Testing Times and Doubtful T(h)omases!

I have to say that, in the past three decades at least, I have not witnessed a time when, in the great scheme of things, games could be more meaningless and yet so damned important.

I know that there have been much more important games over that time such as the Champions League final against Farcalona, title run-ins, the odd FA Cup final, even those last few games of the Invincible season when you just knew we were going to throw away the chance to rewrite the history books away with a stunning reversal by Leicester City at Highbury! Conversely, there have been a few much less important games along the way too. The last three of four games of most seasons tend to provide that excruciating feeling of utter pointlessness regardless of how much we looked like we may actually be there fighting for the title until the death in the preceding weeks!

But I digress, as usual, from the main point that I am trying to make here! Sorry to bring this up, but as I am sure you are all keenly aware, the real successes that we have enjoyed in that period were quite some time ago now and a lot has changed since those heady days. Case in point, we were genuinely relieved when we beat Swansea 1-0 at home on Saturday and are all getting a little pre-match tension going before heading off to play Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League on Tuesday night.

In truth, I don’t remember a time when things were, for all the best will in the world, so uncertain in terms of direction, ability, desire or even the chance of us actually winning something. Put simply, we don’t really know how the new boys will fit in, we are unsure of what system Wenger has in mind for the team or even if it will change at all and we are even less sure that he could survive the next couple of months if we do something foolish like troll off to Germany tomorrow and get a good old shoeing! All in all things are a little up in the air and a good thump down to earth is the last thing we need. If there is any team in our Champions League group that can provide that thump, it may well be Borussia Dortmund.

Key players for them include: Sebastian Kehl, captain, a fantastic tackler and very good passer of the ball, Mats Hummel, not just a good central defender but also a real threat from set pieces along with central defensive partner Subotic (if he plays), Robert Lewandowski, a proper handful of a centre forward who, apart from being fairly lethal from short range, long range or with his head, also makes a habit of providing the kind of well-timed, defence-splitting runs which the likes of Mario Götze, clearly amongst the very best young attacking midfielders in Europe right now, simply love to provide defence-splitting passes for him to get on the end of.

There are warning signs here. Our defence will have to be on their toes or the creative attacking midfielders of Dortmund could well do some serious damage. Having watched a fair bit of Dortmund last season, it seems that our defence will have to begin from the front too. The Dortmund midfielders tend to drop deep to get the ball but, in a three behind the front man Farcalona-style setup, they move the ball very quickly from defence or defensive midfield to the penalty area. Make no mistake, this is not going to be an easy fixture, certainly not as easy as we would like it to be given the general state of things right now.

In reality we have never really fared that well against German sides and, whilst they may not have the stature or reputation of the likes of Bayern Munich, this Dortmund side do play fairly attractive, very attack-minded football, a lot like us to be fair. They too come into the game off the back of a dodgy result, losing at home for the first time in 18 games to Hertha Berlin and playing, well, terribly in the process. They are playing in the Champions League for the first time since the 2002-03 season but are doing so as champions of the Bundesliga and, to be fair, are a good side with a lot of young players, all of whom appear to be as technically gifted as our own, with an average age of just 24, one could be excused for thinking that this should be a team for the future and yet here they are, Champions of Germany. Of course, all of this serves to bring yet more unwanted pressure on our own young players to produce the goods on Tuesday night or facing getting “out-kidded”!

In terms of our team, we have the usual mass of bodies queuing up in the treatment room. Rambo Myarse, (sorry, Ramsey) hobbled out of training on Monday with an ankle injury, Jack Wilshere is already out until the end of September at least although word from the club seems to suggest we could be more likely to see him pull on the mighty red shirt sometime around the end of October. Add to this the two T(h)omases who are both still out, Rosicky as usual and Vermaelan, well, as usual too, and then tack on Diaby who, believe it or not, is still actually paid a salary to play football, and we are looking pretty thin on the ground. Jenkinson returns from suspension but did not make Wenger’s 18-man squad whilst all 5 of the new shiny things got seats on the plane although Santos is still lacking match fitness having not played a competitive match since the Copa America almost two months ago and will therefore be unlikely to get a place in the starting lineup.

We will also welcome back the effervescent Gervinho as well as what could well turn out to be a pivotal role in the shape of Alexandre Song. If Dortmund do indeed have a weakness, I believe that it is in their full backs, Piszczek and Löwe. If Gervinho can get at them like he did against the full backs of Udinese, we may well come out of this with a share of the points or even three all of them. Of equal importance will be Song’s ability to stay in position and break up their attacks before we are praying that Kos hasn’t forgotten there is a game going on or Mertesacker finds himself trying to play catch-up with a Dortmund player he probably won’t catch up with!

I think the team is likely to line up in a much more conventional than usual 4-4-2 due to the injuries to Aaron and Jack and thus expect it will look something like this:

We have to hope that Mertesacker’s knowledge of Dortmund will be put to full use and as such we can also hope that he learned as much from his Bremen side getting beaten by them 2-0 away from home last season as he did when Bremen won 2-0 at home.

In truth, this is not the type of game that we as fans or we as a club really need right now. There are clear dangers here and everybody will have to perform well for us to get a result. If we lose concentration we will be punished and if we show the sort of profligacy in front of goal as we did against Swansea, we will be lucky to get out with a point.

All of that said, without precisely this type of game to go and win, how would we rebuild that fragile, shattered confidence?!

On top of that, we have a secret weapon, something cunning and devious, something that they do not have and something that they will not be expecting…

EXPERIENCE!

Come On You Champions League Challenging Gooners!!!

What A Difference A Day 5 Signings Makes

Firstly, an apology. Sorry for not being around this week but, in mitigation, a cleverly placed 20 litre water bottle, a wet, slippery tiled floor and my ribcage got into a bit of a fracas and, well, to put it bluntly, two of my ribs lost…BADLY!

So, a week on the sofa put paid to my desperate desire to write something predicting a resounding thumping of Swansea today…

So, broken ribs and a week of bed rest turned out to be a stroke of luck because now I can now sit here and write about how I just KNEW we would scrape through by the skin of our luckiest hind teeth!

Ah, it appears I may have already given the game away somewhat!

Ok, seriously, what really went on today?!

Well, firstly but of secondary importance to finally leaving a premiership ground with 3 points again, Arteta and Mertesacker made their debuts, Arteta the shining light of our first half performance whilst Mertesacker looked, at times, like EXACTLY what we have needed, cried out for and cried over for the past two or three seasons. Mertesacker didn’t have the best game of his career but he looked pretty solid when it mattered and has only actually been in the UK for about 20 minutes!

Arteta faded in the second half but his first half performance should have been more than enough to close a few unnecessarily whiney mouths plapping on about how he won’t fit in. He fitted in just beautifully in my opinion and RVP looked like he was really enjoying the movement and service going on just behind him that provided a little extra time and space and delivered a few opportunities along the way. To be fair, had Robin hit the sort of goal scoring form that we have almost come to expect of late or Aaron Ramsey found his shooting boots before leaving the dressing room, we could have been 2 or 3 up by half time and probably wrapped up a treat of a win by the end of 90 minutes.

But could haves, would haves and should haves don’t win points, as we all know only too well!

What happened in reality is that Ramsey, after about 2 minutes of the game had passed by, contrived to get himself clean through on goal (on the end of a quite delightful slide-rule pass from the Mighty Mikel Arteta), suddenly looked like a deer caught in the headlights and thrashed it well wide of the target! Two minutes later and Mighty Mik was at it again, playing a neat one-two with RVP leaving the Swansea defence with the usual option of “having” to hack him down on the edge of the box. Mightily stepping up to take the free kick, Arteta obviously decided it would be a whole load more fun to trying to remove the head of Swansea’s Agustien from his shoulders! He came pretty close too with the midfielder looking dazed even after he finally remembered his name!

3 minutes later the “Pole between the poles” decided that Mighty Mik was getting far too much of the limelight and pulled off what can only be described as yet another incredible stop in the fledging career of this soon to be legend. Graham goes clean through and, with everybody in the ground already convinced that the ball was in the net and with almost zero reaction time, our polish cat smelled the impending danger, growled a little growl but did not even stop to preen before he threw himself down to the ground and literally clawed the ball off the line like he was chasing his favourite ball of wool! Seriously folks, how good exactly is this kid?! He just gets better and bigger every time he plays. Honestly, is it just me, or has he actually grown 4 inches since the end of last season alone?!  Not for the first time, Arsene can quite literally claim that “He Knew”!

On ten minutes Mighty Mik was at it again with another defence splitter! Van Persie found himself the lucky recipient but his goal bound effort was blocked by the challenge of the reasonably impressive Caulker. In fact, it was the very same reasonably impressive Caulker that managed to block Theo Walcott’s effort on the line after he had cunningly slipped it under Vorm’s body. In truth, the keeper got a touch on the ball which slowed it down just enough to give Caulker the time to get back. That said, he then threw himself full length to get to the ball, almost taking the goalpost down with him!

At around the half hour mark the strangely impressive Arshavin managed to skip past a few challenges, including a cracker from “I’m No Angel” Rangel that could have only been described as attempted assault, and slip a lovely pass into Van Persie leaving him the choice of only the keeper to beat or a simple pass to Walcott to get the job done. Robin chose to not lob the keeper and not pass to Theo whilst Theo chose to look at Robin like he better keep a good close eye on his secret Dutch biscuit stash for a while at least!

5 minutes later Mertesacker decided he too wanted to impress. Throwing himself, last-ditch Tony Adams-style, in front of Sinclair when it looked like we may have a serious problem from a set piece, he pulled off not only a great block but also showed exactly why he is quite so highly thought of, not only a great defender but a gutsy performer too.

The next five minutes or so were typically nail-biting stuff for us Gooners. Swansea weren’t really creating a great deal, but we didn’t have the ball very much and, well, you know how that tends to go! They knock it around for a while, pick up a couple of corners and a free kick and, wham, bam, thank you ma’am, we are 1-0 down through some sloppy defending from a set piece. Well, that may have been true on another day but not today as, on 40 minutes, the still strangely impressive Arshavin (somewhere along the way I am pretty sure that I caught him covering for Frimpong and actually putting in a fine sliding tackle, but I may have dozed off for a second there!) actually scored a really, proper, meaningful goal in an Arsenal shirt!

This was a goal straight out of the Andre Arshavin School of Advanced Footballing Lunacy too. Vorm tries to roll the ball out and somehow manages to throw it at the back of Rangel’s foot and the ball falls to Arshavin. So, looking at an almost impossibly tight angle and with a list of other options all appearing to be far simpler and far more likely to be productive, what does he do? That right, he smashes the ball, first time, inside the near post of the keeper and produces that moment of magic that only the most gifted and arrogant of players are even capable of! Quite simply a goal of the highest importance as, if the end of the season brings us even a single shiny glint in the cobweb strewn trophy cabinet, it will be hard to look back and say that the season didn’t kick off for us in that very moment.  The relief on the faces of everybody in the ground, including the players themselves, told a story of its own.

This by no means killed the game off as Swansea continued to look dangerous on the break, but the change in attitude of the team was easy to see and even easier to enjoy. Suddenly everybody wanted the ball, everybody wanted to try a killer ball and everybody wanted to do things the Arsenal Way again.

The second half brought about no changes from either side. Incredibly this was a disappointment to those who actually found the need to complain that we had bought all this experience and were just leaving it on the bench. Like I have said before, you can please some of the people, some of the time!

Anyway, almost as quickly as the fairly poor Atwell could blow his whistle to get us underway, Kieran Gibbs did his best to welcome Santos to the club and his position! Clearly demonstrating that he borrowed the Gael Clichy Offside Handbook in the summer, he contrived to play Rangel onside whilst also marking him, no mean feat let me tell you, but thankfully Kos, not having one of his better games as seems to be the norm without TV5 at his side, was on hand to head away the danger.

Benayoun got his first taste of the Arsenal faithful and, if I am brutally honest, looked out of touch with the rest of the team. That said, and considering that there was only about half an hour left on the clock and Swansea were not playing pushovers for anybody, I have seen worse debuts from players with far bigger reputations and far bigger price tags! In fact, I don’t think that Veron or Forlan EVER played that well for United!!!

Coquelin got 15 minutes and, I am sorry to say, entirely failed to impress any more than in previous outings and, future surprises aside, I am still wondering what all the fuss others make about him is actually about. Frimpong is clearly the answer to the question “Who is the obvious backup to Alex Song for the defensive midfield position at The Mighty Arsenal Football Club” for $500. That said, I remember seeing Chamakh play really quite well in an Arsenal shirt once but once again he gave us 10 minutes of absolutely nothing interesting at all today. Well, nothing if you don’t count being open in the box with a free header and failing miserably to put the ball either side of a stunned and stationary Vorm in the Swansea goal. He simply won’t get many better chances than that and every time he fails to convert them he seems to take a step further away from ever succeeding in doing it again. I have to say, having seen what he is/was capable of, I do feel a little sympathy for him. He is clearly desperately low on confidence and every run out he gets just seems to make it worse. All that aside, he does appear to be doing his best to engineer another free transfer!

Swansea managed to pull off a few hearts in mouths moments of their own and credit must go to them for never giving up which, in reality, will be a necessity if they are to have any real chance of repeating their visit to the Emirates next season. The ever busy Sinclair cracking a great free kick against the bar on around 50 minutes which certainly got a few nerves racked and it was Sinclair again almost unlocking the defence in the 92^nd minute with a mazy run only to find Sagna ready to throw himself in the way in a “none shall pass” style. A minute later and with a matter of seconds to play, Graham managed to miss a candidate for “Sitter of the Season” in the 93^rd minute when, from about 2 feet out, he hammered the ball over the bar when a tap-in would have probably done the job.

In all fairness though, it would have been very harsh had either of those efforts gone in after Robin could well have gone home with the match ball, Theo should have probably bagged a couple and Ramsey will still be wondering how he didn’t manage to put us in front in the opening moments. All in all, we played a reasonable game at the back with a couple of shaky moments, a very good game in midfield with a lot of possession and some great work from Arshavin and Arteta and a fairly poor game in the final third. That is not to say that we are back to our old tricks again already as this was more profligacy than the inability to create any goal scoring chances regardless of possession. On another day it could well have ended 6-2, but it didn’t; it ended our dismal start to the premiership season, it blooded 3 of our 5 new players, it gave us a much nicer feeling than the one we have been carrying around with us for the past couple of weeks and will undoubtedly have lifted a few spirits in the dressing room and around the club along the way.

So, we could have had killed the game off by half time, we would have thrown a goal or two their way from set pieces alone and we should have had about 6 goals by the end of the match.

But this is the Arsenal, home of doing it the hard way. So what I should have said was…

We could have been forgiven for being a little nervous prior to kick off after recent events, we would have taken three points and a 1-0 to the Arsenal prior to kick off and we should have planned for nothing more than a home win, pretty or not.

3 points finally in the bag, a bit of a lift all round, no injuries and a run out for 3 of our 5 shiny new acquisitions…

I’ll take that all day long!

Before I leave I have t mention the home support today. A quite incredible performance by them may well have been the thing that kept us going in those dying moments, maybe even providing the convincing proof, were any needed, for the likes of Sagna to throw himself in front of the ball to ensure those three points went on record as being ours. Truly the twelfth man today and a joy to hear.

Until Dortmund, Well Done You Goooonnnneeerrrrssss!!!

Lost

Ok, so the title isn’t too imaginative, but let’s be totally honest, we did lose, we looked lost on the pitch and we appear more and more lost as a club.

I am sure that you all saw the “game”, but a quick recap should get us all on the same page. I think that we can literally do this by the numbers:

8-2 – That was the final score today at The Theatre of Dreams.

Ok, I know how much fun it is to call it “The Theatre of Debts”, but I am actually going to pay a far superior, far more willing, far more cunning, far more organised and far more talented Manchester United side the minimum respect of actually using their correct and full names. Maybe it will be just for today, but they have earned my respect with their performance. Anyway, whilst we enjoy nothing more than having a good laugh at them roaming around winning trophies and titles, the following two sets of numbers may actually tell a rather important tale:

18.3, 16.5, 16 – This is how much United have spent on players this transfer window, depending on which sources you believe.

1.1, 4, 7, 34, 25 – This is how much Arsenal has reportedly recouped in the transfer window.

This means that United have spent 50.8m on players whilst we have sold 68.1m. If they are a “spending club” that surely, beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt, must render us a “selling club”.

28, 22, 42, 64, 67, 70, 82, 90 – Those were the times of the goals for Manchester United. The exact moments where we contrived to allow them the courtesy of recording the heaviest league defeat of our fine club since the “bad old days” of 1896 and the very same moments when they gladly, ruthlessly, joyfully accepted our kindness.

45, 74 – Those were the times when we showed that, once we could actually get the ball to either the wasted on the wings Walcott or RVP, we could actually appear slightly dangerous.

27 – That was when our frankly nervous looking captain scuffed the ball from the penalty spot – gifting the fairly ordinary looking De Gea a penalty save to add to his scrapbook of footballing memories – choosing to take a run up that started closer to the touchline than the goal and never looking like he wanted the ball in the first place.

77 – That was when Carl Jenkinson got the obligatory “red card for the new boy” that all Arsenal players strive so hard to get in their first game or three. Surely this means that he is simply a Gooner legend in the making? After his performance today, an appeal has been lodged and the jury is back out. Udinese and Manchester United proved to be two totally different prospects after all.

More numbers? Ok, let’s try these for size…

253 & 260 – Notice anything odd about these numbers? No? Well you should because those are the total ages of the two teams that started the match. Yes, that’s rights folks, even without the injured “experienced veterans” Song, Gervinho, Vermaelan and Sagna, (23, 24, 25 and 28) our frighteningly young team got thrashed 8-2, and damned well thrashed they were, by a YOUNGER TEAM.

So, excuse Number 1 in the Arsene handbook of excuses goes right out of the window never to return, one assumes.

I for one am glad. Honestly, I am sick and tired of hearing about experience or lack of it, it confuses the issue and, when push came to shove, we got shoved.

So what actually went wrong? Well, the following is my opinion and mine alone. I do not ask for your confirmation and equally I do not ask for your condemnation. This is a game of opinions after all!

Traore is not ever going to be a great left back, defend, track back, mark or get organised appear to be a little out of reach for him. The trouble starts when you realise that he cannot actually beat his man, either with the ball or just for pace alone, and he cannot cross it either. Whilst not being able to cross a ball has been a basic requirement of Arsenal full backs for some years now, it isn’t enough to convince me that he should be anywhere near our squad, let alone the ONLY back up to the injury prone Gibbs who, let’s be fair, isn’t exactly showering himself in glory when he DOES get out of the treatment room.

Coquelin played today and, quite honestly, showed why he does not appear to be in the short term plans of Arsene. I am aware that there are others who claim that he is better than Frimpong, almost as good as Song, ready for a taste of first team action, but today was not that day and certainly proved as such. In his defence (about the only effective defence Arsenal had all day) he should not have even been needed to play after the warning signs of about 4 seasons ago showed us the desperate need for a couple of top class centre backs. Had we had one of those at least, we could have thought about playing Djourou in the DM position saving Coquelin from walking into his debut shirt and out onto the killing field.

Arshavin is going backwards. His pace left him and he looked simply dreadful for it. Now he appears a little leaner, a little fitter and a little faster again and, guess what, we have the old Arshavin back again. No, not the Arshavin clone that turned up against Liverpool, the Arshavin that runs into blind alleys, refuses to pass the ball, can’t shoot and can’t track back. Quite frankly he was lucky to even be on the pitch after his assault on Young came quite so soon after his high and late effort on Phil Jones had already earned him a well deserved yellow.

Ramsey is looking like a player not yet ready to take on this level of responsibility. When Vieira left we wondered how we would cope, but a little Spaniard showed that boys can be men and stepped up to the plate. Ramsey clearly is not of the same mentality as Cesc and I genuinely believe that we are risking his confidence in the longer term by continuing to play him in such an important role.

Rosicky, oh dear, Rosicky. I love Tomas Rosicky, let’s make that clear. A fabulous player on his day but that day may well have gone down sluices of the treatment room. I feared that playing the full 45 minutes against Udinese and then asking him to play at Old Trafford so soon afterwards may be a step too far. I did question whether or not this may be the case in my previous article, although I am bitterly disappointed to have been proven correct.

Now, there are those that will point to the injuries and suspensions list – Gibbs, Sagna, Vermaelan, Song, Gervinho, Frimpong, Diaby, even Bendtner if you like, but in reality the majority of them would not get in the Manchester United side. Seriously, Vermaelan and Sagna would almost certainly get some games as squad players, but I do not see their Manchester United counterparts getting dislodged by either of them…And they are the BEST of what we had missing.

I am not calling for the heads of any of our players as such; I am simply saying that looking at whether or not we have sufficient cover for them is NOT going to solve the problems. We need players that are going to COMPETE with them. For example, Traore cannot push Gibbs to perform better under threat of losing his place. This is true all over the team.

Similarly, I am not going to call for the head of Wenger, the buying out of Stan or even the return of David Dein. These are not the solutions that we need- What we need is better quality, more experienced winners to push the youngsters along and help get us some dearly needed stability and points in the meantime.

What I and many other Arsenal fans like me ARE calling for is some common sense and less BS. The quality players ARE out there, the need IS there, the squad is NOT so young and inexperienced that we should expect less of them and the experience being gained by those young players right now is NOT invaluable.

And that my friends, is exactly what I have been working my way towards throughout this missive. These youngsters have been getting their souls and their hearts broken year in, year out, tournament in, tournament out, and, aside from an average Italian side that it appears we may well have helped to look better than they really were, right now week in, week out. Does ANYBODY think that is good for the development of a young player? Seriously, can it be helping any of their careers to be on the end of an 8-2 trouncing, the worst defeat in more than a century of league football? They are in the Arsenal history books now, and for all the wrong reasons.

Yes, we have Jack to come back, but why is he out? Apparently and unsurprisingly, he was overplayed last season. So, even when he comes back, are we going to ask him play 50-60 games this season? It would not make a lot of sense to do so, so where is the backup? I don’t mean playing Song AND Frimpong either, I mean REAL backup. I am talking about a first class central midfielder with the ability to pass the ball and tackle hard. All the top class leagues in Europe alone and we seriously, with over 100m to spend, cannot find ONE?!

That Juan Mata chap looked ok yesterday it has to be said. Weren’t we linked with him?! Oh yes, that’s right, we were waiting until we lost our best player and captain and a little French muppet BEFORE buying in a replacement.

Wesley Sneijder would have been a perfect fit in my opinion but the wages cap seems to have put paid to that. That would be the very same wages cap that seems entirely responsible for the loss of Clichy, Na$ri and to a certain degree, Fabregas. I have it from a reliable source that Wenger wanted to offer him 120k a week and the board turned down his request.

And that, in essence, is what I believe is wrong with our fine club right now. We are reactive and not proactive. We are looking for the replacements after we lose the player, not before. We have a wages cap that literally stops us from being able to compete. I know, I know, it is a business and we don’t have a sugar daddy, but we do have a painfully large amount of money in the bank and have taken a large chunk off of the wages bill. Surely there is room for a little movement from the board, or are we in the middle of an asset stripping session by Stan? Could it actually be that all the years of laughing at Manchester United and the Glaziers was just us ordering up our very own serving of just desserts? The Glaziers do not appear to be affecting Sir Alex Ferguson and his ability to buy great and fairly expensive players and they certainly do not appear to be sliding down the league table faster than Arshavin can waste good possession either!

There are already those fans out there claiming that this result will just give the “doomers” more ammunition. Guys, we got stuffed 8-2 today by a younger team and clearly much better team…

DAMN RIGHT IT GIVES THEM THE AMMUNITION.

Frankly, it holds the gun for them too.

Time to let them have their moment. Don’t worry, they will all have their broad grins and their singing voices when we win the Premier League and Champions League double this season…

…or maybe, just maybe, they have a point.

Anyway, to finish up, this was what Arsene said after the game:

“No (I will not quit). Of course it hurts. It’s humiliating. But you could see we had not recovered physically from Wednesday. They had class and they punished us. I know that in England when you lose a game signings are always the solution. We had eight players out today. You feel always humiliated when you concede eight goals. It was a terrible day for us. Man United had class but every single shot in the first half went in.”

To which I would offer these responses:

4 of the players that started on Wednesday were not available today so that is 4 fully fresh players you had in the side. Is it our fault that the replacements that we have aren’t good enough (yet?) to play n the Premier League?

Not recovered from Wednesday is a result of not buying the players that we so obviously needed last year and thus inviting the inevitable end of season collapse that required us to play on Wednesday in the first place.

Of the 8 players we had out today, how many would actually be first team choices? Sagna, Vermaelan, Song, Gervinho and Wilshere. Two of those are out suspended and we have had three red cards in three league games so maybe it would be a good idea to try and instill a little discipline in the side?!

Manchester United did see a lot of their shots on target today, but surely that is the inevitable result of giving away a free kick on the edge of the penalty area just about every single time they attacked! Again, some discipline is clearly required. Maybe having somebody experienced enough in defence to know that you simply cannot go flying into every single tackle, especially in and around the box might help!

As for feeling humiliated, I do not even want to get started on that one. And I won’t. Because this has gone on for far too long already!

So, until the next time when we will have filled at least three key positions on the pitch and everything will look rosy again.

Ooh to be a Gooner!

 

Tough test awaits, Udinese no walk in the park

Just few hours from now could really define our season in a nutshell. It hasn’t been a great week for us has it now? It hasn’t been a great summer full stop. Loosing at the weekend has not helped one bit to be honest with you. We saw the last of Nasri then, today he is checking house prices somewhere up north but more on that later.

Tonight we take on Udinese in MASSIVE second leg of our Champions League qualifier to the group stages. We hold a lead which is a slender lead but still gives us that little bit of advantage. In ideal world I would like to go there with a three goal lead and a squad full of world class players, however we all know  that both of these options are somewhat a bit of a fairy tale. In fact our team sheet just got weaker, we finally got rid of Nasri who for me was the only player who could do anything against Liverpool on Saturday and young Jack is now facing a setback on his ankle problem. The only good news for tonight is that Djourou, Traore, Gervinho, Rosicky, Song and Frimpong are back in the squad following injuries and suspensions. Despite our team being paper thin both on paper and on the pitch to me that’s a great boost from Saturday. Frimpong gave us a glance of what a player he could be for us and as much as his inexperience let him down, we definitely have a player with Arsenal DNA in him.

We will need to keep it really tight especially in the middle as this area is mostly weakened we all know what Udinese are capable of, we all saw what they can do at The Grove a week ago. There were moments of scare in the first leg and I’m convinced they will give us even a sterner test at their home turf. They are a decent side who can break on the counter attack in an instant so positioning discipline is a must, Song  please don’t go charging forward like a headless chicken and expose rather inexperienced Frimpong.

We need to be on top of our game in all areas in order for us to progress to the group stages, best way is to score an away goal and I really trust us to do just that. The away goal will mean a great deal to us and hopefully will be enough to see us through this tough fixture. Not sure who Arsene will send out tonight but I would go with this selection to start with:

You could possibly argue this line up because it would also be interesting to play Arshavin instead of Walcott and let’s be honest he has tons more experience in European Cup games, on top of that Arshavin will never last 90 minutes so Theo could be used here as a super substitute. Theo comes on quick counter attack, scores a second goal and we are through. Sounds so simple and I know for a fact it won’t be that easy, either way let’s get behind the lads wherever you are.

So Nasri is officially gone, it’s a real shame I liked him as player and I thought he had loads of talent that would blossom under Wenger, however yet again the modern footballer goes for money rather than pride and history, there isn’t a great deal to add what Arsene said:

“We did not want to lose Fabregas, but we were forced into a situation we didn’t want. Nasri is a situation where the player didn’t want to extend his contract with the proposals he had somewhere else. What kind of commitment can you have when the player is not there long-term? That is the question you have to answer.”

Fair play I haven’t got any complaints about him leaving he was after more money after all, neither do I have complaints about Cesc leaving too (being homesick and all that). I do however question how the club has approached this summer transfer window knowing that we will require high quality replacements for the players we have sold. We are a week away before transfer window will shut firmly in our faces and at this very moment it doesn’t look like there is going to be enough time to sign anyone decent. I believe a great deal will depend on the result tonight, we all know quality players want to play in Champions League, so this game could certainly define our season.

I don’t even want to think what will happen if we fail to qualify (rather scary thought), not only we will loose on £25 million from the competition, we may also miss out on any potential new signings. I sincerely hope that once we get through to group stages Arsene and The Board will work overtime to sign suitable players to strengthen areas in our squad that have been depleted by those players who have now left the club. The only way to strengthen, is to buy top quality players and I’m hoping we will not be let down by the club with so little time left on the clock.

I will leave it on that note, I have been very annoyed with the way the transfer window has been dealt with, it has been simply unacceptable for a club like Arsenal. On the positive side let’s look forward to the game tonight and get behind what we have for now.

Come on ARSENAL!

Dig deep, bring home those precious three points!

There is not a lot you can add to the title of this post, it’s an absolute must for us to bring home maximum points later on this afternoon. Last three weeks have not been great for us, infact we only managed a draw at home against Sunderland which to me was certainly opportunity missed to get even closer to the Mancs.

No point to dwell on those disappointments now, I suppose,  time to move on we can still challenge for the Premier League tittle so let’s give it our best shot. Injuries are piling up again Abou Diaby will now miss the game with a groin strain which he probably sustained during training, they reckon it’s only short term and it’s a matter of days. Diaby is definitely not having a good season, he failed to impress so far and is out injured again. So it looks like Denilson will play alongside Wilshere. Denilson in definitely not a defensive midfielder we all know that but he hasn’t played a lot of games this season so let’s get behind him even though he hasn’t been that great, perhaps he needs playing time to improve, he certainly doesn’t look like the player from last season. We will definitely miss our backbone of Cesc, Song, Djourou and Walcott but I honestly belive that we have enough in the tank to beat The Baggies and make up for what happened at The Emirates earlier in the season.

I would like for Nasri to start in the middle this time around, he seems less effective on the left, Bendtner out wide with Van Persie in the middle and Arshavin on the right. With this selection Wilshere and Denilson behind Nasri. With Djourou out Squilliaci will pair Koscienly at the center of our defence so it looks like a complete French outlet there with Sanga and Clichy on the flanks.

Baggies will try their best to gain points themselves they are certainly not safe yet, there are two points away from relegation zone, so they will give us a game no doubt. I’m confident though that with our quality we can take all three points and keep our title run very much alive. We know we can go level on points with Man U and hopefully for a change we can take this opportinty and use it to our advantage.

We need to dig deep, no room for error and complacancy, every Priemier Lague game becomes a Cup game now.  I would like to sit down later on tonight with a smile on my face, knowing that we are still strongly in the title race. I’m sure the away fans will get behind whoever runs out onto that pitch in few hours time as always they have been really great this season, hats off to them.  I’ll be doing my bit from home, so let’s get beihind them all and hope for we can bring those prercious three points back home.

COME ON YOU REDS…!!!

Mason made a meal but We had dessert in the end

By the end of first half last night I was livid, worse if I could I would be screaming at the top of my lungs calling Mason all sort of names which I did in my head anyway. It had to be quiet my little Gooner was already asleep upstairs. Not only his fellow colleague linesman made the wrong call when Saha was miles offside and gave the goal he also failed to notice how Everton stopped us from playing at every opportunity.

Now there are some mixed conclusions that Saha’s goal was either Onside and Offside. Let me point this out because this is the most important rule of them all and Saha at the time of the pass was clearly Offside. If this rule meant anything the linesman he should have flagged him Offside simple as that. It doesn’t mean shit if Koscielny touched the ball in any way as it certainly wasn’t a back pass to the keeper. This is obviously my opinion on the matter yours may differ in many ways.

What made me cringe even more was the fact that his ignorance to fouls committed by Everton was beyond belief. Jack got yellow for something that would never stand a chance of getting a yellow, Cesc was held by Rodwell a foul given no card, this was a tactical foul and surely deserved a yellow. Walcott elbowed by Arteta not even a foul given, Rosicky fouls straight yellow, Heitinga holding onto RVP foul given but no card and finally Fellaini stamping on Walcott off the ball was just an icing on top. Not only he ignored these he also never gave any advantage of play, I sensed he had definitely something against us and it felt as if corruption had something to do with this as well. It’s not for the first time Mason’s decisions were truly incompetent for a Premier League referee, clearly there is massive problem with referees these days and something needs to be done about it sooner rather than later. We can talk about this all day if we want to, we all know nothing will change anytime soon, as usual it will be brushed under the carpet.

Enough about those twisted individuals, we didn’t really had a good first half did we now? Passing was a bit sloppy and our penetration was no way near good enough for our standards, it took us sometime to find our stride and before you know, we were one nil down. Even our Captain admitted it was not good enough:

“It was a very testing game because we started losing, we didn’t start the game well at all, I think we were very very sloppy, we were not up for it since first minute”

“At that stage we can pay for it but fortunately the team stepped up in the second half, we realised that if we kept playing like that we were going nowhere, I think we did very well”

There’s not a great deal you can add to what Cesc said, I agree with his honest view of the game especially first half we looked as we had too much respect for Everton and allowed to play in our back yard. It backfired but we came on top in the second half. Our attitude, desire and hard work paid off as we produced the goods required to stay in the title race.

It was very good to see Arshavin getting goal, even though he did not celebrate putting us on level terms he did make up for it when Koscielny completely unmarked put us in front with a very decent header, great cross by Van Persie by the way. Credit to the lads they did us proud in every way, they worked hard for this victory and deserve their praise for an outstanding comeback. Looks like our little Meerkat is back, we all know he’s capable of great things and there is no better time for him to come back to his best in the absence of Nasri for the next three weeks.

I’m hoping Alex Song is not too badly injured, Arsene in his Press Conference said he couldn’t walk and that is rather worrying, hopefully he will recover in time for another tough fixture up north. Walcott also joins the medical treatment room, he has a ankle problem and wonder why, we all saw what happened at the end of the game last night.

I’m not too sure what Fabregas said to the fourth official at half time but it’s about time Cesc got to their faces, everyone else does it every week, at least he doesn’t go stamping on the ground like a 5 year old Rooney! He’s our Captain and he has the right to complain and question incorrect decisions. Moyes can say all he likes, he obviously had nothing else to say to defend his players, he just made himself look like a right twat!

I was going to finish on the high however I have just come across some bad news, it looks like Fabby will be out for the rest of the season. He just got back from Germany where underwent medical consultation to his injured shoulder. These proved to be not good and it looks like he will definitely need to undergo surgery. With Wojtek our current number one it’s probably a good thing that Almunia stayed at the club.

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