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Arsenal 0 – 1 Blackburn: The Middle Of The End

547 comments February 17th, 2013

Arsenal 0 – 1 Blackburn
Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction 

In this game, Arsenal played with such soporific slovenliness that it was as if they were trying to lull us in to such a stupour that the inevitable sucker punch wouldn’t sting quite so much.

To be fair, it worked. When Colin Kazim-Richards ran untracked through the midfield to fire home after Wojciech Szczesny’s feeble parry, I wasn’t surprised. There was a grim inevitability about the whole scene.

When Jack Wilshere fell in a crumpled heap at the final whistle, I felt for him. But any angst on my part was tempered by familiarity. His anguish was fresh, but mine has been dulled by duplication: I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen Cesc Fabregas similarly felled, and Robin van Persie too; great players, folding under the strain of swimming against a tide of mediocrity.

After Bradford and Blackburn, Arsenal now face a cup clash with Bayern Munich. One hardly imagines the Germans are quaking in their boots. A bad result at the Emirates on Tuesday night could all but guarantee us an eighth consecutive campaign without a trophy.

Things could be worse, I know. Whenever he comes under scrutiny, Arsene Wenger is quick to point out that Arsenal are not in a relegation battle. However, I’m afraid that just doesn’t cut it.

It’s about expectation. Reading are very much in a relegation battle, but that doesn’t mean Brian McDermott is under-performing. Equally, Arsenal might be well clear of 18th place, but they are falling below the standards expected of the club.

Those who criticise the manager are often characterized as pessimists, but it strikes me that there is an optimistic slant to their discontent. They see the potential of the club to be in a far better position than it currently is.

Replacing the manager doesn’t provide an absolute guarantee of positive change. However, an ever-increasing wealth of evidence suggests that keeping the manager absolutely guarantees more of the same.

I’m often asked when I’ll finally join the “Wenger Out!” brigade. Well, the answer is that I almost certainly never will. I’ve no time for brigades, or any other tactical military formations for that matter. Similarly, bandwagons have always struck me as an outmoded form of transport. I’ll make up my own mind on where I stand. I refuse to buy in to the dichotomy that has been imposed on the Arsenal supporter base, splitting us in to “AKB”s and “Doomers”. The reality, and my own position, is far more complex.

I will never chant for the removal of a man who has given me some of my greatest memories. However, I do believe there are certain fundamental issues with the management of the team that will only be resolved by a change of manager. Whether this summer would be the optimum time to do that, I don’t know: it depends on the availability of alternatives.

It’s moot, anyway. Arsene Wenger is no closer to leaving Arsenal today than he was on Friday. Negative results do not edge him closer to the door; only time and the running down of his contract do that. His current deal runs till 2014, and I find it impossible to foresee him leaving before that date. He may even be handed a renewal.

The extrication of Arsene Wenger from Arsenal will be a long and painful process, for both sides. I’d argue it’s a process that is already underway. It began when Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri abandoned Arsene’s project, and will end the day whatever contract he is bound to is allowed to expire.

Ivan Gazidis will not push him. Arsene will not jump. In the meantime, here we are: stuck in the middle of the end.

Transfer Update: Arsene’s Inertia Could Cost Arsenal Dear

645 comments January 11th, 2013

I don’t know why this blog is called a Transfer Update.  There are no transfers to update you on, really.  I’m writing it in the immediate aftermath of reading some truly baffling quotes from Arsene Wenger.

I’ve studied Arsene for more than ten years.  In the last few seasons, I’ve watched every one of his press conferences.  I have grown accustomed to his verbal ticks and repetitious rhetoric.  In recent months, amidst all the familiar traits – the wit, the charm, the searing analytical brain – I have seen a new trait creepy ominously in: doubt.

It used to be that when Arsene spoke about transfers in the press, you could write it off as bluff.  Bluff, however, is grounded in logic. Arsene’s recent words are those of a man who can’t quite make up his mind.

This very morning, he said:

“In England you are always under pressure to buy. We are still working in the transfer market but we only want exceptional players … Our squad is quite complete already.”

This comes just over a week after he told the media:

“I will be active, yes. Will I be concrete? I hope so. We are looking everywhere.”

The conviction is gone.  It’s a trend that’s not unfamiliar to those who’ve had to deal with Arsene Wenger in recent months.  Ask any agent who has spoken to him about a potential signing: his reaction is never more than lukewarm, never without caveats.  Despite the fact his Arsenal squad continues to to convince, the man solely responsible for recruitment is not sufficiently convinced by anyone outside it.

Meanwhile, through our gloomy transfer window, we watch good players come and go.  We know Arsene admired Demba Ba, but he decided not to move for him based on a fairly spurious belief that he was too similar to the significantly less predatory Olivier Giroud.  Arsenal scouts have watched Wilfried Zaha for months, but it seems the player will be allowed to join Manchester United uncontested.

The consequence for Arsenal is crippling inactivity.  Arsene sets a bar of “super super quality”, and sets about looking for a player to ease his own apprehensions about entering the market.  Such a player, of course, does not exist.  Arsenal procede to do nothing.  Perhaps, in a final scramble and with need for sheer numbers, they sign a player out of panic who is not good enough.  They then spend the next few transfer windows struggling to offload this player from their wage bill, hampering their financial potential, and so the cycle continues.

If you know who you want, January is not a complicated time to do a deal: Liverpool went and signed up Daniel Sturridge before the window was even open.  The club are not prohibited from looking for potential signings in the months between August and December.  If they haven’t found anyone of the requisite “quality” by now, I have no faith that they will do so in the coming few weeks.

Forgive me if this sounds a little over the top.  I am merely struggling to understand how an unconvincing draw with Swansea has done so much to erase Arsene’s belief that this team needs reinforcement.  Our rivals will doubtless continue to improve around us, so we ought to push on and do the same.  If we don’t, there is a very real risk that we will fail to achieve our basic goal for the season: Champions League qualification.

If our squad is “complete”, then why are Arsenal sixth?

Arsenal 0 – 2 Swansea: Arsene’s Swan-song?

439 comments December 1st, 2012

Arsenal 0 – 2 Swansea (Michu 88, 90)
Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction | Audioblog

Arsenal fans are often berated by the media for their supposed impatience.  The truth is that at any club other than Arsenal, the pressure on Arsene Wenger would be approaching unbearable.

From 15 league games – almost half a season – we have won only five.  We’ve lost four; as many as 17th place Sunderland.  We’re 15 points behind the league leaders Manchester United.  Distressingly, we’re now as close to United as we are to rock-bottom QPR.  We’re just one league place ahead of Liverpool; a club whose mid-table mediocrity we are in serious danger of emulating.

Before the game I talked about us entering a series of very winnable matches.  We’ve kicked that sequence off with a resounding defeat.  Arsenal are falling well below the standards that even the most measured and reasonable of fans expects.

I don’t want to take anything away from Swansea, who were fantastic yesterday.  They played the sort of football Arsenal aspire to play themselves: intelligent, consistent pressing coupled with incisive, intricate passing.  They are quick, direct, and relatively ruthless.  I was seriously impressed.  Don’t let the late timing of Michu’s goals fool you in to thinking this was any sort of sucker-punch.  Arsenal’s best player on the day was probably Wojciech Szczesny, who kept the Swans at bay by saving brilliantly from three one-on-one opportunities.

On the day, they were the better side.  I accept that much.  But on paper, even the most vehement of Swansea fans would accept that they’re an inferior team.  Try to build a composite side out of the two squads, and in all probability only Michu would survive from the Swans.  Possibly marauding right-back Angel Rangel.  It’s hard to contest the fact that Arsenal’s XI, however flawed, is comfortably superior to that of the Welsh side.  I’m not for a second suggestig our team is perfect – if I never saw Gervinho in an Arsenal shirt again I’d be delighted – but we’re packed with internationals and multi-million pound players.  They, on the other hand, are a relatively rag-tag bunch of Championship graduates and bargain Spaniards.

You wouldn’t have known it yesterday.  Nor is it suggested by the league table: Swansea’s win moved them above us, where they now sit in a group that includes Stoke City, West Ham, and West Brom.  It does not make for pleasant reading.

And yet, to continue my point, we have a stronger team than all of those sides.  We have a stronger team too than Aston Villa, Sunderland, Norwich and Fulham, but it didn’t help us beat them.  Arsene talks with conviction about how we’ve come through some of our toughest fixtures already this season, yet our achilles heel remains picking up sides against teams we should be able to beat.  Our problems are not ‘on paper’ – one look at the balance book confirms that.  They’re on grass.

The only possible conclusion is that the team are not performing to their potential.  And then the only possible question is ‘Why?’.  Assuming the problem is not personnel, it has to be one of two things: tactics and motivation.  Both, I’m afraid, directly implicate the manager: Arsene Wenger.

The question of tactics is an interesting one.  It’s long been said that Arsene is no tactical chess-player.  He just makes sure he has the most powerful pieces in play, and secures victory that way.  Sadly in Samir Nasri, Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie, he’s lost his Rook, Bishop and Queen.  The power-players are gone, and Arsenal’s collective unit seems to require a greater degree of organisation to make up for the lost ability.

Motivation, however, is an even bigger concern.  Yesterday, watching a pedestrian Arsenal stroll to defeat, I couldn’t help but feel that this is a side that isn’t playing for their manager anymore.  You’ve seen it other clubs: group of players who clearly have ability, hiding on the pitch and glumly accepting defeat.  At these ‘other clubs’, it’s what gets managers sacked.  That won’t happen at Arsenal, and I suspect the players know it, which reduces the stakes even further.  Even if they lose, things will still stay as they are.  We’re locked in stasis, and it’s going stale fast.

Although the team aren’t playing up to standard, I won’t pretend there aren’t issues with the quality of the squad.  The lack of depth and options means that our best players are being over-used, and subsequently fading fast.

Santi Cazorla and Mikel Arteta were unusual signings for Arsene Wenger.  Both in their late twenties upon arrival, they were educated elsewhere and hired in to add experience and quality to a youthful squad.  There are some members of his squad of whom Arsene Wenger is hugely protective – these are typically youthful academy types like Jack Wilshere and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.  Cazorla and Arteta do not tend to fall in to this category.  Both have the potential to be Rolls Royce players; at the moment Arsene is using them like second-hand bangers that he doesn’t mind getting scratched and bumped.  With Arteta in particular it feels like he’s concluded, “this guy is old, his knee is screwed anyway – I may aswell run him in to the ground”.  Rarely have I seen a player so desperately in need of a rest denied it.

Olivier Giroud was given a sixty minute reprieve after starting on the bench – presumably he had moved beyond Arsene’s precarious “red zone” in to something approaching a purpley-black.  However, that meant that the trio of Theo Walcott, Gervinho and Lukas Podolski was asked to fill the gap, with the latter two rotating in the central berth.  None of them convinced, and despite the desire of the entire trio to play more centrally, I’d have no hesitation in saying that Podolski and Walcott are best suited to the wings, and Gervinho to the reserves.  I don’t want to go overboard about Giroud’s ability – I still think he’s a significant step down on Arsenal centre-forwards of the past, but at the moment his presence is absolutely crucial to the team, because we simply don’t have an adequate alternative.  Resting Giroud is not in itself a crime; failing to have a single player capable of deputising for the Frenchman, however, is.

With every dropped point, pressure increases on Arsene to amend the situation in January – and not just with the stingy solution of a 34-year old striker on loan for six weeks from the MLS.  I’m sure he will endeavour to add a couple of players to the squad.  The difficult truth is that the lack of quality is probably the easiest problem to solve.  We’re fast approaching the point when any signing, whether it’s Henry, Falcao or anyone you may care to mention may prove to be just a sticking plaster.

Arsene Wenger has never lost faith in his players.  The signs are there, however, that they may be beginning to lose faith in him.

Villa 0 – 0 Arsenal: Arsenal’s lack of ammunition exposed

42 comments November 25th, 2012

Aston Villa 0 – 0 Arsenal
Match Report | Highlights (?) | Arsene’s reaction 

This was a deadly dull game…
I’m always loathe to call Arsenal games boring.  It sounds a bit spoilt, like I’m some sort of prawn sandwich-scoffing ponce who demands to be entertained.  However, this was truly tedious.  Goalscoring chances were few and far between, and midfield play was turgid and tentative.

A point is a poor result…
No away game is easy, but a side in the top four has to be looking to win pretty much every game they play.  Villa played well, but to put things in perspective, they ended the weekend in the relegation zone, behind the likes of Norwich, Wigan and Southampton.  These are games a club of our supposed ambition should be taking three points from.

Substituting Olivier Giroud for Francis Coquelin infuriated me…
…and I wasn’t alone.   The away fans openly booed and chanted “you don’t know what you’re doing” at Arsene.  The only precedent I can think of is the removal of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain against Manchester United.  On that occasion, I did my best to back the manager.  This time, I’m not sure I can.  Lukas Podolski had been withdrawn, as has become customary, at the 70 minute mark.  With the German off the field, Giroud was our only credible goal threat.  I appreciate he was tired, but the game was almost over.  An extra five minutes would not have killed him.  Taking him off, for a defensive midfielder of all things, was a tacit admission that we were content with a draw.  Against a tiring Villa side, this show of reduced ambition pained me.  A top side – Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United, for example – would have thrown on a forward and gone for the win.

A crucial difference, of course, is that United would have a forward to throw on…
The need for a striker is pressing.  Gervinho is not a striker.  Theo Walcott is not (yet) a striker.  Lukas Podolski is a striker, but is required to play on the left wing, because we have no-one else realistically capable of filling that position.  Marouane Chamakh is a striker, but is so far out of favour that he didn’t even make the bench yesterday.  Giroud is the only realistic option to play centre-forward at the club.  It’s a situation that can needs resolving sooner rather than later – and not with a temporary fix like the return of Thierry Henry.  Klaas Jan Huntelaar and Fernando Llorente are both just six months away from the end of their contracts with Schalke and Bilbao.  Theo Walcott might not be worth £100k p/week to us, but either of these two might be.

Why bother taking Jack Wilshere with the squad?
The young midfielder spent the entire game sat on the bench.  Arsene admitted after the game he didn’t want to use him unless absolutely necessary.  I’m sorry, but for me, toiling to a 0-0 draw against a side as poor as Villa necessitates the introduction of a creative talent like Wilshere.  If he’s not fit to play, leave him at home.

Andrey Arshavin ought to be given more of a chance…
Speaking of creative talents, I have to say I’ve generally been impressed with the little I’ve seen of Andrey Arshavin this season.  I certainly think he’s a more worthwhile substitute than Gervinho, whose first two touches of the ball yesterday were both hideous pieces of miscontrol.  It seems likely that Arshavin will be allowed to leave in January, but between now and then I’d back him to make a telling contribution or two.

It’s telling where Arsene chose to rotate…
He changed both his full-backs, which is arguably where he has the most strength in depth.  Gibbs, Santos and Vermaelen are three credible options at left-back, whilst Jenkinson, Sagna and even Coquelin give him options on the right.  He also left out Wilshere for Aaron Ramsey, in a box-to-box midfield role that has been also been filled by Diaby and Coquelin in the course of this season.  There are, however, several players in the side that Arsene simply cannot afford to leave out: Arteta, Cazorla, Podolski and Giroud.  Unsurprisingly, it is these players who are beginning to look jaded.  The transfer window is only a month or so away.  If we’re to make the Champions League, Arsene will have to recruit some trustworthy alternatives to prevent these key players being run in to the ground.

AGM: Angst, Grumbles and Moaning

1,158 comments October 26th, 2012

Before you read this piece, I highly recommend the excellent write-up of the AGM by Hayley Wright for Arseblog News.  It gives you all the relevant detail on the piece, and makes sense of everything that follows this.

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We’ll never know now, but if Arsenal had gone in to this AGM on the back of two victories rather than two defeats, I suspect it would have been a rather different affair.  Not in terms of content: many of the points raised by the shareholders yesterday would remain valid.  I can’t help but feel, however, that the tone would have been rather different.  Reports of yesterday’s meeting sound more like a stroppy teenager questioning a belligerent parent than any kind of constructive debate.

In the rather catty dialogue, both parties are at fault.  The heckling and jeering from the supporters who were present simply does not help.  Nor does the patronising and dismissive tone employed by chairman Peter Hill-Wood.  By the end of yesterday’s events things seem to have taken on a pantomimic tone, and the result is a plethora of headlines about “revolt” and “restless natives”.

I think it is possible to ask probe and even pressurise, to drive at the heart of the matter, and ask the questions that sorely need to be asked without resorting to the bitter register adopted yesterday.  I think that a man standing up and asking how he is supposed to explain to his ten-year old son that Robin van Persie has left is adopting emotive language that adds little to the debate.  His ten year old son will cope.  There are plenty of men entering their forties now who survived Liam Brady’s departure for Juventus, and most of them seem to have escaped any lasting damage.

Whilst I don’t doubt that some of the fans present at the AGM are experts in football finance, I do feel that the majority of our fanbase seem very quick to forge opinions on the economic policy of our club without the necessary expertise to undertake such a role.  I would refer such fans to the Q&A with Tom Fox and Mark Gonella, our Head of Marketing and Head of Communications respectively.  From my unashamedly ill-informed perspective, this new team do seem to know what they’re doing.  Granted, their appointments could have come sooner, but it’s better late than never, and news of a forthcoming £25m kit deal with Adidas is evidence of the work they’re undertaking.

I have to say that as a rule I’m far more interested in events on the field of play.  It’s when economic matters impact upon our performance on the pitch that my interest is piqued.

In general, I’m a fan of the “self-sufficient model”.  It is not just admirable – if FFP does come in to play, it will swiftly become necessary.  However, I do understand some fans’ concerns that our penny-pinching is leading to stagnation.  The question has to be asked: Self-sufficiency is all very well, but what exactly are we sustaining?  A competitive team?  Not really.  The status of the club?  Barely.  We’re sustaining a very functional, very well run business.  We won’t be going under any time soon; everyone gets paid on time; debt is minimal.  But all the while we tick over, trophyless in fourth spot, our stock falls just a little.  Talismanic players continue to leave, and we’re perceived as a feeder club to Europe’s giants.

Arsene, of course, would argue that we’re not truly ‘trophyless’.  In an intriguing speech, he said:

“For me, there are five trophies – the first is to win the Premier League, the second is to win the Champions League, the third is to qualify for the Champions League, the fourth is to win the FA Cup and the fifth is to win the League Cup.

I say that because if you want to attract the best players, they do not ask: ‘did you win the League Cup?’, they ask you: ‘do you play in the Champions League?

I say that as well, because recently we had a meeting in Geneva about when a manager is in some situations, what does he do? For example, a guy came out with a problem. He said ‘I played the semi-final of the Europa League at home and three days later, I played the decisive game in the championship to qualify for the Champions League.

And I was thinking ‘what do I do?’ Do I go for the semi-final of the Europa League? Or do I go for the qualifier in the Champions League?’ And the whole meeting was about that decision.

What came out as a 90 per cent conclusion, is that all the managers said ‘if you take care of you, you go for the semi-final of the Europa League. If you take care of the club, you go for the Champions League position.’ And that’s what we do, always.”

It’s an interesting debate – one that’s almost too big to open within this blog.  In Arsene’s defence, I’ll say this: every so often, such as in the light of Wednesday’s defeat to Schalke, I’ll hear fans saying: “Maybe it’d be better if we didn’t qualify for the Champions League one year.  That’s shake things up at last; show the board.”

Let me tell you now: no good would come of such a thing.  Would you rather win the League Cup and miss out on the top four?  Really?  I’ll give you one last chance to rethink that before I hit you with this: that’s what Liverpool did last year.  It got Kenny Dalglish sacked.  It meant the players they bought in the summer were from clubs like Swansea and Heerenveen.  They missed out on a player from Fulham – to Spurs, of all people.  They currently sit 12th in the table.  It is not a recipe for success.

Top players want to play in the Champions League.  And we need to top players in order to win a trophy.  The problem we currently have is that there are three sides in Britain who are comfortably better than us.  No Arsenal player in his right mind would move to another club other than that Chelsea, United and City.  From this position, we need to move up once more in to those echelons, not down to join the Liverpools of this world.  I think we’re one disastrous season away from that happening, and it doesn’t bear thinking about.

To move up, of course, requires investment.  I still believe we have the right manager.  I still, just about, believe we have the right board.  But whichever of those two entities truly holds the purse strings (and my firm belief remains that the reluctance to spend comes primarily from Arsene) needs to loosen up a bit.  Cazorla and Podolski show you don’t have to spend crazy money to get quality players.

If the AGM had been a month or so ago, it might have been a very self-satisfied affair.  The new signings looked inspired, we were defensively solid, and being talked about as genuine contenders.  That AGM would have been misleading: it would have overlooked some of the crucial issues that it was essential to raise yesterday.  But by the same token, a couple of bad results shouldn’t cast an ugly light across the entire club.  Arsenal don’t need saving: they just need to get a bit better.  Starting tomorrow.

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Pssssst.  I found a few (a very few) of these in a cupboard.  Half a dozen, to be precise.  If you missed out on them last time, grab yours quickly.  But don’t talk too loudly about it.  We wouldn’t want to jinx anything.