Gunnerblog

Quick thoughts on Day 1 of Emirates Cup

140 guns August 1st, 2010

Arsenal 1 - 1 Milan (Chamakh 36, Pato 77)

When I say quick, I do mean quick, as I’m off bright and early to go and play in a football tournament.  Here we go:

• Koscielny had his best game of pre-season.  He looked tidy on the ball, and very neat when it came to winning it back.  However, I still have concerns about his physique and capacity to deal with some of the Premier League’s more powerful forwards.
• I said on twitter that Marouane Chamakh looked like the tastiest thing to come out of Morocco since couscous.  I was wrong - couscous isn’t all that tasty.  Chamakh put in a great shift in his first Emirates start, running the channels effectively, linking the play, and finishing calmly for our goal.  He’s more mobile than Bendtner - he has the movement and enthusiasm of Emmanuel Adebayor’s early Arsenal days, only with a less erratic touch.
• Jack Wilshere was guilty of trying too hard, but still had some good moments.  He was deployed a little deep for my liking, alongside Emmanuel Frimpong, with Samir Nasri further ahead.
• Lukasz Fabianski played the 90 minutes in goal - Almunia will play today.  Fabianski did most things well, including a lovely piece of anticipation followed by a perfectly-executed sidestep to foil an onrushing attacker.  We lacked organisation on set pieces though, and eventually conceded from that route.

It was a little bit more low key than the Emirates Cup games usually are.  It felt much more like a conventional friendly, which makes it hard to analyse effectively.

In many respects the most interesting part of the day was Arsene’s press conference, which revealed the following:

• He feels Cesc Fabregas must make a statement to put an end to the Barcelona stories
• Manuel Almunia will start today
• Frimpong and Wilshere are both likely to stay and be part of the squad

Arsenal v Celtic is at 4.20pm today.  Come on you Gunners!

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