Partizan Preview: Defence, Nasri, Arshavin and more
14 comments December 8th, 2010
Samir Nasri is the talk of the town at the moment. After a few people started saying “he’s probably played as well as Bale but with less recognition”, his reputation has suddenly soared, and I’ve been hearing comparisons with Zinedine Zidane, as well as the confident assertion that Nasri is currently a better player than Cesc Fabregas.
On form, Nasri is probably superior to Cesc, but that’s primarily because the Spaniard’s season so far has been decimated by injury. However, some of the praise has been unduly hyperbolic. I’m not taking anything away from Nasri: I’ve championed him for a long time. But I don’t want to go overboard either. It’s important he keeps his feet on the ground and carries on the good work that’s brought him eleven goals so far this season.
From the sounds of this interview, he’s not about to get carried away:
He seems like a level-headed, modest guy – even having the humility to suggest his goals on Saturday were ‘lucky’ – but it’s clear that his confidence on the pitch is at an all-time high. He has such quick feet, and the ball sticks to him like a salacious rumour or chewing gum in the hair. The one thing he definitively does have over Cesc is pace: sprint times in training would suggest that he’s among the fastest players at the club, which is a little surprising until you recall the ease with which he has ghosted past numerous left-backs this season.
Arsene is keen to to tie Nasri down to a new long-term contract, and you can understand why. Whilst he’s not close to Zidane’s best yet, Philippe Auclair pointed out in The Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast that at just 23, Zidane was nowhere near Nasri’s level. If he continues this rapid progress, one wonders if a certain Spanish giant where Zidane is now a consultant might make a play to get Nasri to follow his heroes career trajectory. Sign him up swiftly, Arsene.
With just 18 months remaining on his existing contract, there is little talk of a new deal for Andrey Arshavin, and the Russian himself was pretty vague when asked about it in yesterday’s press conference. If he is to stay, he’ll surely be hoping to tie up any new contract before May, when he turns thirty. At that point, negotiating a contract of any length with Arsene becomes difficult.
It wouldn’t surprise me if no agreement is reached, and Arshavin moves on for a fee next summer – surely we cannot contemplate allowing our record signing to leave on a bosman. That said, his form in the last two games has been as good as anything he’s produced at Arsenal (four goal performances at Anfield aside), and I for one would advocate keeping a player of his class and experience for a few more years at least.
Arshavin spoke yesterday about about our poor defensive record, saying:
“We struggle in defence so we have to score more than we concede. It’s very frustrating and we’re trying to improve.
Normally I can’t go through our defenders in training, but we don’t just blame our defenders. Sometimes I can’t run [back], and I let defenders cross so the forwards score a goal.
“So it doesn’t always depend on defenders. As a team we need to improve defensively.”
And he’s right. Playing centre-back for a big club should be easy. It should make you look good. Even John O’Shea has managed it without embarrassing himself. And yet guys like Laurent Koscielny and Sebastien Squillaci, solid all through their careers thus far, look like clowns in this Arsenal team. And why? Because they’re more exposed than they ever have been. Take a look at William Gallas – widely regarded as one of the world’s best when at Chelsea. And yet he struggled at Arsenal, because he was put under more pressure than ever before. It must be a shock for players when they’re plunged in to that particular pool of panic. God only knows how a player like Tony Adams would have managed in this current team. He’d probably have been discarded a la Senderos.
A centre-back is just one man. There are very few ‘defensive Maradonas’, able to make a team defensively mean all by themselves. They can only be successful with the right players around him, defending as a unit. Arsene may think it’s a tactical masterstroke to allow Alex Song to roam forward, but the figures in the ‘goals against’ column would suggest otherwise.
With Johan Djourou suffering with a wee bit of thigh knack, the swiftly-recovered Laurent Koscielny will take his place alongside Seb Squillaci in the heart of the defence. If they’re to keep a clean sheet tonight, it will mean everyone – Arshavin included – doing their defensive duty. Chances are slim, but one can dream, eh?
We simply have to win tonight. Even though mathematically, a draw could be enough, it’s vital for our confidence and momentum that we end the group stage on a high. Defeat, like marrying a Spurs fan, is unthinkable.
816 words down, four more to go: Come On You Gunners.
