October 21st, 2013
It began so simply.
When Jonny Howson swung in a ball from the right, Mathieu Flamini did what he has done so effectively ever since returning to the Arsenal team. With a minimum of fuss, he intercepted the ball and passed it to one of his many more gifted team-mates.
That man, as we all now know, was Jack Wilshere.
Arsene Wenger recently said he views Wilshere’s best position as a deep-lying midfielder rather than a number 10. In this glorious move, we saw why. Although ostensibly playing as a right-winger, Wilshere collected the ball in a central position just yards outside his own penalty area.
Almost instantly, Wilshere was confronted by the bruising figure of Leroy Fer. Wilshere drops a shoulder, hurdles over Fer’s arboresque right leg, and sprints  in to space.
Suddenly, Norwich have three players caught upfield, and Arsenal are on the break.
Wilshere raises his head, his periscopic vision scanning first right then left. Mesut Ozil is free just a few yards away, but Wilshere instead opts to lay the ball in to the path of the overlapping Kieran Gibbs. And then keep going.
As Gibbs crosses the halfway line, Wilshere continued to race upfield, leaving Howson in his wake. Seeking to continue the moves rapid vertical velocity, Gibbs plays the ball down the line in to the path of Santi Cazorla.
It’s at that point that the move dramatically shifts gear. A promising counter-attack transitions to a penetrative assault, as Cazorla puts his head down and drives infield. Outside him, Gibbs continues his dash towards the byline, simultaneously opening up space in the centre.
Cazorla glances to his right, and lays the ball, left-footed, in to the feet of Jack Wilshere, now some thirty yards from goal.
Faced by the imposing frame of Alex Tettey, Wilshere instantly controls the ball with the outside of his left boot before nudging it back to the Spaniard. And he keeps going.
Cazorla already knows what he will do with the ball when it returns. The moment he gave it to Wilshere, he looked up to identify the position of Olivier Giroud. As the ball comes back to him, he instantly turns it on to the French forward, positioned with his back to goal on the edge of the Norwich area.
On the half-turn, Giroud can see Wilshere out of the corner of his eye, darting towards goal. Rather than slow the move by bringing the ball in to his body, he flicks it with his outstep towards Wilshere.
It’s arguably the only slight inaccuracy in this almost-perfect move. Giroud slightly misjudged Wilshere’s trajectory, and the ball floats behind the Englishman. However, Wilshere is able to recover with a stunning piece of improvisation, using his heel to retrieve the ball from behind him and knock it back to Giroud. What Wilshere does is not just good football – it’s a circus trick. And he keeps going.
Giroud does not need to look to know where Wilshere will be. There is no imperfection in his next pass. Stabbing his left foot towards the ground, he allows the ball to roll up off his boot and float impishly to his team-mate’s path. It’s audacious and beautiful, bisecting four Norwich defenders perfectly. Tettey, who has dutifully tracked Wilshere’s pitch-length run, is disorientated and drained. Red-and-white synapses crackle as Arsenal’s pin-ball plays out to perfection. Hours of training ground practice, small-sided games and exacting ball-control drills collide in a moment of sheer magnificence.
The ball arrives on Wilshere’s right foot, and he places a perfect volley in to the far corner. No power is needed. The finish, like the rest of the move, is all guile and grace. When he sees the ball hit the net, he allows himself a roar of exhalation.
He knows it’s special. The Arsenal fans do too, reacting with an upwardly-inflected combination of awe and disbelief. And he keeps going, jogging towards the fans before sliding on his knees in celebration.
Wilshere finally rests. 20.34 seconds, five players, nine passes, and 28 touches have come together to create one masterpiece.
There’s surely no greater tribute to Arsene Wenger’s 17 year reign at Arsenal than this one extraordinary goal.
Further reading:Â Match report | Highlights | “Arsenal’s Magical Midfield Tortures Norwich” – BR Football
April 14th, 2013
Arsenal 3 – 1 Norwich
Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction
Anyone expecting an easy ride had clearly forgotten last year…
When these two sides met at the Emirates in May of 2012, Arsenal’s Champions League destiny had finally fallen in to their own hands – their butter-clad, slippery hands. Arsenal slumped to a 3-3 draw, and only the remarkable incompetence of Tottenham Hotspur allowed us to wrest back control of the race for fourth place.
Yesterday was very nearly the same story. Norwich took the lead through a brilliantly-executed set piece, and Arsenal toiled for much of the game.
However, eventually we managed to drag ourselves back in to the lead – and unlike last year, we held on to it too.
Arsene Wenger deserves credit…
For long periods of the game I found myself wondering how Chris Hughton had managed to draw such impressive performances from a decidedly average XI. By contrast, Arsene’s Arsenal were performing well below the expected standard of a fleet of internationals. In terms of motivation and organisation, Hughton appeared the clear winner.
However, Arsene has enough experience to know when it’s not working. He is occasionally criticised for being too inflexible with his substitutions, but on this occasion he called for Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski as soon as Norwich took the lead. He was brave enough to withdraw the out-of-sorts Jack Wilshere, and later gambled by switching Aaron Ramsey to right-back and deploying Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the centre.
The conviction Arsene showed to make those changes ultimately won us the game.
Lukas Podolski is among the very best players in this Arsenal squad…
Each of the subs made a crucial impact. Walcott grabbed an assist and should have been awarded a penalty and The Ox’s direct running created the crucial second goal. The real game-changer, however, was Lukas Podolski.
No player in the Arsenal squad represents such a consistent menace to the opposition goal. On the ball, Podolski is our best finisher and ruthlessly efficient in the penalty area. Off the ball, his movement is intelligent and he shows a real willingness to play off Olivier Giroud.
Although Podolski is comfortably one of Arsenal’s best eleven players, he has not always been in Arsene Wenger’s best XI. Some whispers suggest his spell on the sidelines is explained by an ankle problem that requires surgery.
If that is truly the case, cameos like this explain why the club have decided to wait until the summer before proceeding with an operation. Podolski can make a vital contribution between now and the end of May.
Let’s credit the officials who get it right…
The penalty given to Arsenal has been described by the Norwich management and a host of pundits as “controversialâ€. Not because it wasn’t a foul: no-one can deny that Olivier Giroud was wrestled to the ground as he went for the ball.
Instead, the supposed controversy stems from the fact it was the linesman, rather than the referee, who awarded the spot-kick.
This shouldn’t matter a jot. The referee had a stinker of a game, and the linesman should be commended for making an immaculate call from such a distance. It’s absurd that the question of whether or not a linesman should be allowed to make such a call has become secondary to the more important question of whether or not he got it right.
He did, so hats off to him. They’re called assistant referees for a reason.
Time for a sprint finish…
If Arsenal beat Everton and Fulham this week, we could be seven points clear of Spurs before they play their next game. They’ll have games in hand, of course, but it’s always better to have the points on the board rather in deal in hypotheticals.
The match against the Toffees will be a difficult one, but Arsenal have some serious momentum now.
The cannon is rolling in to position. Time to blow away the opposition.
October 21st, 2012
Norwich 1 – 0 Arsenal (Holt 19)
Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reactionÂ
Arsenal were inexcusably poor.
People will talk about the significance of the international break, but it didn’t seem to trouble Chelsea, United or City. Â This was comfortably our worst performance of the season. Â Vito Mannone’s poor parry and Andre Santos’ bizarre positioning (single-handedly playing Holt onside) put us behind in the game, but at that stage there was still plenty of time to play ourselves back in to contention. Â Sadly, we completely failed to do that.
It’s rare that you watch an Arsenal side and can say that they failed to create a single clear-cut chance.  Yesterday, however, our attacking play was as bad as I can remember.  We looked entirely devoid of ideas, and Norwich won’t have been able to believe their luck.  Around the 84th minute we finally managed to build some semblance of pressure, though an equaliser would have been far more than we deserved.
There’s a temptation to write this off as a ‘one-off’.
The performance was anomalous in its awfulness. Â Even in the dreary 0-0 with Sunderland, we created a couple of chances that one could describe as decent. Â Arsene’s relatively relaxed demeanour throughout suggested a man who had decided relatively early on that this was just ‘one of those days’. Â I hope, for all our sakes, that he’s right.
Yesterday’s shambles was made even more painful by events at White Hart Lane.
Earlier in the afternoon I watched a Chelsea side play with all the flair and fluency that Arsene aspires to. Â Their attacking play was superb: mobile, intelligent, and truly collective. Â At the present time, the two sides are miles apart.
The weekend could have been a lot worse.
Yes: City, United and Chelsea all won. Â That will happen a lot this season. Â It doesn’t surprise me, and nor am I sure it’ll be particularly relevant to us for much longer. Â We’re already ten points behind the leaders, and I find it hard to envisage this squad sustaining a title challenge. Â The good news for Arsenal is that Spurs and Newcastle both failed to win. Â At the present time, Everton are down to ten men and drawing with QPR. Â I’d suggest that as the season wears on it will become clear that these are the teams we’re competing with, and the top three may pull away leaving us to fight it out to be ‘best of the rest’ and secure the final Champions League spot.
Spare a thought for young Serge Gnabry.
It wasn’t an ideal situation in which to make your debut, but desperation can occasionally be the father of opportunity. Â With Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain joining Theo Walcott on the sidelines, Gnabry is likely to be involved with the first-team again next week. Â He didn’t get much of a chance to show it yesterday, but he’s an enormous talent, and one we’ll see more of as the campaign goes on.
Arsenal face a real challenge to get things back on track in midweek.
Their opponents, Schalke, come in to the tie off the back of a 2-1 win away to Dortmund. Â The Dutch pair of Affelay and Huntelaar are a real threat, and this promises to be far trickier than our usual group stage stroll.
October 20th, 2012
It’s unusual that the most significant piece of team news concerns a player who may not even step foot on the field. Â Nevertheless, the headlines and the terraces are united in their harmonious uttering of two glorious words: Jack’s back.
Jack Wilshere’s agent announced on twitter that after an absence of some 14 months, the midfielder has been included in the matchday squad for this evening’s trip to Norwich. Â It’s unthinkable that he’ll start, and arguably unlikely he’ll even get off the bench for more than a cameo, but it’s a massive step. Â After so long away from the matchday routine, just being involved will provide Jack with a huge boost.
I expect the team to line up as depicted on the right. Â It’s possible that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain could be included ahead of either Ramsey or Gervinho, but I suspect his late return from international duty with England will count against him.
As the headline suggests, this should be an entirely winnable game. Â Norwich have struggled to cope with mobile attacking forces like Chelsea & Liverpool, and sit towards the bottom of a slowly solidifying Premier League table.
However, Arsenal’s much-heralded defensive solidity seems to have evaporated a little in recent weeks. Â We haven’t kept a clean sheet since the win at Anfield, and I can’t help but feel that the likes of Grant Holt could give us trouble is Norwich are prepared to play in a direct style.
As I write this, Spurs and Chelsea are drawing 1-1 at White Hart Lane. Â Man City too face a tricky-looking game at West Brom. Â Get it right, and this weekend could be a time to gain ground on our rivals.
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If you fancy a flutter on today’s game, you can check out my betting tips on the unibet website.
May 6th, 2012
Arsenal 3 -3 Norwich
Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction
This game was a rather neat microcosm of our entire season. A fairly abject first half, a spirited improvement in the second, due largely to the unquestionable brilliance of Robin van Persie; and a heart-wrenching collapse at the finale. Having dragged us ourselves back from the brink to lead 3-2, we handed Norwich an equaliser, and in doing so may have handed third place to either Spurs or Newcastle.
That guaranteed Champions League spot seems to have been in our hands for a little while now. We’ve treated it like a hot potato, fumbling and flustering, and have now well and truly dropped it. Both chasing sides know now that if they win their remaining two games, they will finish above us – even if we beat West Brom on the final day.
If we play like we did yesterday, there’s little chance of us doing that. The first half was every bit as poor a performance as the one we put in against Wigan – worse, really, because it showed we’d learnt no lessons from that game.
The key area of the pitch was central midfield, where we had no shape or discipline. Alex Song and Aaron Ramsey were ostensibly the holding pair, but there was almost no protection provided for the back four. Norwich were canny and left three attackers up the pitch at all times. As Song and Ramsey bombed on, we were left vulnerable to counter-attack after counter-attack. Similarly, when the likes of Vermaelen pushed forward, neither Song nor Ramsey showed the initiative to fill in. Ultimately, would prove costly.
It all started so well when Yossi Benayoun, celebrating his 32nd birthday, curled home a peach of an effort with barely a minute on the clock. Unfortunately the rest of the team took it as a cue to sit back on their imagined laurels. Norwich were all over us in the first half, and their two goals were undoubtedly deserved. The first came after a simple move down the right-flank, although Wojciech Szczesny will be disappointed to be beaten so easily at the near post. He could do little about the second, which cannoned off Kieran Gibbs and looped over his head and in to the net. It reminded of the goal Louis Saha scored for Spurs when they led at half-time. Arsenal would need a similarly remarkable comeback in the second half to salvage anything from this game.
To give credit to the players, we showed a lot of spirit. The likes of Gervinho, abject in the first 45, suddenly sprung in to life. Of course it was Robin van Persie who scored the two goals to restore our lead – his 29th and 30th league goals of the season. The first saw him collect yet another of those clipped Alex Song passes to volley home; the second spin and fire in after a lucky deflection inside the penalty box.
At that point, there were 80 minutes on the clock. It tells you something about how dangerous Norwich looked, and how poorly we had defended, that I had absolutely no faith we would see through the game at 3-2. And so it proved: Alex Song gave the ball away, Kieran Gibbs inexplicably allowed Steve Morison to run beyond him, and the lifelong Spurs fan fired expertly past Szczesny, rooted to his line.
There was still time for Arsenal to spurn a couple of chances to win it, but in truth Norwich deserved at least a point. On the touchline, Arsene Wenger was as frustrated as he’s been all season, and that’s saying something. His irritation was with his own team. Yes, we should have a penalty, but so should Norwich. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.
There were mistakes and poor performances all over the pitch, but what stood out for me was how badly we missed Mikel Arteta. It remains the case that we have not won a Premier League game in his absence. Without him, I’m not sure Alex Song has the will or the nous to play as a true holding midfielder. Perhaps that’s something we need to address in the summer.
It was a particularly bad day for great Arsenal right-backs. This was almost certainly Pat Rice’s last home game before retirement, and he deserved a better send-off. Also, in a sad footnote to the game, Bacary Sagna broke the same fibula bone as earlier in the season, and will now miss the Euros and quite possibly the start of next season.
Before that there’s plenty to be decided. We’re now in a position whereby we need favours from other clubs: namely Man City, Aston Villa, Fulham, Everton and possibly Bayern Munich. Both Spurs and Newcastle face their hardest games today. If we’re to get a reprieve, it will surely come at Villa Park. It’s unlikely, but you never know.
As many said in the build-up to yesterday’s game: if we can’t beat Norwich, we don’t deserve Champions League football. Perhaps they were right.
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