Today we take the pitch against Cologne in our last pre season friendly. Arsene’s pre season routine has been upset by the tour of the Far East and the games played there excluded a number of first teamers and most importantly our new signings were left at home to settle in to London life, and find their way around London Colney.

The games in Asia came early in our pre season preparation, clearly we were not match fit, and the games were used as part of the pre season training regime.

The trip meant the cancellation of the Emirates Cup and so we are left with one game to show where we are before the start of the new Premier League campaign.

I have no idea how we will start today, and I don’t think Raddy will be any the wiser come next Saturday for the real kick off against Sunderland. Thats good for two reasons:

1) It demonstrates a new strength in depth.
2) Our opponents will not have a clue either.

I guess the big question is will van Persie feature, my guess is he won’t want to, but Wenger might just make him. If van Persie refuses or plays without commitment it will make it clear to us whether we should keep him or not.

The defence pretty much picks itself when Sagna is fit, but I think today we will see a half each at right back from Jenkinson and Coquelin, for me I hope it’s Jenkinson.

The midfield three of Arteta, Song and Cazorla again picks itself.

It is up front where the questions are asked, any three of Walcott, Podolkski, Giroud, Gervinho, van Persie and Oxlande-Chamberlain could start, and it wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility for Arshavin to feature at some point.

This is the final assessment of the team before next Saturday but we should remember it is still a pre season, anything that happens today does not set the tone for the rest of the season, unless of course its a 10-0 win and then I will be rushing down to my local Bookies to put £100 on Arsenal to win the title.

I might just do that anyway as the squad is looking talented and has an experience to it that we have not seen for sometime. I never had an issue with the youngsters we signed and played but there were times where I worried that they were learning off each other and that meant they were going to suffer in their development, the arrival of Arteta, Santos and BFG brought an experience to the squad, this has been added to further by the arrivals of Podolski and Cazorla. These older players who have seen a lot more in football can help the youngsters and bring more responsibility to the team (and also remind them just how lucky they are to turn up at a club with the facilities of Arsenal).

Enjoy the game.

(PS Thanks for the title Chas)

Written by Gooner in Exile

And here are the thoughts of oz gunner who also had a great title 🙂

RVP’s attitude stinks but we’ve got Cologne

Today we play our last pre-season friendly, and all I can say is…about bloody time. It’s as though the off season gets longer and longer. Will he sign or won’t he? Will RVP be here for the start of the season or is he off to Man United/City/Juve/whoever will pay his high demands? Song to Barca or just his agent trying to get him a new bumper deal? I for one am sick of it. Let’s play some football!

I’m not too sure what to expect from today’s game and whether or not we can take much from the starting line-up. I think Arsenal will keep his cards to his chest and use it as one last chance to get some run in to player’s legs. I can’t wait to see Giroud, Podolski, and Santi get a run out and just what they are going to bring to the team. I’d like to see Gnabry and Eisfeld continue with their emergence and get a little game time because both have come with big wraps this pre-season.

How or what involvement RVP has on the game could answer a few more questions. If he sits on the bench for most/all of the match I think we will all start to think it’s a bit like the Cesc scenario, with us protecting him for potential buyers. Personally I think we hold all the cards in this. Man United can’t come up with more money (it’s just all masking their terrible share price drop and keeping the fans of their backs), so he will have to have a blinder of a year otherwise teams won’t be willing to hand over the money for his wages next season. Here’s hoping he has a change of mind and re-signs mid-year and we win it all.

Anyway let’s all enjoy the run out.

Prediction: 0-3 We will be too strong for the division two team

Written by oz gunner

The laws of football evolve slowly. Very slowly. Almost at a glacial pace. But watching various sports in this lovely (if wet) summer of Olympics on our doorstep shows how other sports develop and innovate, to preserve and develop the qualities and challenges of that sport. That begs the question: what rule changes could football adopt that would improve it?

The guardians of the rules of the game are the eight members of FIFA’s International Football Association Board. Half of those members are from FIFA itself, the other half from each of the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish FAs – this is one of the privileges afforded to the Brits in recognition of having codified and developed the game more than 100 years ago. Personally, I think that structure should be ditched but that’s not relevant right now.

As a preliminary point, I’m not going to say much about goal-line technology. The case for it at the elite level of football is obvious, and the IFAB and Blatter finally realised that they just had to accept it. The only issue now is working out the most suitable technology. But beyond goal-line technology, what could improve the game?  Here are my thoughts:

Sin-binning:

Field hockey does it. Ice hockey does it. Handball does it. Both forms of rugby do it. So why not football? How often do we see a soft yellow card awarded and a little while later for there to be another incident, perhaps more deserving of a yellow than the first, but which means the referee has a dilemma; should a second yellow be given, with the consequence that the player and his team would suffer the disproportionate punishment of losing a player for the rest of the game? Or should the incident be ignored, despite it meriting punishment beyond a free-kick? Then there are the cynical offences, where a player takes a yellow for the team, knowing that there is no real consequence for illegitimately blocking an attack, tripping an opponent etc. And what about all the abuse handed out by players to each other and referees? Referees seem to feel helpless in the face of the tirades of expletive-laced whinging, obviously fearing that in applying the rules literally they would make matches a farce.

The answer to all of these problems and more is obvious: have a sin-bin, so that players can be appropriately punished; a bit like Goldilocks’ porridge, the punishment needs to be not too much, not too little, it needs to be just right. And removing players for five, ten or fifteen minutes would seem to do the trick.

The IFAB looked at sin-bins in 2009, but rejected the idea, without deigning to explain the reasons. The reason for the rejection might have had something to do with their quaint obsession with having a single body of rules that applies at levels of the game, with a view that sin-bins wouldn’t work on Hackney Marshes etc. That seems to be changing with the goal-line technology debate, so perhaps the IFAB will eventually get round to looking again at sin-bins.

Changing the throw-in:

Any Orcs reading this will be laughing at this point: typical whining southerner, complaining about Rory Delap’s missiles. In fact, I don’t criticise Delap or Pulis, they were just clever enough to spot a way of exploiting a weakness in the rules. But those missiles should not have a place in football. They are a device to get around what the game is actually about, i.e. controlling and using the ball without the use of hands. And they are based on an idea of creating chaos and feeding off the opportunities that come from that chaos. I don’t see that as being something that should be encouraged.

So how about changing the throw-in action, to make it harder to launch missiles? Instead of the thrower getting the leverage of taking a run-up and taking the ball all the way behind his head, make it done from a standing position and with the hands going no further back than the top of the thrower’s head. That way the thrower’s range will be much more limited, and it would encourage real football.

Reform indirect free-kicks:

Isn’t it annoying when a rapid attack is ended by a defender’s foul, the net result of which is that the offending defenders get the chance to regroup while the attacking team gather for the indirect free-kick? Why should the team that has had a player fouled be the one that loses the advantage?

I reckon football should follow hockey, which a few years ago allowed a player taking a free-hit to pass to himself. That means that player can immediately drive into space, since he doesn’t need to wait for his teammates to gather. Opponents that are within five metres can’t challenge or get in the way of the player that has taken the free-hit in that way, else they get sin-binned. This gives the team that has been fouled a real advantage; it creates chances to exploit space to greatest effect. It also means that there’s less complaining at referees, since the priority for the fouling team is to get into defensive position before the opponent drives into space.

Those are my suggestions. Do you have other ideas for improving the game, whether taken from other sports or not?

Written by 26may

One of the most difficult things for Arsène Wenger over the last couple of seasons has been looking over at his bench and asking himself just who he could bring on to change the game.

To be fair to Arsène this wasn’t a problem in the early days of his reign he had a first eleven so much better than the rest of the Premier League that when he turned to his bench he was looking to give a rest to the players who had already put the game out of sight.

In the last few seasons as the rest of the Premier League has improved and teams have adapted their game to keep Arsenal at bay he has needed a bench to change the game. Unfortunately due to injuries, want away homesick players, greedy mercenaries and a very tight budget from the Board Arsène  has only been able to look round and see a mixture of youngsters or capable squad players, and none that could be seen as a gamebreaker. Admittedly over the early winter months he could look across to see Thierry and Arshavin and hope they could provide something.

Obviously not every player on the bench is there to change the game, you need one keeper, one defender and maybe two utility players. But then you still have three berths, and unfortunately for the majority of last season we had nothing different sitting on the bench than was already on the pitch, they just had slightly fresher legs (unless the legs belonged to a short Russian) . We had a lot of carbon copies, or players out of form, or players who were not as good as those starting the game. In truth most of the bench was there to only be broken in case of emergency.

But what about this coming season, have the transfers done so far plus the players returning from injury given us anymore from the bench? Whether we lose Van Persie or not the signings we have made already and the further development of the younger players means that Arsène will be able to turn to his bench and actually see players that can change the game, or offer something different to those already on the pitch.

In midfield we will be able to choose a starting three from Arteta, Rosicky, Ramsey, Song, Wilshere, Coquelin, Frimpong, Diaby and maybe Eisfield too.

Up front we will have a starting three from Podolski, Giroud, Gervinho, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Afobe, Miyaichi and maybe even Van Persie and Arshavin.

If we start Podolski, Giroud and Walcott up front Arsène can look over and decide more pace is needed so send on Ryo or Gervinho, or more shots from distance, chuck on Ox.

The same in midfield if starting, Song, Arteta and Rosicky, Arsène can stick Coquelin on for Rosicky if he wants to keep possession, or swap out Arteta for Frimpong if he wants some high energy and to get in the opposition faces, or even put Diaby on for Rosicky if he wants to make another substitution in the next ten minutes.

Even though we have only added a couple of players to the squad so far (if reports are to believed this will be a few players by the time you read this) we seem to have the bench to make Arsène’s life a little easier when he is looking to change the game.

So what do you think, does our bench look better this year than last?

Gooner in Exile