October 22nd, 2011
There’s only one place to start today, and that’s with wishing a very happy birthday to Arsene Wenger. Our manager is now 62 years old, and has dedicated almost a quarter of his life to serving Arsenal Football Club. Â It’s a debt of service and a body of work that leaves me in awe. Â Here’s to you, Professor.
I was struck by a quip from Arsene to French TV last week. Â He said:
“When I arrive at the gates of Heaven the Good Lord will ask ‘what did you do in your life?’
I will respond ‘I tried to win football matches.’ He will say: ‘Are you sure that’s all?’ But, well, that’s the story of my life.”
At a time when opinion over the manager is more divergent than ever, you cannot question his dedication to the Arsenal cause. Â The quote above underlines the paradox of Arsene: he is a fiercely intelligent man, who has spent his life pursuing something as absurd as football. Â At times he has transcended that, turning sport in to art. Â At the moment, he goes game to game, trying to claw three points from each fixture.
That process continues tomorrow against Stoke. Â The team news sees Carl Jenkinson added to our injury list. Â Arsene says that one of Johan Djourou or Laurent Koscielny will fill in at right-back. Â I’d be inclined to choose Djourou, simply because I’d be cautious to split up the increasingly effective partnership between Koscielny and Per Mertesacker. Â Arsene has been speaking about the teutonic titan:
“I brought him here for more than this type of game [Stoke] because I feel he is a good player. He is a good organiser, he understands the game, he is an intelligent player and physically he is getting sharper and sharper in every game.
He had no real preparation for the season and now you can see that we look less nervous at the back and he contributes to that.”
Arsene also says he’d like to see the German get more goals from set-pieces, but for that to happen the delivery from the likes of Mikel Arteta and Robin van Persie needs to improve dramatically.
Stoke will be a significant test, and hopefully I’ll be able to furnish you with a full preview tomorrow. Â I unexpectedly have to dash, but why not spend the afternoon raising a glass to our manager, and enjoying some of his finest turns of phrase here.
September 30th, 2011
Until now, the most we’ve heard from Stan Kroenke was a fictitious rap rant at Arsene Wenger. Â Finally, he has broken his silence to give an exclusive interview to The Telegraph. Â It is a fascinating and essential read. Â What’s immediately clear is that Stan comes across as undeserving of his “silent” epithet – he seems warm, conversational and good-humoured. Â I think his silence until now has been down to two things: a desire not to disrupt those who run the club day-to-day, and a geographical distance.
The headlines have been made by his declared support for Arsene Wenger. Â Kroenke says:
“You know something: Arsène is one of my favourite people I have met in the last 20 years. He is a great person and I love the way he handles himself. I love his focus. He is a very intelligent guy. You can talk to him about anything and, when he starts talking to people, I really love to listen to him. He should hold seminars he is so good at it.
I have tremendous confidence in him. He is one of the great managers in the world.”
That vote of confidence, very much along the lines of Ivan Gazidis’ words to the press last week, won’t surprise anyone.  And as a businessman, his admiration for Arsene’s ability to “spend money and extract value” is clear.
Whilst he would clearly prefer to marry economic stability with success on the pitch (“It’s much more fun when you win”), after the sales of Cesc and Nasri – both deals, apparently, were Arsene’s decision – the new owner seems to be admitting that we may be in a period of transition.
“Maybe it is one of those times when we have to work our way through, maybe with some young players. Arsène has been really good at developing these guys, people like Alex Chamberlain and Jack Wilshere.There are some really good players that Arsène thinks can be special.
Sometimes you go through periods like that. Arsène’s our man. As an owner, that’s who we put our confidence in.”
Anyone hoping for a quick-fix injection of cash is going to be disappointed. Â Kroenke is not about to play the generous benefactor, and hopes to continue with the club’s current model of self-sufficiency:
“Some people want their private benefactor. I don’t think it is sustainable. Maybe it is, maybe it [football] will always be the one place where there will be guys coming who are willing to pour money in. I don’t know. We have a self-sustaining model. We are committed to that model.”
In the meantime, he’ll be working alongside Gazidis to try and increase commercial revenue and increase our spending power in line with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Regulations.
All in all, I think Kroenke comes across well. Â He’s got a huge track record in sport, which is more than can be said for the majority of foreign owners, and is clearly passionate about the club and its values. Â I look forward to his presence at Arsenal’s forthcoming AGM.
The quotes emerge on a significant anniversary for Arsenal Football Club. Â It is 15 years to the day since Arsene Wenger officially took the reins as Arsenal manager. Â It’s an extraordinary legacy, comprising an enormous contribution to English football in terms of both entertainment and education. Â At this auspicious date falls, Arsene finds himself under great scrutiny than ever. Â As Kroenke puts it:
“There are always going to be people with a point of view, particularly in this internet-laden 24-hour news cycle with the ability for anyone to say anything. That’s just part of the game. Sure it is a challenging start to the season. I know everyone thinks it is always going to be like that [pointing upwards], but it’s not. We would all love it if it did.
If you look at the Arsenal’s history, it has not always been that way. To finish in the top four 14 times in a row is just unbelievable.”
Unbelievable indeed. Â We will look back on Arsene’s reign in awe. Â Win on Sunday, and we might even start enjoying it in the present again.
September 19th, 2011
Sky Sports’ Sunday Supplement has long been a home for fatuous and frivolous opinions. A carousel cast of journalists arrive to slate the players they’ve hyped the previous month, and call for the sacking or promotion of coaches based on a handful of results. At the centre of this ring sits the trollish Brian Woolnough, with views as stale and poisonous and the aging croissants decorating his set. All that said, it’s often quite good fun.
After listening to the podcast version of this weekend’s show, however, I felt moved to respond. All four hacks at Woolnough’s round table declared, with utmost certainty, that Arsenal had “no chance†of qualifying for the Champions League next season. It was at this same table, last week, that the seemingly sane Martin Samuel heralded Stoke as serious contenders for fourth spot.
This is bad enough, but only to be expected from the sensationalist press. My despair is compounded, however, by the fact that I’m hearing the same views replicated among Arsenal fans. The sense of despondency and talk of crisis is contagious, and threatens to destroy our season before it has truly begun.
And so: I believe Arsenal can finish fourth. In fact, I think they will.
That statement will doubtless cause some to stop reading, deriding me as a deluded optimist. I understand their fears: my gut feeling is no guarantee. I’m a hugely positive person, determined to see the best possible outcome in every situation. My glass is perennially half-full, and continually replenished.
However, I think there is real evidence for my assertion. The team favoured for fourth by most is Liverpool, who beat one of the weakest Arsenal teams in history largely due to an unfortunate own goal. Yesterday they shipped four goals at Spurs. They’ve now lost consecutive league games. Despite about £100m investment, they hardly look world-beaters, and are just three points ahead of an ‘in crisis’ Arsenal.
If not Liverpool, then Spurs, you cry. But Tottenham remain, well, Tottenham. They have not finished above Arsenal in the course of Arsene’s reign, and consistency remains a problem for them. When it comes to the crunch, wobbly nerves or dicky tummies tend to see Arsenal emerge on top.
Oh, and Mr. Samuel, for the record: Stoke were beaten by four yesterday too. At Sunderland. Watch out Barcelona.
It is, in reality, a three-horse race for fourth place. Looking at the squads on paper, there isn’t much to choose between Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool. But the fact that we’ve done it before will surely count in our favour. Every season for the past five years I’ve seen pundits write off our chances of a top four finish, only to be proven wrong. This year, after the difficult start we’ve had, would be sweeter than ever.
I’m not saying I’m happy that fourth spot is the height of our ambitions. Last year we were title challengers, whereas this year I admit we stand no chance of keeping pace with Chelsea, United and City. But we can yet be the best of the rest. For those of you pointing to the league table: do you really believe that Newcastle’s current fourth spot is indicative of their ability? Or that Bolton will be relegated? We may only have four points on the table, but there are still another 99 up for grabs. And with new signings still bedding in, this Arsenal team will surely get better.
The second part of this argument, I suppose, is that they can get better with Arsene at the helm. To be clear: this is not a long-term endorsement. I don’t necessarily believe that he’ll be the man to clear the dust from our trophy cabinet, nor even that he’ll be here beyond May. Nor, however, do I see the logic in changing the manager now.
In a season where the apogee of our aims is Champions League qualification, why ditch the manager who has consistently shown that this, in spite of everything else, is what he can deliver? A change is not always as good as a rest.
There are things that irritate me about Arsene, chiefly his stubbornness and steadfast refusal to put pragmatism before principles. I believe this is in part because he has been mismanaged. A football manager ought not to be an autonomist – everyone should have to answer for their actions. I’m not part of the “bring back David Dein†brigade, but it’s clear the current board have not provided Arsene with as much direction as you would hope for.
At the end of the season, both Arsene and the board will have to have a long hard think about the long-term viability of his reign. Until then, he won’t be going. He won’t resign halfway through a season, and nor do the current board have the strength of will to sack him.
Nor should they, yet. I remain confident that Arsene is perfectly capable of turning around our fortunes, and achieving fourth. No more, but fourth. And right now that is all we need and all I want.
It’s a little optimistic, but it’s based on objective truths. In a league where three teams dominate, everyone else is inevitably left to scrap it out. It’s a scrap that I believe we can win. If are witnessing the final days of Arsene’s reign, and I don’t deny that we might be, then I’m sure both he and the Arsenal fans would love to see him sign off by proving his critics wrong once again.
Come on Arsenal. Go Fourth, and Prosper.
September 9th, 2011
After more than a week of stony silence, Arsene Wenger has finally emerged from the shadows of our last match to bring us some team news for tomorrow’s clash with Swansea. Â Unsurprisingly Diaby, Wilshere, Vermaelen and Squillaci are all out with injury. Â Gervinho and Song serve the final game of their suspensions, and are joined in the figurative sin bin by the unfortunate Carl Jenkinson. Â Andre Santos is “a bit short” having not played a competitive game since the Copa America, and Tomas Rosicky is a doubt having picked up a knock on international duty. Â The positive news is that Kieran Gibbs, Theo Walcott and Emmanuel Frimpong are all available for selection.
Arseblog News has the full transcript of Arsene’s chat with Arsenal Player, and it’s worth a read. Â He gives a bit of insight as to the thinking behind our late flurry of transfer activity. Â As we suspected, it was influenced as much by fitness concerns as the hammering at Old Trafford.
“What really incited me [to buy] was knowing that Wilshere will be out for longer than expected, that Vermaelen needed surgery, that Gibbs to have the whole season on his shoulders at left-back with Traore leaving would be very difficult. With Bendtner going out the possibility to buy another striker [was also there]. I wanted as well some more experience in the squad because on the bench at Manchester United we were very, very young.”
Of the new boys I’d imagine only Mertesacker and Arteta will start, but Benayoun, Santos and Park could all well be on the bench.
Mertesacker will play alongside Laurent Koscielny, and he’s been speaking to the club about his transfer:
“It’s exciting to be here but I have a lot of experience in football so that is OK for me. I am very happy and I am very glad to be here.
 Arsenal is one of the top teams in Europe and I have been looking out for Arsenal since I got my first jersey when I was ten or 12. Arsenal has always been special for me.”
Starting a game with only a few days training behind him will mean having to call on all that “experience”. Â I don’t think he’ll mind that – joining Arsenal was something he had pushed for his whole career, even turning down lucrative interest from Serie A earlier this summer in the hope that a move to England would materialise. Â Now he’s here, and in his own gentle yet giant way, will want to make an impact. Â The full interview with Per can be seen here.
Arsene will be on duty again this afternoon when he speaks to the assembled press at the training ground. Â More on that and the Swansea game tomorrow. Â It’s the first home three o’clock kick-off of the season. Â It’s how football ought to be. Â I’m chomping at my proverbial bit.
August 29th, 2011
MANCHESTER UNITED 8Â – 2 ARSENAL
Arsene's lowest ebb?
Match Report | Highlights Video | Arsene’s reaction
A couple of weeks ago, when Cesc Fabregas left for Barcelona and Samir Nasri seemed determined to follow him through the door, I told you that “the night is darkest just before the dawnâ€. It’s a turn of phrase I had heard the character of Harvey Dent use in Christopher Nolan’s Batman film, ‘The Dark Knight’. It’s supposed to engender comfort among troubled souls; to tell them that although things seem bad, they are almost certainly about to get better.
I conveniently forgot to mention that shortly afterwards Dent loses half his face in a fire and becomes a psychopathic killer. The night, for Gotham, just gets darker. And so it has proved for Arsenal’s start to the season, as yesterday we reached what we can only hope is our nadir, losing 8-2 to our supposed rivals Manchester United.
8-2. 8-2. It doesn’t look like a real result. I believe in the old days of teletext, eight is the point at which they’d spell out the number in letters (eg. Manchester United 8 (E I G H T)) to assure you it wasn’t a typo. It’s a shocking scoreline, in every sense.
The writing was on the wall as soon as the line-up was announced. Robbed of Vermaelen and Sagna to injury and illness respectively, the XI took on the look of a Carling Cup team, with Jenkinson, Traore, and Coquelin all involved from the start. The bench was even more distressing, with names like Chamberlain, Ozyakup, and Sunu all awaiting league debuts.
With such a weak line-up, the relatively experienced heads of Djourou, Koscielny, Rosicky and Arshavin had a duty and responsibility to hold things together and make sure the defence was not exposed.
That, as we all know, is not how it turned out. The defending was apocalyptically, comically bad. By the time goals five, six, seven and eight hit the net, I was laughing through the anguish. Here are our errors, catalogued:
Goal 1: The cracks began to show when Carl Jenkinson was caught way out of position, allowing Patrice Evra to charge in behind. Theo Walcott did brilliantly to get back and recover the situation, but was even quicker to let Jenkinson know what he thought of his defending, leading to a slanging match between the pair that carried on as we defended the resulting corner.
When the ball was cleared as far as Anderson, more horrors followed. His wedged pass over the defence should have been cleared, but for a combination of indecision and cowardice that allowed Danny Welbeck to steal in and score. First Johan Djourou inexplicably allowed the ball to bounce inside his own area, and then Koscielny ducked out of a challenge with the English forward. A Martin Keown or Sol Campbell would have put his body on the line to prevent a goal. Koscielny is not that man.
Goal 2: Again came from Wayne Rooney running in behind Jenkinson. Coquelin could’ve been quicker to close Ashley Young down too, but what a strike nonetheless.
Goal 3: Sorry Carl, but there was another basic positional error from the teenager here. Young was goal-side and Jenkinson had no choice but to bring him to ground, leading to a sensational free-kick from Wayne Rooney.
Goal 4: Wojciech Szczesny, who made several good saves on the day, made the classic mistake of edging across goal behind his wall and allowing Rooney the space to curl a terrific dead ball in to the far corner.
Goal 5: Goal five exhibited our most spectacularly bad defending. Andrey Arshavin, who found himself in the left-back position, stepped up alongside Johan Djourou, whilst Traore and Jenkinson were left behind. This left Nani onside and unmarked to score.
Goal 6: A couple of errors from Johan Djourou here, who dived in on Park, missed his tackle, and then failed to track the Korean when he broke free.
Goal 7: A penalty conceded by Theo Walcott. No complaints at all from the winger about the award – his trip on Evra seemed to be born as much out of frustration as any realistic attempt to defend.
Goal 8: Another sumptuous finish by young, but again Djourou found himself standing too far off in no-man’s land.
Amidst all the awfulness, there were a couple of goals for Van Persie and Walcott, a missed penalty by the Dutchman, a red card for Jenkinson after another positional error, and several instances in which Andrey Arshavin was lucky not to join him in receiving his marching orders. If you have lots of time and a similar amount of self-loathing then I suggest you read the match report linked at the top of the page.
I’ve touched on our weakened team. It’s no excuse. We had injuries?  So did they.  United were without their first-choice central defensive pairing of Ferdinand and Vidic, as well as key midfielders like Michael Carrick and Antonio Valencia.  Our team was young? Well, on average, United’s was younger.  What we witnessed yesterday was, plainly, inexcusable.
Some of the performances were dire.  You’ll have noticed that Jenkinson’s name crops up repeatedly in the listed litany of mistakes. He looked very much like a player who has played a handful of games in the Conference and League One – unsurprising, because that’s exactly what he is.  He managed to get through the game against Udinese on Wednesday, but here he was out of his depth, and drowning.  The same could be said for Armand Traore who, with Premier League and Serie A experience on his CV, has less excuses than Jenkinson. Johan Djourou is going backwards faster than the DeLorean time machine, and on a couple of occasions Laurent Koscielny showed that whilst he is an able defender, he is not willing to get hurt for the sake of stopping a goal.
And yet, for the most part, I don’t really blame the players – especially not kids like Jenkinson.  As I’ve said before: it’s not their fault they’re out there.  It’s the fault of the manager (and quite possibly the board) for failing to strengthen a squad that has simultaneously been stripped of some of its most prized assets.
Bank balance aside, the numbers don’t look good for the manager – and I don’t just mean the glaring ‘8’ on the scoreboard; the first time we’ve conceded that many goals in a game since 1896.
It’s Arsene’s worst ever start to a Premier League season.  Taking in to account our form at the back end of last season, it’s also our worst ever run under him.  Since losing the Carling Cup Final to Birmingham, we’ve won just three league games.  One was against Blackpool. And, to help matters, we’ve now had a player sent off in each of our three domestic matches this season. We have more red cards than points.
Yesterday it was made painfully clear how far away our squad is from being able to compete with United. With no Ferdinand or Vidic, they were still able to call on two centre-backs who both looked more capable than our own.  How it will have stung Arsene to know that Phil Jones rejected his overtures to sign with the Red Devils this summer. To outsiders, Jones’ choice is easy enough to understand: wouldn’t you rather sign for the club where you can learn from good, experienced defenders, and play for a manager who actually seems to care about the art of keeping clean sheets?
As poor as our defending was, United showcased a real ruthless quality in front of goal. Much of our attacking talent remained available, but do we have players with the ability (or perhaps more importantly, the confidence) to score the kind of goal that Ashley Young and Wayne Rooney did yesterday?  Just so we’re all clear, Young cost United £16m – £1m more than we’ll end up paying for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who made an unmemorable debut as a substitute.
What sickened me more than anything was to watch this team perform without pride, and without belief. The players know the squad isn’t good enough to compete.  It was written all over their performances – and some of them have even said as much. They were caught in a losing battle.  When Van Persie and Walcott were withdrawn to fight another day, they sat down on the bench without so much as a glance at Wenger.  Inside, they will have been fuming. You can bet that neither are in any mood to open contract negotiations anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the manager sat in the dugout, motionless.  He didn’t even walk to the touchline to cajole his troops. He just sat there and watched his lambs slaughtered. You know Arsene is in trouble when he’s receiving pity from his supposed adversary. After the game, Alex Ferguson said, “we could’ve scored more, but you don’t want to score more against a weakened team like thatâ€.  It’s a comment almost as withering and humiliating as the scoreline.
As I watched at home, I briefly (and, I now realise, irrationally) wondered if Wenger might resign in the aftermath of the game. What changed my mind was our extraordinary fans, who for much of the second half drowned out the United supporters with a chorus of “We love you Arsenalâ€. They will have reminded Arsene of his commitment to this club. He won’t walk away now.
Nor should he. This is his mess, and he needs to fix it – a change of manager at this stage would benefit no-one. The obvious place to start is in the transfer market.  A centre-half and a central midfielder are absolutely vital.  We’d all like business to have been done earlier, but there’s no point moaning about that now: we’ve got three days to do the required repair work on this squad.  Transfers can be done very quickly. Take the case of Park Chu-Young: Arsenal received news that Joel Campbell’s work permit appeal had been declined on Friday afternoon – by Saturday morning the Korean striker was on his way to London. That deal should have been completed last night, and will most likely be announced today, leaving Arsene and the board to concentrate on the other reinforcements we urgently require.
A particularly optimistic fan tweeted me last night to say that Feyenoord were once beaten 8-2 by Ajax but went on to lift the title in the same season.  The performances of the two Manchester clubs yesterday, and by contrast our own, shambolic display, have shown us that winning the league is almost certainly impossible.  However, we are perfectly capable of recovering from this to retain our Champions League spot, which has to be the realistic target for this campaign. Get the transfer business right, and our season could start against Swansea on September 10th.
Either that, or Arsene will lose half his face in a fire and become a psychopathic killer.
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