the Em's without the feeling of despair following a lacklustre performance for a change, though the weather did it's best to try and ruin it for the rather small crowd that did show up.

The activities themselves were of no real importance but it was just nice to be surrounded by supporters who were there to enjoy the day rather than bicker and starts arguments. After initially coming out to salute the crowd, Theo, Jack, Samir and Eboue went back down the tunnel, whilst the rest of the squad played some practice games, drills etc.

It was an interesting enough experience to see we do actually practice crossing the ball in training, we're just not very good at it. Seeing Sagna, Traore, Miyaichi, Jenkinson, Song and Arshavin  attempt crosses was painful, most were over hit or didn't get off the ground. When it came to the playing pretty one-twos on the edge of the box though we looked world beaters, and the players looked a whole lot more interested.

One observation was how superior Bendtner was to Chamakh in all facets of their play today. Watching the Moroccan struggle to hit pea-rollers at our keepers was worrying, whilst Nicklas was banging them in from all angles. Obviously this was just training, but Chamakh looks so devoid of confidence he's like the Francis Jeffers of this team, players were teeing him up to score but his finishing was shocking. If we're letting one of them go, I'd keep Bendtner all day long, everything our African friend is so predictable, even Squillaci marked him out of the training games.

Positives from the training were Cesc looking surprisingly sharp, Ramsey and Rosicky linking up well, and  Benik Afobe looking confident amongst the first team. I now expect him to feature heavily in our Carling Cup run before heading out on loan towards the end of the season.

Not being 'lucky' enough to get into the Q&A with the current players I popped along to hear what Martin Keown and Ray Parlour had to say. Most of what Ray said was sadly dull and predictable (same TALKshite stuff), Keown on the other hand had some interesting soundbites.

When one lady pleaded with him to come back and coach the defence he said he it was "highly unlikely" he would do that. Though he would love to work under Arsene Wenger, because he had played at Arsenal he would  find it hard to be a coach for the club. Martin also said he fully expected Steve Bould to progress to that role as well as looking after the youth team, before finishing by saying that the fans shouldn't expect more than 4th place this year and maybe a cup win at best, due to the lack of clarity over the Cesc/Nasri situations. Keown said that not only should Arsene be trusted by his ultimate decision over these two players, but that the club should listen to the fans, he then put it to the crowd, asking what the club should do with Nasri, the majority of which shouted back "sell him". Hopefully the sensible thing is done then.....

So it seems it's not just the fans who are struggling to be optimistic at the moment, that said it was good to hear Keown & Parlour state that the fans who booed at the Em's cup, though understandable due to disappointments, are nothing but a hindrance to team moral. Nothing ground breaking, but nice to hear something other than the polar extremes of the media/social networking world that are currently flying about

Silent Stan was there pitch side during training and it's floating around twitter that there was a full board meeting today. The obvious things will hopefully be discussed and decisions made that can bring an end to the drawn out sagas that have bogged the club down for the last 2 months.

Not holding my breath though......

More next week after the Champions League draw tomorrow and Benfica on Saturday with some build up to the Newcastle game.

Till then, Up The Arsenal.

RC

Unnecessary Fuss

So we've finally had a football kicked in anger, on a dodgy 'injury maker' pitch out in Malaysia, and it couldn't have come a minute too soon. The in-fighting and bitching amongst The Arsenal faithful and towards certain players has been appalling and downright disrespectful since the beginning of the crumble last season, but during this transfer window it's progressed to the next level.

Obviously the lack of real action leads to people over analysing every quote/soundbite from anyone connected with the club, be it current/ex-players or staff, but to see everyone and anyone being slagged-off regardless, and shot down for any number of reasons has made me embarrassed of some of the supporters of our great club.

My biggest bug bear has been the elitist nature from some members of the season ticket circle. I don't have one, does this make me less of a fan? No. Some of my mates who are lucky enough to possess STs hardly attend and often are detached from the day-to-day business of the club. Having an ST doesn't give you the right to look down on other fans who either can't afford one or haven't been offered one yet. There's also been a lot of stuff said on Twitter about some fans preaching self-righteousness over our foreign fanbase for not residing in the UK. I've never heard such a load of bollocks. Get over yourselves.

I apply the same to people who belong to Arsenal fan groups (AST etc), just because you've chosen to be a member of such a group, doesn't make your opinion more important than mine, or detract from the level of support I show the club. That's not to say I don't enjoy engaging in debate with those who have differing opinions to mine, one of my closest mates thinks: Wenger needs to go; Arshavin is the worst player our club has ever seen; Cesc, Nasri & RVP should be sold; Gervinho is shit (already); Bendtner is our best striker (that list is genuine. bizarre as it is, it's 100% real). So I'm more than open to debate.

I have no qualm with people expressing concerns and opinions about players/coaching staff/board members, everyone is entitled to an opinion. It doesn't mean you should force yours on others though, nor should you take someone's opinion as fact. Listen, absorb, and then let go; don't be a keyboard warrior, you make yourself look a mug.

On to things more positive, the 4-0 win yesterday saw the first involvement of our new signing Carl Jenkinson and Ryo Miyachi, and the return of Carlos Vela to the 1st team fold. Jenkinson had a solid, if not spectacular display, Miyachi showed glimpses of talent and searing pace, while Vela resumed work at the chip shop with a ridiculous training ground goal. You're allowed to side foot them Carlos......

Xavi and Barca made mugs of themselves by drawing Wenger out to publicly criticise them for scandalous disrespect towards the club and Cesc, while the Nasri situation hasn't moved.There was some uproar about Wenger's comments re: Nasri yesterday, but there's still a long way to go in the transfer market, I'm not sure why there is such consternation every time Arsene says anything about Nasri/Cesc/transfers in. We should have learnt by now he lives behind smokescreens during pre-season and refuses to jeopardise any potential deals by publicly stating interest. He does this because: 1) he's not a cu*t like twitchy "SSN" 'Arry or  "DNA"Xavi 2) He's not a media whore like Twitchy "SSN" or "DNA" and 3) He can hardly call for respect from Barca over Cesc and then start openly tapping up players from other clubs can he?

All of which leads me to believe a number of things this summer: 1) Cesc & Nasri will stay 2) Bendtner will stay 3) One CB will be signed 4) A replacement for Almunia will be signed

That isn't what I want to happen, I'd like a defensive midfielder to compete with Song and cover him during the sodding African Nations Cup, a full back to replace Clichy, one physically imposing centre back (not the footballing type, rather the sort of specimen who doesn't fuck about with the ball) and a creative central midfielder. Too much to ask for I know, but, meh......

Over and out. for now. comments/thoughts/opinions.......

Staring at the "Ring of Fire" is dangerous and make me feel sick

Short and sweet.

So....

We made our first signing in the form of Carl Jenkinson, a 19 year old right-back who I think we can assume will be Sagna’s understudy next season (and not played out of position – please Arsene NO!!). Having the best RB in the league to learn your trade from will hopefully lead to Jenkinson going on to become a top quality player for club and country.

I think it’s pretty clear that this will be the final nail in the coffin of the club jester Eboue. He’s been a great servant to The Arsenal; he had a couple of cracking seasons, before (sadly for him) Sagna arrived and he was then told he was a right winger by Arsene. This led to Emmanuel forgetting all of the good work he had done at full-back the previous 3 seasons; he could no longer defend, to the point he became a liability in both his old and ‘new’ position, culminating in the Wigan game where he was outrageously and horrendously booed by our home ‘support’.

Thankfully he saw the chastising as a wake-up call to try and save his career, and he has since then played much better when called upon; which to be fair hasn’t been that often, due to said liability traits.

I never bought into the ‘Cult of Eboue’ shit, but I preferred that to the nonsensical player bashing, that is now reserved for Denilson and Bendtner. With QPR being bandied about in the media I want to wish him good luck with whatever his next steps in football are. The club will be different without his theatrics and liabilitiness* (not a real word I know) but he is massively popular with the players, so hopefully the team morale doesn’t suffer without him.

The signing of Jenkinson and the apparent future departure of Eboue (other than being sensible!!!) would increase our number of ‘home grown’ players and free up one of the foreign national spaces within the squad. Throw in the fact that we’ve made an 11^th hour bid for Phil Jones at £16m + bigger wags than MUFC and it seems as though AW has finally taken his “economics degree hat” off and has put his, “I’ve got fucking roubles/dollars to spend, let’s go MENTAL with it” face mask on.

It’s a clear sign of intent or madness, but hopefully it’s also a sign that for once, Arsene wants to get the bulk of his player business done prior to August, especially with the Champions League qualifier this year. That said some of the transfer fees being thrown about are ridiculous, £20m for Jordan Henderson? You can FUCK RIGHT OFF. Some fans are questioning why we didn’t go in for him. Here’s you answer: JACK WILSHERE & AARON RAMSEY. Some people.

With the conclusion to the Jones saga yet to be confirmed amid rumours/reports of failing a medical at MUFC this is the start of what I think will be the craziest transfer window ever and it could potentially have started out with Arsenal being the biggest winners thus far. There will be alot more of this sort of shit over the next 10 weeks (which will be nauseating for 99% of the time) but I like the idea of The Arsenal winning....

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it bitches.

Shit, much longer than expected, but meh....

RC

Should he stay or should he go

I’m not really sure what to make of the Samir Nasri situation. Is he being a complete tool, or is just really stupid. After making various comments about Man Utd 2 days ago, he was last night stating that he wants to see how the squad building goes over the summer before committing to sign a new deal. Not sure how I feel about that. I saw one person on twitter say that he should show his ambition by taking a wage decrease enabling the club to spend the ‘freed up’ money to add to the transfer ‘warchest’. Admirable idea, but this is modern football. Never. Gonna. Happen.

Obviously Nasri has seen/heard the backlash from the fans and is trying to now paint a nicer picture of himself but it all seems a bit sad to me. Why is it that the players who show great improvement after 2 years of nothing, then get too big for their own boots? Flamini, Adebayor, and now Nasri; all had mediocre first 2 seasons at the club, before having their best (half) season in the Red&White. Surely you deserve a substantial pay rise after showing consistent improvement, not after a spurt?

Maybe I’m living too much in the real world, but Arsene needs to get his house in order with regards to the wage structure for our players. Stories of Denilson, Diaby, Rosicky, Vela all getting handsome pay rises in recent years, for doing naff all, doesn’t sit well with the fans especially as the season ticket price rise of 6.2% has effectively paid for the increased wages.

Arsenal are a loyal club (by and large) and Arsene a loyal manger; he vehemently defends his players from any criticism, yet some players, who Wenger has helped nurture and given opportunities to,  choose to repay him by either using agents to get away from the club, or make ridiculous demands for wage increases when they provide little (or no) evidence that it is deserved. These players should be running their backsides into the ground for Arsenal, we’ve made them who they are today, Yet they don’t, they try backheels on the halfway line, don’t track back, throw their arms in the air as a teammate makes a mistake. It all seems…..pathetic.

It’s sad to say it, but if said players were at Man Utd, they wouldn’t last more than 6 months. Hate him for being a the biggest knob-jockey in the universe, but Fergusson doesn’t take this kind of shit from anybody; he got rid of his best defender in Jaap Stam at the height of his career because of a bit of jip in Stam’s autobiography. He was a beast of a player, but due to a lack of respect he was out. Can you imagine Arsene doing that? For my mind some of the displays we’ve had to witness from these players have been shockingly disrespectful to the club. Seemingly a few will be off this summer, but does Arsene need to be more ruthless? In my opinion 1000000000000000000000% yes. Players who actually give a fuck about the club, and playing for the manager are what this club needs not players who crab their way round the pitch and then slag off team displays, transfer policy, fans, when they need to look squarely at themselves in the mirror and realise that they are not good enough and they need to work harder because  they are letting not only themselves, but those around them down.

I don’t care if Samir Nasri goes or stays, but he needs to start showing a bit more respect to the people who pay his wages if he does stay, or the backlash from the clubs 60’000 bankrollers could be huge come August.

It's all so slow.....

So it's back to grey again in London town; normal service resumed me thinks.

After a rather lame attempt at cooking a bbq on the sun flooded Highbury Fields yesterday, to wake up to a raft of boring Cesc rumours this morning is like waking up with the most ragingist of raging hangovers after a mediocre night out. Dull, annoying and uneventful. Has all that bollocks started already? it's going to be a long summer.

With regards to Cesc, if he goes, he goes. The Arsenal will live on and is about much more than just one player. As many have said in the Arsenal Blogosphere and on Twiter before me, as long as we replace an outgoing player with equal if not better quality then I don't care who comes and goes. Just my opinion, but meh, it's an opinion, take it in and let it go.

A few current and former Arsenal players played in the England match yesterday. I didn't watch it, as I find England internationals painful to watch at the best of times, but even more so when London is bathed in sunshine and there is beer to be drank and bbq to be eaten (or not in my case).

As it  turns out (from what I've read) Jack had a good game, while Theo and Djourou were poor, both continuing their downward spiralling end-of-season form. JD's downturn in form has been emphatic, and worrying ahead of next season. If anything it's re-highlighted the need for Wenger to buy a top quality centre half; if JD is making Philip Senderos look like an assured defender, then we really can't be relying on him to lead the line with Tommy V next season.

For my money its a TV-Kos6  first choice central defence next season. Hopefully the lack of form for JD is a result of playing more games this season than he has ever before, add in a lack of confidence to his obvious fatigue and you've got an error prone defender, a nice little holiday should sort that out. *praying*

As ever it's all quiet on the subject of players coming into the club at the moment (not that I care one jot currently), but with predictions from the Tiwtterverse of new signings X, Y and Z to be announced next week I'm sure we're in for a bumper-packed, happy-filled, mountain of nonsense, bullshit, guff and bollocks of the highest order to be thrown at us from all directions in the coming days. All hail the saviours X, Y and Z. YAY!!

can't wait...... have good Sunday