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Arsenal 1 – 0 QPR: Accentuating the positives

1,023 comments October 29th, 2012

Arsenal 1 – 0 QPR (Arteta 84)
Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction

Arsenal got the result they desperately needed…
After the drudgery of the last two games, I didn’t expect a flowing feast of football.  This was about securing three vital points – points that would leave us just seven adrift of league leaders Chelsea by the end of the weekend.

Mark Hughes was unhappy…
…and that is always a good thing.  I can’t stand Hughes, who seems to me to be one of the most over-rated managers in the country.  The way the media bleated about his thoroughly deserved sacking at City was pathetic, and I am enjoying seeing his expensively-assembled QPR side struggle too.  He was right to be annoyed: Mikel Arteta’s scrambled winner was plainly offside.  If I were Hughes, however, I’d be directing my ire at one of my own players: Stephane Mbia. Until he got himself sent off, QPR looked relatively comfortable.  Once they were down to ten men, however, the tide turned – although keeper Julio Cesar did his best to hold us at bay with a string of extraordinary saves.  Cesar looks like a very smart signing.  Mbia, it seems, may not be the brightest.

Jack Wilshere was every bit as good as I expected him to be…
I’d love to sit here and say, “I’d forgotten how good he was”, or “I did’t expect him to be quite so good quite so quickly”.  I’d be lying.  I did.

Jack Wilshere is very special.  Arsenal have lots of promising young players.  Wilshere is on a different level to all of those.  Arsene gets it right when he says:

“He is special. People who understand football understand that he is a good player. He has that typical thing where he can turn and take the ball forward, which is very difficult for a midfielder. He still lacks a little bit of ability to get away from people, but he will get that.”

Seeing him on the pitch gave everyone a huge lift, and it’s clear from watching Jack’s post-match interview just how much it meant to him.  The next few weeks will be crucial; he’ll be hoping to continue to play progressively longer whilst avoiding any set backs.  He’ll sit out the midweek Capital One Cup tie with Reading, but after such an impressive return surely he’ll have to start at Old Trafford?

Bacary Sagna is the best right-back in England…
There was a lot of talk about how it was “harsh” to leave out Carl Jenkinson.  I can’t help but feel that’s informed in part by sentimentality and our love for Carl as one of our own.  Don’t get me wrong: his improvement has been dramatic.  Bacary Sagna, however, is probably the best right-back in England, and one of the best in Europe.  As good as Carl has been, I’m staggered that I’ve read some fans saying that we might consider letting Sagna leave now we have Jenkinson in place.  With respect, that’s the sort of talk that leads to replacing Robin van Persie with Gervinho.  Sagna is one of the few truly top class performers we have.  Treasure him, and welcome him back.  Carl will still have plenty of opportunities over the course of the season.

Andrey Arshavin made the telling contribution…
When substitute Gervinho was stretchered off, Andrey Arshavin was hurriedly called in to action without even being given a chance to properly stretch.  No matter: the Russian made a crucial contribution.  It was his dribble and cross that resulted in Olivier Giroud’s header at goal, eventually leading to Arteta nudging home the winner.  It showed Arshavin can still offer the odd match-winning moment.  Perhaps next time, at least, Arsene will send him out to warm up…

Arsenal 0 – 2 Schalke: More of the same

700 comments October 25th, 2012

This would have been a difficult game even if we were in good form
As it was, off the back of that dire display against Norwich, I fancied Schalke from the off. The German side have some very good players, and came in to the game off the back of a morale-boosting victory over Dortmund: a side good enough to beat Real Madrid last night.

I make that 180 mins without creating a decent chance
Last night, our first shot on target came in the 93rd minute courtesy of 17-year old substitute Serge Gnabry. By my count, that makes for one shot on target mustered in each of the last two games, neither of which you would even stretch to calling a ‘half-chance’. The defensive frailties are nothing new, but this lack of attacking threat is unfamiliar and alarming. The last time I can remember an Arsenal side looking this impotent was just before the January transfer window in which Arsene pulled his finger out to sign Andrey Arshavin.

Andre Santos had a stinker.
If you head down to Hackney Marshes on a Sunday morning, you will occasionally catch sight of me taking to the field as a leaded-footed, positionally naive left-back. Alternatively, you could just watch reruns of Andre Santos’ performance last night, as he huffed, puffed, and struggled his way though a truly torrid 90 minutes. I was alarmed to see that he repeated his trick of standing several yards behind the defensive line, allowing Huntelaar to be played onside just as Grant Holt was on Saturday. In the first half, Per Mertesacker kept us in it, but eventually the weaknesses of those around him were exposed.

I don’t see the sense in dropping Giroud.
I know he hasn’t set the world alight, but I really don’t think there’s any point in persisting with Gervinho as a lone striker. Last nights horror show showed that ‘Goalvinho’ is not a viable long-term option. Why not play Giroud and at least allow himself a chance bed in? Rotating him in and out of the side simply harms his confidence, and right now we haven’t got a better option than the Frenchman.

Gervinho is not consistent enough to play for Arsenal
Every so often he will do something fantastic. More often than not, he will run in to blind alleys, away from his team-mates, and give the ball away. Gervinho is a maverick. He is not capable of cohesive team play. His head goes down, and one has the impression that he himself barely knows what he is going to do with the play. Players like him have their place in the game, but it is generally in mid-table. Sides who see little of the game, and require a game-breaker to do the unexpected. Arsenal are an intelligent, possession side. That is not Gervinho’s game.

Arsenal desperately need to sign a striker.
See previous two points. I’m not sure this requires much expansion. In a world in which Demba Ba is available for just £7m, there is no excuse for Arsene not bringing in a reliable front man in January.

The AGM will be a feisty affair.
Already last night there were chants of “6%; you’re having a laugh” and “Ivan Gazidis: What do you do?” (albeit with inferior punctuation). One can understand why, especially when you face the unavoidable question: Did we really sell Robin van Persie to play Gervinho up front? I don’t think it’s all bad. There were signs just a few weeks ago that this squad has plenty of ability. Arsenal don’t have the familiar excuse of inexperience to trot out; this is a mature side that should know better. Get back to where we were on Saturday and the picture won’t look quite so ugly.

Norwich 1 – 0 Arsenal: No Fluency, No Excuses, No Points

381 comments October 21st, 2012

Norwich 1 – 0 Arsenal (Holt 19)
Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction 

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.  This was comfortably our worst performance of the season.  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.  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.  Even in the dreary 0-0 with Sunderland, we created a couple of chances that one could describe as decent.  Arsene’s relatively relaxed demeanour throughout suggested a man who had decided relatively early on that this was just ‘one of those days’.  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.  Their attacking play was superb: mobile, intelligent, and truly collective.  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.  That will happen a lot this season.  It doesn’t surprise me, and nor am I sure it’ll be particularly relevant to us for much longer.  We’re already ten points behind the leaders, and I find it hard to envisage this squad sustaining a title challenge.  The good news for Arsenal is that Spurs and Newcastle both failed to win.  At the present time, Everton are down to ten men and drawing with QPR.  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.  With Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain joining Theo Walcott on the sidelines, Gnabry is likely to be involved with the first-team again next week.  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.  The Dutch pair of Affelay and Huntelaar are a real threat, and this promises to be far trickier than our usual group stage stroll.

Chelsea thoughts: Familiar failings & Feeble Fire-power

665 comments September 30th, 2012

Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction

Arsenal should be kicking themselves…
This first defeat of the season felt completely unnecessary. Arsenal were punished for stupid mistakes at the back and poor finishing up top. Arsene Wenger will be furious, though some of course have suggested he has only himself to blame…

I’d be a hypocrite to criticise Arsene for leaving out Per…
I called it earlier this week and didn’t raise the alarm then. In fact, it seemed to me to be an entirely reasonable decision. As it was, Koscielny had an absolute stinker, and will probably find himself back on the sidelines for the next two games at least. I’m loathe to heap all of the blame on Kos, though – when you concede from a set-piece, more often than not it’s the result of collective disorganisation and a touch of cowardice. Positional intelligence is only worth so much: you have to fight to go and win the ball too.

Gervinho’s strike was a fantastic finish…
You know the saying: If you give enough monkeys enough typewriters, one of them will eventually thump the ball in to the top corner. Or something like that. I was pleased for Gervinho, but equally I’m conscious that he probably had about as much idea about where that ball would end up when he hit it as he did when firing off those haphazard shots against City. By the laws of probability, eventually he is bound get one right, as on Saturday. I’m not sure, however, that it makes him the solution to our striking problem.

For me, Giroud had to score…
The defence “it was a tight angle” is not valid when the angle is only tight because of the strikers touch around the goalie. He had a perfectly good opportunity to strike before that, dallied, and paid the price. I make that three clear one-on-ones and a penalty he’s missed since joining the club. I’m not writing him off, but I am a little concerned. On which note, I won’t pretend to understand why Arsene saw fit to bring off our best finisher, Lukas Podolski, with twenty minutes to play.

A couple of things the cameras might not have picked up…
The first is that substitute Theo Walcott was very chummy indeed with his Chelsea counterparts whilst warming up. I suspect I’d find that easier to stomach if his time on the pitch hadn’t consisted of hiding in the centre when we needed him to be driving at his full-back out wide. I may be being unfair, but then if Theo refuses to commit to the club then I’m afraid he will invite this kind of scrutiny.
The second thing was just how much of a hatchet job Mikel Arteta did in midfield. With Chelsea threatening on the counter, he produced a series of outrageous off-the-ball fouls to halt runners in their tracks. Fortunately, the referee missed most of them, otherwise he would have been lucky to stay on the pitch. The same goes for Laurent Koscienly, who appeared to slap a Chelsea player in the centre-circle.

I’m off on holiday now…
I’m heading abroad for the next two weeks. Chances of getting to see our games during that period are slim. See you here when I’m back…

Arsenal 6 – 1 Coventry: A player-by-player review

685 comments September 27th, 2012

Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction

In the end, we got everything we wanted from the game: a thumping victory, game-time for squad players and promising youngsters, and even a first Arsenal goal for Olivier Giroud.

It was clear inside the first couple of minutes that there was a significant gulf in class between the two sides. Coventry were also playing with a suicidally high line, and were there for the taking. With that in mind, I was pretty frustrated by what was a very lacklustre first-half display, capped off by a solitary goal.

In the second half, however, we were far better. Coventry tired too, and as we pressured them higher up the pitch mistakes began to creep in to their play, and we took full advantage, adding a further five goals to the tally and conceding just the one.

Highlights and a match report are available from the above links, but for those who weren’t able to see the game live I thought I’d give you a run-down on how the individuals involved equipped themselves.


Damian Martinez
Not a game in which he was hugely tested. He’ll have been disappointed to have conceded, but had no chance on the Coventry goal. One moment that stood out was when he came fully ten yards off his line to claim a deep set piece, dove and caught it cleanly in mid-air. His distribution was good, and all-in-all this was a solid if uneventful display.

Martin Angha

Martin Angha arrived at Arsenal as a centre-back, and has spent a good deal of this season playing as a left-back. He started this game on the right side of defence, and whilst he was solid throughout, going forward he looked very much like a centre-half. It was unfortunate because his stamina meant he was constantly available on the overlap, but his dribbling and delivery left a lot to be desired.

Johan Djourou
Captain for the night, Johan Djourou was quiet but steady. He came close to scoring with a diving header, and played the part of the senior man in defence well. He was, however, outshone by his partner…

Ignasi Miquel
I was really impressed with the Spaniard this evening. He has inherited the Vermaelen trait of nicking the ball and early and sprinting onwards up the field, which he did several times to great effect. His goal was a thumping header, and everything he did tonight he did with full commitment. He has the physique, he has the technique. Now he just needs experience. I suspect a loan deal might be on the cards sooner rather than later.

Andre Santos
I’m a fan of Andre Santos. He’s clearly a great personality to have around the club, and going forward he is capable of great things. Tonight, however, he looked plain lazy. He wandered around the pitch, sauntering back and generally looking disinterested. In the interest of fairness he is lacking match practise, and I recall that last season it took a run of a few games for him to get going, but on this evidence Kieran Gibbs is not going to come under serious pressure for the left-back spot anytime soon.

Nico Yennaris
Yennaris started in centre-midfield, and was almost anonymous throughout. Sometimes that’s the mark of a good holding midfield display. He didn’t do a great deal wrong – collecting the ball and playing the simple pass. However, I felt at times he could have been a little quicker to close Coventry down in central areas.


Francis Coquelin
Coquelin was his usual busy self. His intervention helped create the first goal, lunging on to a loose Arshavin pass to divert the ball in to Giroud’s path. It’s clear that Coquelin has designs on a first-team spot, but I do worry about just how many opportunities we’ll be able to give him. His impatience may lead him to look elsewhere.

Theo Walcott
In the first half, Walcott was poor. His touch was off and his movement was often selfish, driving in to the centre when he ought to have stretched the play. In the second half, however, he exploited a ragged Coventry, scoring with two excellent finishes. The headline-writers will have rubbed their hands together: I expect to see a load of stories tomorrow about how Theo “sent a message” to Arsene about his desire to play as a centre-forward. I’d counter with two observations: on top of the two goals, Theo also missed tow clear one-on-one opportunities. Perhaps of even greater significance, all four opportunities came whilst playing in a wide role. It is naive of Theo to believe that playing through the middle will necessarily lead to more scoring opportunities. Receiving the ball in the channels actually enables him to use his pace and get in to dangerous positions.

Andrey Arshavin
Arshavin will always divide opinion. Tonight, he did plenty wrong. There were stray passes, inexplicable backheels, and the occasional comical loss of balance. There was also a goal, the winning of a penalty, and two assists. The goal in particular was a lovely take, controlling the ball in mid-air on his toe before poking beyond the keeper. I’ll say this for the Russian: every time he gets the ball, he tries to make something happen. Sometimes it comes off, sometimes it doesn’t. My instinct tells me that there will come a time when we need to gamble with him to unlock a defence this season. When we do, we should deploy him centrally – he’s far better when free of the defensive responsibility that comes with a wide role.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
What a goal. The lad absolutely thumped in a thirty yard strike in a manner that won’t be a surprise to anyone who has ever watched this video of him in training. Now he’s pulled it off once, I expect he’ll try it a little more frequently. Just a word of warning, though: in the first half he was prone to a bit of show-boating, trying unnecessary tricks and dribbling when a simple pass was the better option. It’s something I’ve seen creeping in to his game recently, and it was noticeable that after half-time he was much more efficient. Hopefully someone had a stern word.

Olivier Giroud
Finally, the Frenchman is off the mark. It was telling that when the chance came to him, he didn’t panic, carefully clipping the ball over the advancing keeper before looking to the sky with relief. That said, when he stepped up to take the penalty, I didn’t have much confidence: the forward has a bit of a history with spot-kicks. The Coventry keeper’s save was superb, and hopefully the miss won’t dent Giroud’s improved confidence. It was a good sign that shortly afterwards he set up Arshavin when other strikers might have sought to redeem themselves by going for goal. His all-round play was good and improved dramatically after he broke his duck. Hopefully this is the start of a good thing.

SUBS

Emmanuel Frimpong
The Dench man came off the bench for an uneventful twenty minutes. He got a tremendous reception from the crowd, but like Coquelin I wonder just how many opportunities we’ll be able to grant him. Perhaps he, like Miquel, could soon be heading out on loan.

Serge Gnabry
For those of you who haven’t seen Gnabry play before, the similarities with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are striking. He has a very stocky frame, with big powerful hips and startling acceleration. Even in this short cameo, it was clear to see this is a player with real potential.

Maroune Chamakh
I liked what I saw of Chamakh in his brief appearance. I forgot how mobile he is, and his team play remains excellent, even if he offers almost no goalscoring threat. Not a bad player to have quite so far down the pecking order.

–

All in all, this was a good night. I don’t think any of the players who started tonight will edge ahead of those who faced City in time for the Chelsea game, but the goalscoring form of Giroud, Walcott and Chamberlain certainly gives the manager food for thought after Gervinho’s erratic display in front of goal.