It is, as arseblogger pointed out this morning, a quiet Monday for all the right reasons. So much so in fact that it’d be easy not to realise that we have an absolutely massive game against Celtic tomorrow.
If we come through the Champions League qualifier, I think Arsene will make a purchase or two, and Marouane Chamakh is certainly one of those under consideration. Off the pitch, he’s doing all the ‘right’ things to engineer a move, threatening Bordeaux with a Bosman come the end of the season.
On it, meanwhile, he’s scoring the goals that roused Arsene’s interest in the first place. Two headers against Sochaux demonstrate the players aerial ability, as well as his professionalism: think of his performance as compared to wantaway Joleon Lescott on Saturday.
Perhaps Chamakh’s performance with convince Laurent Blanc that it’s worth retaining him for this season, even if it means losing him on a free further down the line. We’ll have an answer in the next couple of weeks.
Everton 1 – 6 Arsenal (Denilson 26, Vermaelen 37, Gallas 41, Fabregas 48, 70, Eduardo 89, Saha 90) Highlights here; Arsene’s reaction here
Well, what an extraordinary result to kick off the season. I don’t think even the most optimistic of Arsenal fans could have anticipated such a resounding message to ring around the emptying Goodison Park: based on this start, the squad share Arsene’s determination not to be also-rans this season.
Yes, it’s just one game, but it is hilarious to watch the press u-turning on their proclamations that Arsenal had nothing to offer this season. With Man City winning earlier in the day, anything less than three points would have provoked a string of “Advantage City” stories. As it was, we swatted away the team who finished closest to us last season with such a superior swagger that our title odds have suddenly shortened. Without wanting to get carried away, as Arsene said last night:
“If you don’t smile with that emphatic win, then you will never smile in our game.”
We started solidly, with our 4-3-3 system functioning extremely well. Chelsea’s performance yesterday was a good example of a side struggling to get to grips with a new system, whereas ours seemed to click almost immediately. The manager old ArsenalTVOnline afterwards:
“We want to play with three strikers when possible, to go forward and play high up. I’ve been encouraged by some pre-season performances and that’s why I want to continue to try to do that at the moment.”
I’m similarly encouraged, and think that the pressure we’re able to put on teams high up the pitch (a la Barcelona) could be crucial to our chances of success this season.
The formation was crucial to our opening goal – Nicklas Bendtner received the ball in his position on the right wing, beat two men and played it inside to Cesc Fabregas. The skipper showed complete awareness to knock it inside to Denilson, whose first-time effort found the corner from twenty-five yards. A cracking goal and a great way for the Brazilian to start the season.
Everton almost equalised when Marouane Fellaini’s header was cleared off the line by Denilson, but soon we had a headed goal from our own Belgian: debutant Thomas Vermaelen. A Robin van Persie free-kick was lofted right to the far post where Vermaelen rose highest to head home.
If Everton’s defending was slack on that goal, it was non-existent on our third. This time it was a Fabregas free-kick from the right that was flicked home by centre-back-cum-goal-poacher William Gallas. 3-0 at half-time, and we were coasting.
It would have been easy to take our foot off the gas in the second half, but we had no such intentions, with Fabregas asserting his dominance with two lovely goals. The first was a left-footed finish after a flowing counter-attack which started with an Andrey Arshavin nutmeg deep in our own half and ended with Van Persie squaring for the captain to score. The second was similar in terms of distance travelled, but Cesc did it all alone, strolling to the edge of the Everton box before firing low into the corner.
Eduardo came on for his first league appearance since February 2008, and it will have been no surprise to anyone to see him net our sixth. Andrey Arshavin collected the Crozilian’s pass and shimmied into enough space to poke an effort against the post. Who had continued his run into the box but Eduardo, finding himself in the requisite position to poke the ball into the net.
Everton grabbed a late late consolation through Louis Saha, by which point our statement had already reached ears at Stamford Bridge, Anfield, Old Trafford, and even the City of Manchester Stadium.
Whilst there were no weak performances, I was particularly pleased with new boy Vermaelen and Alex Song. Goal aside, Vermaelen showed a willingness to attack the ball early that our defenders have lacked in recent seasons. He looked like a good complement to William Gallas, and I particularly enjoyed the moment 35 seconds into this video – organising the back four and pushing them up the field whilst we’re 4-0 up and on the attack.
Song, meanwhile, patrolled the defensive midfield area extremely well. His touch and passing seem to have come on leaps and bounds, and that’s down purely to confidence. I’m prepared to say that I think he’s good enough to keep starting in that role, but what if he gets injured? What about when he departs for the African Cup of Nations in January?
The performances of Song and Vermaelen were excellent, but only served to underline the need for cover for the pair.
That said, that’s a job for another day. We now have Celtic on Tuesday, and our confidence ought to be Sky-high going into that game.
If it’s anything like last night, we’ll be all smiles again on Wednesday.
I might as well be an eight-year-old on Christmas morning for all the excitement in my house today.
I’m staying with my brother at the moment, and being the outstanding young man that he is, he went out to the shops early to buy *all* the papers. I’ve watched Soccer AM, Soccer Saturday is about to kick off, and then it’s ESPN for coverage of our opener at Everton. The only thing that could improve today would be a trip to Goodison Park itself.
I think we’ll see the new system today. Almunia will be in goal, with a back back four of Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen and Clichy ahead of him. Song, Denilson, and Cesc will patroll the centre of midfield, with Arshavin and Bendtner wide of Robin van Persie.
It’s a strongish side on paper, especially when you think it doesn’t include the likes of Rosicky, Eduardo, Nasri, Walcott and more.
There was a time when The Independent’s James Lawton was the scourge of Arsenal, criticising our every move. Now his attitude towards the club and particularly Wenger seems to have mellowed to the point whereby he’s positively positive about us. Reading his words this morning, it’s hard not to feel great about Arsene and his project:
“If Wenger is to be mocked then so is everyone who ever makes a stand on what he believes to be right and wrong, and if there were times this week when he spoke to various newspapers, in the cause of the Great Ormond Street charity, with what some might have deemed excessive flights of his fancy, who could begin to suggest that at the heart of his philosophy there wasn’t one huge piece of granite-like integrity?
It lay in his explanation of why he had turned his back on Real Madrid – and his knowledge of their plans for a vast extension of player recruitment. It was because at Arsenal he had a dream to make a team, not buy one, a team he could nourish and make strong at the inevitable broken places and then in the end gather his players together, especially those who had seen the point of the enterprise and stayed on, and say, “Look, this is what we achieved, this is what we made.” A dreamy ambition, one detached from the realities of oligarch power, American corporate borrowing strategy and Middle Eastern windfall, of course, but one which he refused to surrender when Real came with their blandishments and their budget”.
“The team we have now gets there, and by that I mean it wins the championship. At 22 or 23 I think a team is mature enough to deliver and it is a massively important year for our club. I am conscious of that.
I know people have no patience any more but I agreed on a structure at the club that I believed could work, and we are at the period now when we will see whether I was right. To talk of winning the league is an audacious statement but I built this team and I want to deliver.”
The onus is now on the players to show that Arsene’s faith is well-placed.
I can’t wait. Infuriatingly, we have to wait slightly longer than most, with a 5.30pm UK-time kick-off. I’ll be tweeting throughout the day, so pop in and join the chatter.
Cesc wants trophies, Arshavin wants five goals in a game, Eduardo is back.
Well, we’re almost there. The summer has been and gone, and this afternoon we sit on the eve of the football season once more.
I am absurdly excited. I have set aside the entirety of tomorrow to indulge in football-based goodness. It’ll start early with Soccer AM, take in as much live action as possible, and quite probably end in some form of takeaway in front of Match of the Day. It’s going to be perfect.
Will it be a perfect season for Arsenal? Unlikely, I fear. If you listen to today’s arsecast you’ll hear me state that I don’t believe Arsenal are capable of winning the league. That said, I’m more than optimistic about our chances of finishing in the top four, whatever Sky Sports might imply.
So that’s my first prediction, I suppose. Arsenal will finish in the Champions League places, as will United, Chelsea, and Liverpool. City will have their moments, yes; but it’s not yet their time.
Will we compete for trophies? That, I believe, depends on what happens between now and the end of the transfer window. At the moment we just don’t have the squad depth to sustain a challenge. The fact that we’re already just two injuries away from fielding both Mikael Silvestre and Vito Mannone is demonstrative of just how fragile we are in certain areas. Arsene was still being evasive when asked about the possibility of new signings today, and I’m not convinced there’ll be major additions.
That said, Thomas Vermaelen (who is set to make his debut at Goodison Park tomorrow) is a genuine new face in our starting line-up, and will hopefully help to arrest our defensive decline. I think his aggresive style will swiftly make him a fan favourite.
Perhaps the biggest change this season will not be in personnel, but in the system we regularly employ. I’m confident that tomorrow will see the start of us regularly using the new 4-3-3 system, and I’m sure that it’ll prove more succcessful than our recent stabs at 4-4-2 and 4-5-1.
Any success we have this season will be dependent on the form of Cesc Fabregas and Andrey Arshavin. Whilst we have other outstanding players – Robin van Persie springs immediately to mind – it is the diminuitive schemers who will shape our season. If they gel quickly and hit the ground running, we will be hard to stop.
This is turning into a right old ramble, so let’s break it down into some bullety, punchy predictions. I don’t usually do this, but I figure that eventually one has to put one’s head on the block. If a single one of these predictions turn out to be incorrect, I will close down the blog forever and replace it with a picture of myself kissing a horse*.
–
Arsenal Predictions:
Without significant squad additions, we will finish fourth
Robin van Persie will end as our top scorer
RVP, Nicklas Bendtner, Eduardo, Andrey Arshavin, and Cesc Fabregas will all get into double figures for goals
Denilson will play less games but play them significantly better than his jaded performances last season
Vermaelen and Gallas will be an infinitely better partnership than Toure and Gallas
Injuries will decimate our defence
We will reach a semi-final
Nicklas Bendtner will be the most positive surprise of the season
Nothing hugely controversial there, but there you have it. In the wider world of football…
Other predictions:
Chelsea will win the league
Frank Lampard will be the Player of the Year
Wolves, Portsmouth & Burnley will go down
Brazil will, against the odds, win the World Cup
Cool, that’s all for now. I’d be interested to read your predictions in The Guns.
–
*I had my fingers crossed whilst I typed this, which a) was difficult and b) nullifies any promise made.
Technically, I’m on holiday, but I had to drop back in to report on this extraordinary news: Nicklas Bendtner has, without explanation, doubled his squad number from 26 to 52. Nick says:
“The new season’s almost here, and along with the rest of the players I’m really excited and believe it can be a really special one for everyone associated with the Club.” said Bendtner.Â
Â
Before it starts I wanted to change my squad number from 26 which I’ve obviously had for a number of seasons now. I chose to move to 52 because it’s a special number to me personally, and I hope that it brings me good luck for the new season.
Â
I appreciate that a good number of fans have bought their kits for 2009/10 already with names and numbers printed up so I’d like to personally cover the cost of replacing anyone’s shirt that has my previous number. It means a lot to see supporters wearing your name and number, and I want to ensure people aren’t inconvenienced by the change.”
I know a lot of you will be wondering why he made the change. Well, I believe it’s because 52 is an untouchable number, since it is never the sum of proper divisors of any number, and it is a noncototient since it is never the answer to the equation x – φ(x).
