Archive for September, 2011
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 17th, 2011
Yakubu wheels away after exploiting more dreaful defending
Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction
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.
September 17th, 2011
With the tumultuous start to the season we’ve had, it’s easy to forget that there are clubs far worse off than us. Arsenal fans have been so disillusioned that they’ve even forgotten to laugh at Tottenham, who had a nightmarish summer and look all but certain to drop out of the top four. Today’s opponents, Blackburn Rovers, are even worse off than our neighbours. Arsenal’s visit today coincides with a march of protest against manager Steve Kean.
Kean was a marked man from the day of his appointment. Like Roberto Mancini at Man City, he committed the cardinal sin of replacing a manager much-loved by the British media – in this instance Sam Allardyce, rather than Mark Hughes. He’s also a client of unpopular football agent Jerome Anderson, who since brokering the Venky’s takeover seems to have become the wizard behind the curtain at Blackburn. His influence extends so far that Blackburn have now added Jerome’s son Myles to the playing staff.
Kean, it seems, is a sacking waiting to happen. Even the bookies agree. But his players seem to feel differently, as anyone who watched their spirited draw at Craven Cottage last weekend will know. Defeat would reportedly have cost Kean his job, and his team ran through walls to earn a point – almost literally in the case of Junior Hoilett, who was flattened by Mark Schwarzer as he chased on to a loose ball.
Hoilett is part of exciting group of young attacking players, along with Mauro Formic and Ruben Rochina. At the back, they remain sturdy, with the towering Chris Samba now partnered by fellow one-time Arsenal target Scott Dann. Blackburn’s league position is not representative of their squad. And, regardless of how they’re faring, they always seem to raise themselves for a game against Arsenal.
There is positive news on the squad front. Aaron Ramsey training normally on Friday and should be fit to start, whilst Alex Song and Gervinh0 are finally back from the suspensions they carelessly picked up on the opening day. I expect all three to start, with Ramsey for Benayoun the only likely change from the team in Dortmund.
Slowly, our season is beginning to move in a positive direction. It’s essential that momentum isn’t halted today. Come On You Gunners.
September 16th, 2011
Laurent Koscielny is a very strange footballer. Not because of his Polish-French heritage. Not because of the upright, short-armed running style that makes him resemble a stalking velociraptor. Laurent Koscielny is a strange footballer because he manages to look extremely competent whilst also being at the heart of a defence that is occasionally in disarray.
There’s no doubt he’s got plenty of ability. He’s quick, assertive, and a very clean tackler. After arriving for £10m from Lorient last term, he had several outstanding games, most notably in the home tie with Barcelona, where his fleet-footed style was well suited to keeping the likes of Messi and Villa in check.
However, he was also part of a back four that crumbled at Newcastle, and was a hesitant figure as Obafemi Martins grabbed the goal that won the Carling Cup. It was a season as typified by signs of inexperience as excellence. It’s easy to forget that prior to joining us, he had just one top flight campaign in France under his belt. Although his own individual performances were often impressive, the defensive unit around him just didn’t seem to function.
Perhaps, one could argue, he didn’t have the right partner. Thomas Vermaelen was absent for almost the entirety of the season, and Sebastien Squillaci proved to be something of a disastrous signing. Although Johan Djourou and Koscielny did at one stage form an effective pairing, their shortcomings emerged when it came to the crunch. And Arsenal’s end to the season was very crunchy indeed. Not in a delicious, Kelloggsy way, but in an awful, legs in a blender kind of way.
At the start of this season, however, Vermaelen was fit and Koscielny was finally alongside his intended partner. They were impressive at Newcastle and Udinese, and then Vermaelen succumbed to injury once gain. We all know the consequences of his loss and the subsequent hammering at Old Trafford.
Now Koscielny has a new partner again: Per Mertesacker. The teutonic titan is arguably an even better partner for Laurent than Vermaelen, as he provides a contrast. Koscielny is an instinctive, reactive defender, whereas Mertesacker is a more composed, organisational figure. And it’s paying dividends. After a clean sheet against Swansea, Koscielny turned in an outstanding performance in Germany. Arsene Wenger said of his display:
“The fact that he has such a short experience at the top level makes his improvement potential bigger. I believe he will be a great central defender.
I have always thought there is a massive potential in this player. That is why he has already grown this season and I felt in the last 20 minutes he was immense against Dortmund.
Like every central defender who comes to England, he was surprised by the intensity of the game but he has adjusted now and adapted.”
This weekend at Blackburn will provide another test for the new pairing. When Thomas Vermaelen returns after the international break, one would imagine the vice-captain will be an automatic starter. Koscielny now has the added motivation of a fight for his first-team place.
Vermaelen could be joined in his October return by Abou Diaby, who has begun fitness work. As regards this weekend, Aaron Ramsey has a chance to be available after missing midweek with an ankle problem. Full preview tomorrow.
September 14th, 2011
- Robin van Persie celebrates the goal that game Arsenal the lead in Germany
Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction Pat’s reaction
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.
Next Posts
Previous Posts
