Arsenal picked up their first win of the Champions League group stage last night, meaning we were the only English side to win in Europe’s premier competition this week. We also now have more Champions League points than Manchester City and Manchester United combined.
Arsene gambled a little with his team selection, and got away with it. I support his decision, and would have done even if it had backfired. We have a huge squad now, as the fact that even with the amount of injuries we’re carrying we were able to rest players demonstrates. The XI he picked was plenty strong enough to win this game at home.
With that said, I think we all may have been guilty of underestimating Olympiacos a little. Granted, we don’t see much of them in England, but I thought they were great last night – all technically capable, and organised too. They were smart in their tactical play, looking to break against our attacking midfield, and closing down Mikel Arteta whenever he got the ball. Their goal was the result of some intelligent thinking: recognising that we’re adapting to a new zonal marking system, they threw a spanner in the works by taking short corners. Frankly, we looked as if he hadn’t covered that situation in training yet.
They looked the more dangerous side for long periods of the game, but fortunately we were already two goals ahead thanks to strikes from two recent signings. First, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain continued his impression adaptation to top-level football by dribbling inside from the right and firing left-footed across the goalkeeper to become the youngest ever English goalscorer in the Champions League. The second and third youngest, in case you’re wondering, are Theo Walcott and Jack Wilshere.
Andre Santos’ goal also came off his wrong foot. He galloped forward to meet a Tomas Rosicky through-ball, but his cross for Chamakh was cut out. When the ball rebounded back to the cavalier left-back, he skipped in side his man and knocked a right-footed effort in at the keeper’s near post.
We did struggle to retain possession at times – Emmanuel Frimpong looking particularly raw in midfield – and Olympiacos gave us the fright of our lives by striking the crossbar from range in the second-half with an effort that probably deserved better – but we held out for the win.
There were plenty of positives for me, particularly with the makeshift centre-half pairing of Song and Mertesacker. Song was tenacious and calm on the ball, and the German had his best game in an Arsenal shirt. I’ve noticed an interesting trend in his play: unlike most Arsenal centre-halves, he doesn’t charge straight towards the ball. At times he backs away or runs in to an area which seems to make no sense – only to be perfectly positioned to clear when the cross comes in. He’s economical and efficient – at times last night he knew when his best option was just to boot the thing away.
I also felt Santos played well, and the battle between he and Kieran Gibbs looks set to run and run. Santos has a remarkable upright dribbling style – his touch is immaculate and last night he showed some steel to match the flair.
It’d be impossible not to mention Chamberlain. Although I felt he faded before being withdrawn on the hour mark, it’s clear we’ve got a huge talent here. The most obvious comparisons to make are with Theo Walcott – not just because of their Southampton heritage, but because they’re competing for the same spot in the team. Last night Pat Rice said:
“From Arsenal supporters’ point of view, they are going to be seeing a lot of this boy. Whenever he breaks in permanently he has a big, big challenge to now get in front of Theo. I know that Theo is a very strong-willed guy as well and he won’t give in easy. It all bodes well for England anyway.”
For England – and, more to the point, for Arsenal.
In summary: we won. United’s home draw with Basel shows how treacherous these games against ‘lesser’ opposition can be. The Greek league is significantly stronger than the Swiss, and we came out on top. I’m happy with that and you ought to be too.
In the circumstances, this was just the result we needed. Three goals, three points, a clean sheet, and a landmark moment for the talismanic Robin van Persie.
At half-time, the result was still very much in the balance. It was 0-0, and Wojciech Szczesny had produced an outstanding early save to keep his sheet clean. Arsenal should have gone ahead when Mikel Arteta played in Gervinho, but the Ivorian’s touch was too heavy and the ball ran through to Jussi Jääskeläinen.
Bolton were marking very tight in midfield and Arteta seemed to be carrying all the creative responsibility. Aaron Ramsey was having little impact, and Walcott and Gervinho struggled for space on the flanks. Despite missing Gary Cahill through illness, Bolton looked secure at the back and a threat on the break.
Occasionally, Arsene Wenger’s critics accuse him of lacking tactical acumen. However, his post-match explanation of his half-time team-talk instantly dispels that myth:
“I felt that in the first half we were a bit impatient sometimes, that we didn’t move the ball quickly enough, that our midfielders came a bit deep because we were man-marked. That exposed us a bit to counter-attacking and we had less support up front. In the second half, maybe because they were fatigued as well, our midfielders played higher up and we became straight away more dangerous.”
Our second half display was also helped by two things that settled our obvious nerves: an early goal, and a sending off for Bolton. First, Van Persie finished superbly from a narrow angle after the referee waived play on when Gervinho was brought down in midfield. Then David Wheater was dismissed for tugging back Theo Walcott after he’d been played in by an improving Ramsey.
It was a game in which we saw the good and the bad of Walcott. He showcased his electrifying pace, racing behind the defence to leave Wheater fatally training, and reaching a Ramsey pass to cross for RVP to nudge home his second goal of the game and 100th for Arsenal. He also showed just why he frustrates, missing a couple of glaring opportunities – one when set clean through by the impressive Alex Song. On balance it was an effective display, and Arsene will hoping that the knee injury which forced him to limp off is not too serious.
It was that second goal, created by Walcott, that killed the game, and made for a fantastic landmark for Van Persie. He joins sixteen other Arsenal centurions in passing the milestone, and his pride in doing so will only be tempered by the thought of how many he might have were it not for a succession of injuries.
Alex Song gabbed a deserved late third, stepping inside his man to curl in to the top corner. The three points mean that a win at White Hart Lane next weekend would take us above them in the league – as if any more incentive for a North London Derby were needed.
I thought there were plenty of positives to take from today’s game, albeit against ten men. Mikel Arteta continues to look every inch the class act we hoped he would be, and Alex Song appears to be stepping up to the midfield mantle with some incisive passing to match his essential physical presence.
At the back we coped well with the supposed threat of Kevin Davies, on as an early sub for the injured N’Gog. Mertesacker and Koscielny were happy to let Davies win the majority of long-balls; they got tight enough to him to prevent him bringing the ball down, and were able to intercept the second ball every time. For all the headers Davies won, barely a single one reached a team-mate.
Our concentration at set-pieces was better too. It was heartening that when defending a corner in stoppage time, at 3-0 up, Wojciech Szczesny was bellowing at his team-mates to concentrate. A clean sheet will do the defence a world of good.
Next up it’s Olympiakos in the Champions League. Another home game, and a chance to maintain that momentum ahead of that crucial derby game a week today.
In the end, it was an enjoyable night out – apart from the fact I managed to tumble down about three rows of seating when trying to make a quick escape by hopping over the man in front. If you saw a tall man in a blue hoodie go tumbling with kind of pirouettes and spins more commonly associated with a fouled Cristiano Ronaldo, then I confess that was me.
The spins and flicks from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain were far more impressive. After a quiet first 45, he came to life in the second half, thumping home a crucial goal from range as well as terrorising the opposition full-back with some searing sprints to the byline. The difference between Chamberlain and Walcott could not be more clear: the newer addition is much more prepared to drift inside and get involved with build-up play, spraying thirty and forty yard passes effortlessly across the pitch. He’s far less reliant on pace, and possesses far greater technique. Undoubtedly, a huge prospect.
And yet, his Man of the Match award was possibly a little generous: across he ninety minutes, the performance of Francis Coquelin probably warranted recognition. Since arriving in 2008, the holding midfielder has always looked a neat tackler with tidy ball-skills. Yesterday, in a 4-4-2 formation alongside Emmanuel Frimpong, he demonstrated that some time playing at full-back and a spell on loan in Ligue 1 have seen him add power and energy to his game. Yesterday he charged from box-to-box, winning the ball back and using it simply and efficiently. It seems the Old Trafford mauling has not scarred him.
Honourable mentions also go to Kieran Gibbs and Yossi Benayoun, who grabbed their first Arsenal goals, and Ignasi Miquel, who looked far more assured than his experienced defensive partner, Johan Djourou. Lukasz Fabianski, too, won’t have worried compatriot Wojciech Szczesny with an unconvincing display.
Ryo Miyaichi got twenty minutes but didn’t have time to make a notable impression, whilst the game may well once be remembered for the Arsenal debut of the giant Chuks Aneke. Chuks is, in every sense, a huge star at U-18 and now Reserve level, with that exciting combination of technique and tallness that draws inevitable comparisons with Patrick Vieira. He’s more of an attacking player than the Frenchman, and an enormous prospect. He only got a few minutes in stoppage time last night, but it wouldn’t surprise me if we see him again before long.
Arsenal’s fresh start is already tinged by the familiar odour of decay. After scraping past Swansea and nicking a point from Dortmund, our shortcomings were once more horribly exposed in a 4-3 defeat to struggling Blackburn.
It was, without doubt, one of the strangest games I’ve seen. But Arsenal conspire to make the strange familiar, and the impossible plausible. Only we could twice blow a lead at Ewood Park, conceding four goals to a side that, until today, had managed just the one. It means that Blackburn, whose manager was the subject of protests calling for his sacking prior to the game, have now moved above us in the league table.
The result is made all the more baffling by our dominant first-half display. Gervinho and Mikel Arteta both netted impressive first goals for the club, sweeping home after moves which both involved incisive passing from Alex Song. Song, Arteta and Ramsey were dominating the game, and ahead of them the movement of the Ivorian winger was causing havoc in the Blackburn back line.
The Arsenal strikes sandwiched Blackburn’s first equaliser, which gave warning of what was to follow. Arsenal, the replays hsowed, had a neat defensive line – unfortunately it was on a diagonal rather than a horizontal, and both Koscielny and debutant Santos were playing Yakubu onside as he raced through to toe-poke brilliantly beyond Szczesny.
That said, we still looked comfortable, and should arguably have gone in at half-time at 3-1 – Gervinho choosing to shoot rather than square to an unmarked RVP after a brilliant burst from an in-form Arshavin. The news boys were slotting seamlessly in to our swashbuckling style, and I expected us to come out after the break in search of the crucial next goal – the one that would define the pattern of the game.
That goal, as now know, went to Blackburn. Andrey Arshavin was harshly penalised for a backtracking slide on the left-flank. When Ruben Rochina clipped the resulting free-kick in to the box, Scott Dann’s flicked header was turned in to his own net by Alex Song. Arsenal’s new zonal marking system, which had looked ropey in the first half, relies on preventing a Blackburn player from reaching the ball. It does not, however, legislate for our own men accidentally putting the ball in the net.
Blackburn couldn’t believe their luck, and began to play like a team believing it might be their day. Within nine minutes, they were ahead. Another set-piece, a corner this time, found N’Zonzi unmarked at the back-post. He fired across goal and Yakubu – offside – tapped in.
There was worse to come. From an Arsenal corner, substitute Martin Olsson broke at breakneck speed, hurdling challenges from Santos and Johan Djourou, who had a nightmare as a replacement for the injured Bacary Sagna, to see his cross turned in to his own net by Koscielny. Our third own goal of the season – more than we have chalked up in the past two years combined.
In a game as surreal as this, and with the way we had played in the first half, rescuing the tie didn’t seem impossible. Theo Walcott and Marouane Chamakh were thrown on, and with five minutes to go the latter provided some hope with a thumping header – his first league goal in almost ten months. We had chances to equalise, too: Mertesacker and Chamakh again spurning presentable opportunities created by crosses from Santos, who unsurprisingly looked better going forward than back.
All that history will record, of course, is the result; the cause of which will surprise no-one: some apocalyptically bad defending. Today we learnt what most of us already knew: that adding new personnel won’t change the fundamental problems of organisation and coaching that dog our defensive displays.
Arsene seems to admit that we were in dire straits at the back:
“It just looked like we had a lack of focus for what we knew they were good at – corners and free-kicks.
You cannot say you are not worried when you see the performance we put in today. It’s just not defensively solid enough.
At the moment we do not have the capability to focus defensively for 90 minutes to win games. It is important you do not give cheap goals away like we did.”
Staggering admissions from the manager, and one only hopes he has some idea of how to combat the malaise. Signing Santos and Mertesacker is all very well – although both struggled today – but the one addition many fans were crying out for was someone on the coaching staff to provide a bit of guidance and discipline. It hasn’t happened, and the likes of Martin Keown will continue to dissect our errors on the sofa of the BBC when they could be doing so on the training ground.
By the end of the weekend we could be eleven points behind the league leaders, after just five games. We’ve now conceded 14 Premier League goals already – in 1998/99 we conceded 17 in 38 games. Last season in took us until mid-November to ship that many.
There’s a lot of rage out there on the internet. Fuming fans are looking for someone to blame, and inevitably their ire is turned on the manager. Myself? I’m more calm. I’ve taken a lot of stick over on Twitter for being “out of touch” and “in denial”, but I think it comes down to having already adjusted my expectations.
From the moment we lost Cesc Fabregas, we ceased to be title contenders. Losing Samir Nasri merely compounded that fact. A clutch of knee-jerk signings on deadline day boosted the squad, but not enough to change our status in an evolving league. City, Chelsea and United have got the top three sewn up. We’re part of the scrabble below, hoping to maintain fourth place and our Champions League status.
That’s as high as my sights ago. We can not and will not win the league, or indeed Champions League. We might have a stab at a domestic cup, but even the hunt for an overdue trophy has to be below fourth spot in our list of priorities. As Arsene suggested on Friday, we are at the start of a new cycle. Whether or not he’ll be here to see the completion and fruition of it, we can’t know. What we do know is that retaining the financial fillip and elite status provided by Champions League football is essential to help this club get back to the top. Without it, we genuinely run the risk of slipping in to a period of obscurity.
If you’re insistent that Arsenal must achieve more this season then I suggest you switch off now, because the next eight months will be rather pointless viewing. The realistic aim, that fourth spot, remains very much on the table. I believe that come the end of the season, we will be in contention. In fact, call me crazy, but I still think we’ll get it.
There were, amidst the chaos, positive signs. In the first half, and right at the end of the second, we played the best football we have mustered this season – possibly since around February last season. Arteta and Gervinho looked fine additions, and I began to see just how Arsene might manage to pull us out of the fire.
There was misfortune, too, in the goals we conceded. Any side that wins a game courtesy of two own-goals will hold their hands up and say they were a tad lucky – and therefore, by default, we were a little unlucky. Yakubu, too, was offside, and Arsenal had a decent shout for a penalty denied in the dying moments. We had 24 attempts to Blackburn’s 10, and 13 corners to their two.
I can’t sit here and tell you that Arsenal defended anything other than dreadfully. Nor can I tell you that we’ll turn this round and become title challengers. What I can tell you is that I saw signs today that we are perfectly capable of finishing fourth in this league. It will take a lot of work, and a few changes, but it can happen. And if you care about the future of this club you had better hope it does.
The manager will not walk away. Nor will he be sacked. Like it or not, he is here for this season. You may believe that this mess is of his creation, and I’d probably agree. However, I still believe he can get us out of it.
I could have chosen a picture of Arsenal defenders, hands on heads, devastated at conceding a late equaliser. I haven’t: I’ve chosen a moment of celebration after the goal that gave us a valuable lead. This draw is a highly commendable result, and I won’t allow the cruelty of the goal to colour that.
There isn’t a sane Gooner out there who wouldn’t have taken a point yesterday. With Ramsey and Rosicky injured, our team looked even more unfamiliar than against Swansea, as Yossi Benayoun made a first start in a central midfield role.
Our fears about Dortmund’s strength were confirmed minutes in to the game: they’re a fantastic side. Like Barcelona, they understand the importance of winning the ball back early and high up the pitch. Arsenal couldn’t get out – Dortmund closed down so effectively that the back four struggled to find an out ball. Instead, we were faced with wave after wave of German attack, with Kagawa and Goetze predictably at the heart of it. The closest they came was when Lewandowski rounded his countryman Szczesny, only to see his effort cleared off the line by Bacary Sagna.
There were glimpses at the other end, usually provided by the sprightly Gervinho. However, a bit of ring-rust prevented him from finishing a presentable opportunity before Hummel could toe-poke the ball away.
When we did score, at the end of the first-half, it was hugely against the run of play. An isolated Robin van Persie took a leaf out of Dortmund’s book, chasing down a loose Sebastien Kehl pass to win the ball with a sliding tackle, before jumping up and racing on to an excellent pass from Theo Walcott to fire right-footed past the keeper. It was his 15th goal in 16 away games.
From that point on, Arsenal put together an admirable rearguard action. At the heart of it was Alex Song, who won the ball countless times on the edge of our own box, cleanly and efficiently. It was a very mature display from the Cameroon midfielder. Behind him Koscielny and Mertesacker formed an effective partnership: the former all reactive blocks and clearances, the latter composed and organisational. Outside them, Bacary Sagna was his usual reliable self, and Wojciech Szczesny continued his development in to one of the continent’s finest goalkeepers.
As we entered the final five minutes, it looked as if this uncharacteristic Arsenal display could yield all three points. Frimpong, Chamakh and debutant Santos were brought on to add fresh legs and lend their hands to an increasingly pressurised pump. We were denied, however, by what Paul Merson most probably called ‘a worldy’. I don’t know, I usually turn over when he’s on. What I can say with absolute assurance was that this was a once-in-a-lifetime strike from substitute Ivan Perisic, catching a cleared corner so sweetly on the volley that the ball simply flew in to the top corner.
Szczesny was forced in to one more save from Lewandowski to preserve a point, and then came the whistle. Arsenal heads didn’t drop – they knew they had got themselves a fair result that could be vital in the race to qualify.
Browsing Arsenal forums after the game, I was staggered by the sense of disappointment. A lot of our supporters seem to show very little respect for Dortmund. Let’s not forget: these are the Champions of the Bundesliga. Although they came out of Pot 4, they’re quite possibly the favourites for the group. To expect us to waltz in to their intimidating arena and control the game is pure ignorance.
To be honest, I liked the way we played. What we lacked in creativity, we more than made up for in commitment. The XI out there were something of a rag-tag bunch: players from some way down Arsene’s ‘wanted’ list, cast-offs from other clubs, youngsters, and a few familiar faces – but they had one thing in common: a desire to play for Arsenal football club. And, for me, that shone through.
Having a few guys like Arteta and Benayoun, who have had the experience of playing for teams further down the football pecking order, means they know just what it means to play for a club the size of Arsenal. One occasionally senses that the Denilsons, Clichys and Bendtners of the world arrived so young that they didn’t appreciate what it meant to pull on that shirt. They didn’t have to work and wait for it. These players – these men – have. And they won’t let it go without a fight.
Little by little, positive momentum is accumulating. Next up, Blackburn. How I’d love for Arsenal to be a significant nail in the coffin of Steve Kean’s reign.
