Archive for October, 2011

Arsene Wenger and the world’s worst handbrake

354 comments October 3rd, 2011

Bacary Sagna writhes in agony as Arsenal go down at Spurs

Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction

The table makes unpleasant reading for Arsenal fans today.  Spurs are in the top six; Arsenal are in the bottom six.  If Tottenham were to win their game in hand, they’d have more than double our points tally.  Seven games in to the season, we have less points than the promoted trio of Swansea, Norwich and QPR.

After the game, Arsene trotted out the now-familiar refrain of Arsenal’s problematic braking system:

“In the first half I felt we played a little but with the handbrake on.”

Maybe.  But I thought a handbrake was supposed to stop you going downhill fast?

This wasn’t, by any stretch, our worst performance of the season.  But that only makes the fact we failed to take any points away from it all the more damning.  The first half was a fairly even affair, and we should have taken the lead when great work from Van Persie down the left saw the Dutchman cut the ball back to the onrushing Gervinho, who put his effort wide at the near post.  It was a fantastic chance, and underlined some of my concerns about the Ivorian.  When he signed I compared him to Chelsea’s Salomon Kalou, and it was as much for his inconsistency and erratic decision-making as his pace, trickery and versatility.  It’s clear Arsene is a big admirer of the winger, but at this level you simply have to put chances like this one away.

Spurs had opportunities of their own.  When Alex Song overplayed in defence, Wojciech Szczesny spread himself well to block Scott Parker’s goalbound effort.  There was little he could do, however, about the goal that gave Spurs the lead.

Rafael Van der Vaart uses his arm to control the ball

When Emmanuel Adebayor brought the ball under control on the edge of our area, Kieran Gibbs and Bacary Sagna were nowhere to be seen.  Adebayor looped the ball over Mertesacker, for Van der Vaart to bring it down and finish smartly in to the far corner.  The German immediately appealed for handball, and whilst replays yesterday still left me feeling it was a marginal decision, the photograph on the right provides little room for doubt.

With Van der Vaart already on a booking for a lunge at Kieran Gibbs, a deliberate handball could even have seen him dismissed, which would have altered the pattern of the game enormously.  Some suggested he was lucky not to go for his celebration, which saw him embrace fans in the crowd, but that’s a rule I’m neither fond nor keen to take advantage of.

The start of the second half saw Arsenal looking purposeful, and we swiftly had an equaliser – Alex Song danced to the byling and pulled a left-footed cross in the box for Aaron Ramsey to tap in.

From then on, however, we simply failed to impose ourselves.  Spurs grew as the game wore on, switching from a 4-4-2 to a 4-5-1 to combat our midfield trio.

The winning goal was one strewn with errors.  First Arteta and Ramsey were slow to react to a quick Spurs throw in; then when the ball was cleared Kyle Walker was not closed down and allowed room to hit a screamer from range.  Powerful though the shot was, Wojciech Szczesny (who had produced another outstanding save to deny Adebayor) will know he ought to have done better, allowing himself to be beaten by a late swerve on the ball.

At this stage there were still twenty minutes to go, but instead of laying the Tottenham goal to siege, we lay down and meekly accepted our fate.  Even when we threw Per Mertesacker upfront in stoppage time, we seemed reluctant to hoist the ball towards him.  There was a lack of urgency and a clear lack of belief.

At full-time Arsene Wenger shook hands with Harry Redknapp and his assistant, before being pursued by the demented figure of Clive Allen, who felt he’d been overlooked for a handshake.  Allen himself overlooked the fact that he’s about one above ‘kit man’ in the Spurs pecking order, and that he did little to endear himself to Arsene by giving him a shove on the touchline in this fixture last year.

As I said, it wasn’t our worst performance of the season, and young Francis Coquelin can be very proud of the job he did holding midfield.  However, there were still plenty of negatives.  Aaron Ramsey, goal aside, had a dreadful game and seems to be making countless wrong decisions on the ball.  His performance highlighted a longer-term problem – without Wilshere or Diaby, we don’t have anyone in central midfield with the acceleration to beat a man.  It means our game is inevitably slower and more predictable.

Defensive organisation was again an issue, and both Gervinho and Walcott will have reason to feel they didn’t contribute enough to turn our possession in to chances.  The greatest blow could yet be the injury to Bacary Sagna, who is expected to miss three months after breaking a fibula.  Sagna remains an outstanding right-back and relatively consistent performer, and without experienced cover could prove to be a huge loss.  Although Carl Jenkinson replaced him yesterday, I wonder if Coquelin might be given a go in a role he played several times for Lorient last season.

Another international break now.  A fortnight of stewing over how to put this right.  Just what we don’t need.

Derby Day Preview

173 comments October 2nd, 2011

Hello all.  As fate would have it I am unwell on Derby Day, so this will be a very swift, digestible preview.  Which is ironic, as my stomach seems unwilling to digest anything at the moment.  Let’s begin with team news.

Laurent Koscielny is almost certainly out, and with Sebastien Squillaci lacking match practise Alex Song is expected to partner Per Mertesacker at centre-back.  The goalie and right-back pick themselves, but Arsene has a tougher call to make between Andre Santos and Kieran Gibbs.  I expect him to opt for the young Englishman, though Santos’ performance in midweek will certainly have given the manager food for thought.

Wojciech Szczesny will keep goal behind the defence, and he has revealed that Arsenal have jettisoned their much-heralded zonal marking system:

“We have decided to change it since Blackburn. It really doesn’t matter what you do as long as you do it correctly and it works. I think zonal works better for us. We have worked on it during pre-season where we never conceded from a set piece and it looked like it was working.

We did concede a stupid goal at Blackburn [Alex Song’s 50th-minute own goal when no defender dealt with a free-kick] and I hope the man-marking will work for us now.”

I do find it slightly disconcerting that after a summer working on a tactic to counteract our set-piece frailties has been abandoned quite so quickly.  Hopefully the man-marking system proves a little more effective than it did last season.

Song’s place in midfield is likely to be taken by Emmanuel Frimpong.  Arteta and Ramsey are guaranteed to start, and it’ll be one of Frimpong, Coquelin or Rosicky completing the trio.

Robin van Persie will lead the line, whilst the selection of the wingers will be dependent entirely on the fitness tests of Theo Walcott and Gervinho – Walcott is considered more likely to be ready.  Beyond those two, Arshavin, Rosicky, Benayoun and Chamberlain are all in contention.

It’s a massive game.  We got hammered at Old Trafford, but we were never realistically going to compete with United.  This season, our immediate competition are the Spurs and Liverpools of this world.  Defeat today would leave us adrift and having a significant hillock to climb to reach the Champions League.  Victory, however, would take us above our local rivals and within a one-game swing of Liverpool.

A final note for those going to the game: by all means boo Emmanuel Adebayor if you want, but don’t sink to the level of Spurs fans and worse by singing racist chants.  We’re better than that.  Hopefully we’ll show it on and off the pitch.

Next Posts


Search Gunnerblog

Get your Gunnerblog t-shirts now!

get regular updates from GS with twitter

Top Gunn

Cesc Fabregas
The man in form.

    Retro Arsenal T-Shirts from
RetroFootballTShirts.co.uk - Bringing Back The Good Old Days!:
www.retrofootballtshirts.co.uk: Click Here!

Latest Posts

Sponsored Links

Calendar

October 2011
M T W T F S S
« Sep   Nov »
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  

Posts by Month


Most Recent Posts

Posts by Category

Syndication

Powered By

eXTReMe Tracker