Written by Harry

Right everyone, stick with me, a bit of a ramble, Peaches collared me late last night…..

Yesterday, Arsene Wenger staunchly defended his team, his players, his beliefs, the season, something he certainly didn’t do on Saturday after the lacklustre display against Blackburn…..

Wenger really came out fighting, throwing several verbal right hooks, taking no prisoners, no quarter given, well if the players show half of that spirit on Sunday, at least we will give them a game…..Sometimes that is all we ask…..

Wenger was quoted as saying   “Personally, I am very proud of the attitude, the behaviour and the quality of our season. I will defend that until the end. It is important that we finish as well as we can and the quality of the team is linked with the mental attitude that we have and how much you are ready to fight until the end of the season.”

So what is success?

According to Wenger, “It is getting the best out of what is available, fight to the end to beat United to the title”

Success and failure are states of the mind that can limit our physical and more notably mental boundaries, if success is seen as the final goal, and then surely as we get that feeling, we will not grow and show further improvement?

You have technically three states of play in our desire to be the best in what we do and try and achieve, we can either grow and improve, you can plateau and become stale or you can regress and wither……..

So for each step forward, an improvement no matter how little, can be seen technically as a milestone of success in your long term goal of growing to be the best…..?

Now “if” we do claim 2^nd place, its an improvement on last season, so therefore, it can be deemed a success, but many fans will not see that and many will not accept that, Wenger will claim it as a success though……..

Although It could be more than reasonably argued that we have regressed far from 2004, the heights were reached and we all dreamed of total domination, to have that truly glorious era reminiscent of United in the 90’s or Liverpool in the 80’s…..

But was that level of success the pinnacle that couldn’t be bettered? Success that had not been equaled in the previous 100years!!, have we withered and become stale or did Wenger meddle too much in what we had, why did it break up, so quickly……?

It does happen though, it’s cyclic, every great team withers in the end, some last 1 year others 6 maybe 7 years, but no team has ever dominated continually, why do the teams that dominate with great players and managers not sustain this level?………..

We had a glorious period in the 30’s, not sure any of our regulars will remember that?

“Wee Alex James with the FA Cup in 1936……the Arshavin of his day……..”

Back to my ramble, stick with it……..

The influx of foreign investors has warped much of the natural balance of the premiership as un-fancied teams with little or no history, have had dramatic improvements, which then affects their competitors, who don’t invest to that level, due to varying reasons…

So are we right to have such high expectations? Well we have a personal right to set our expectations to what ever level we want, but realistically we should not set our goals so high and raise the belief too high, the fall is often painful and pride will often be damaged…..

Every 2 years England painfully demonstrate this, most recently South Africa was truly painful, but did England fans wrongly set their expectations too high?

But we all argue Arsenal are so close, we all see our limitations so why doesn’t our wise manager who has managed over 1500 games which he pointed out to the mass media….

The margin is so fine; success and failure as much as they are opposites are just so similar in that they can follow each other so quickly in today’s unforgiving society…….

Look at the example this season of the Newcastle Away game, at half time we were on fire, Arsenal fans were on a high, 45minutes later, our worlds had caved in, that was a mighty fall, too quick, for me this is where our mental block really took hold of our young side, we haven’t recovered fully……

Wenger was quoted “You are judged only on your last game. We live in a society where everybody has an opinion and very few people do something. We have to act and we want to be judged on our actions.

“For the rest, our society lives at the moment only on opinion. I have grown up by judging people on what they do, not what they say. We want to be judged on Sunday on what we do, that means a good performance.”

And he is right in so many ways, say Fulham tip up at United on Saturday and bag a draw, then we put 6 past Blackpool again, then the following week, we shoot down the Scousers, the following day sees United getting turned over at St James Park, we would be only 2 points behind and then expectations would rise exponentially again……

Funnily enough I was looking back at old articles I had wrote for other sites and I found an article with this final paragraph…..

Quote from Harry: 7 April 2007

“So in my opinion the end is not near for Wenger, but time is running short, 1 or 2 seasons max is what is left for him to succeed with this squad, he deserves that much time, what do you all think?”

So where does that leave me? I gave him 2 seasons, 4 years ago!! I am frustrated, hurt and in deep despair.  But I will give him these 8 games, support them to the season ends and see what happens.

Well we all have our own expectations, Wenger has his beliefs, but ultimately all will be measured by success. It all comes down to what success is for you?

Would you have swapped a place (by no means guaranteed yet) in next year’s champions league by finishing 5^th, for winning the Carling Cup? Or Would you prefer 2^nd place?A bit of a ramble, if your still with me, what are your expectations, what defines success for you?

And how long would you give Wenger or do you want a different type of manger?

Written by mickydidit89

Over the last day or two, I have been alluding to the latest of my brilliant ideas. The beauty about this one is that I have unearthed not only the cause of our troubles but also the solution. The other day Mike talked about Eto on RA’s excellent post about Wengerball, and between them, I thought they were going to steal my thunder.

Few could argue about the best to watch as well as most effective of Arsène’s teams. One immediately has images of Bobby, Freddy, DB10 and TH cutting loose in a swift, elegant, fluid, incisive and most importantly decisive move.

So, AW’s most perfect team, and not a whiff of 4-3-3. Then, along came a superb Barca team. Gradually, I believe AW became infatuated with their style. Everything about Barca appeared to gel with his beliefs about the beautiful game, the pedigree, and the style.

Now many of you may recall my call for “Thrust” but I am now going to add meat to that theory. I believe we are modelled on elements both the Ajax and Barca templates from a footballing standpoint as well as a structural environment. However, it is the footballing angle I want to focus on, and this brings me onto the Barca 4-3-3. I do believe the way Barca employ this system has served as Arsene’s inspiration. The question I am asking is: Which Barca Model.

I believe there are two.  I shall call  MK1 and  MK2.

How good are the present (Mk2)  Barca without the “Little Fella”? I say they would be alright, pretty to watch but lack end product and thrust. Great build up, lots of possession but lack the killer instinct. Oh and the attack lacks strength and above all explosive power.  Sounds familiar?  Now the day Arsene became obsessed with the 4-3-3 Barca (Mk1)  model, they were not reliant on one man. Their front three were very powerful and all had goals in them. Think Henry and Eto. Big, strong and immensely powerful front men, who along with young Messi, could move seamlessly anywhere along the front and each capable of scoring goals out of nothing.

The Invincibles shared many similar characteristics to the Mk1 Model. Think Eto and Henry with Messi the provider. Now think Bobby, Henry with DB10 the provider. Power, thrust and guile. Both set ups possessed that immense and explosive  power. Now consider the present Barca front three to our own. Again remarkably similar. A whole lot less power. The real difference is that the Catalans have Messi. He is now about 12 years old, a full three years more mature. I believe that without him the two teams would be on a par. The theory that one man a team doth not make is utter bollocks. Ask  Juve, Inter, and the AC players of the 80’s what they thought of the title winning Napoli side. Yip one man band. The other Little Fella. Let’s not forget that given Messi’s age, we are almost certainly witnessing the Worlds’ Greatest Ever Footballer.

So, in a nutshell, here’s how I see it. Arsène had the Invincibles, and he thought to himself: “This is very good. We are the Masters of the English Game. Now Europe. Look at Barca. They play 4-3-3 and it looks unbelievably sexy to me. We shall do the same. We shall recreate the Invincibles, only this time we will send them out three up top Europeany style, and they shall wear tutu’s”.

The problem is this. He has been deceived into thinking that the Messi and MK2 is a more evolved version of Messi and MK1. It is not. It is considerably less effective when confronted by powerful teams, versatile and well set up teams. The 4-3-3 without power lacks bite, and becomes very easy to nullify.. Ask Jose. Arsene is modelling our system on the Messi MK2 Barca and not the Messi MK1. They are very very different.

Some are calling for us to revert to the 4-4-2 in an attempt to recapture the winning formula of old, and I understand this, however, we should be able to play both systems. We cannot, at present, play either effectively, and nor I believe could Barca without their Argentine Maestro.

We are rapidly approaching the summer break and everything that entails regarding rethinking  personnel, tactics, formations and additions. I don’t believe the root of our troubles lies at the back. Our defensive record is not so bad (injuries in that department are). We need to address the Power Dimension of our game.

Do not be deceived by The Messi Effect. To the “Thrust” I feel we need to add “Power, Intensity”. Oh, and keep the Tutu’s naturally!

Written by Gooner in Exile

I read with interest Craig Bellamy’s comments before the England Wales game the other week. Although I don’t like the irritating little bugger I thought this quote may shine some light on our recent performances.

“Are England players scared? I remember Steven Gerrard, before playing Andorra, saying he didn’t want to give the ball away because he was afraid of the boos, that’s Steven Gerrard, one of the greatest players in the world over the past 10 years.”

Substitute Arsenal for England, Denilson for Steven Gerrard, and WBA for Andorra and he could be talking about the boys in Red and White.

I have been to a few games this season, and watched most of the rest on the box, and what have I noticed more than anything else, its the lack of flicks and tricks, something that is so prevalent in our game when confident has slowly ebbed away this season. When this current side was in their pomp you see moments of brilliance that bamboozle defences and create openings.

When did this stop, I personally can’t remember the last goal coming from a neat piece of skill providing the assist, it seems to have become about playing percentages, ball to feet, to feet, to feet, to feet, to feet wide and deliver to no one. What happened to the clever pass, the gamble. The problem with this type of percentage football, it is not going to be enough for us to break down a park the bus team of defenders.

The reaction of the fans in the ground to misplaced forward passes or any passes for that matter has become so negative that our players appear to have decided keeping possession is more important than going forward and taking risks. Rather than flicks they try and be precise with all passes as long as it keeps possession, as long as their not the culprit to concede possession. Against Blackburn on Saturday the amount of forward passes around the 18 yard box were counted on one hand. This in turn leads to what we have seen lately the slowing down of every attack to make sure someone is there to receive the ball to feet.

The groaning that greets nearly every misplaced pass will only prevent the pass from being tried again as the player, it even happened to Cesc when trying to lift it through to Van Persie, the groan went around the North Bank instantly. Surely we should have appreciated or encouraged the intent rather than bemoan that it didn’t get where he wanted it to.

Think back to the Barca game in the Nou Camp our defence stood firm for 44 minutes, and then for a further 30 minutes of the second half, in that time how many times did Xavi, Iniesta, or Messi have their moves break down battering against our defence. However they kept coming back and trying it again again and again. Were they disheartened? No, did you hear their fans groan, no they greeted every near miss, every close pass with oohs and aahs encouraging their players to do it again, making our lads feel like they had lived dangerously again, and that the pressure was building.

When Lee Dixon was once asked by another ex pro about his time under Wenger:

‘Was it true that Bergkamp was the only one allowed to be back to goal and go towards the ball and everyone else had to move forward?’

Dixon laughed and said “nothing of the sort, Wenger just told us to play without fear”.

Perhaps thats what needs to be re instilled into the team to play, for that to happen I think the supporters need to have to change the reaction to missed passes. Not every pass will be successful, but its about time we got off their backs and allowed them to play with the freedom and expression that has been so joyous to watch in the past. It won’t always come off but if they try it enough times it eventually will.

Some stats to leave you with.

Our most consistent passers:

Denilson 90.8% completion

Diaby 90.7% completion

Our worst outfield passer:

Arshavin 70.65% completion

Who has the most assists? Arshavin with eleven. The point is if we want our team to prove they are technically better than the rest of the Premier League we need to allow them the freedom to play, they need to be allowed to hit the occasional mis pass or be encouraged to try the impossible ball, because sometimes it works.

As a side note if you want to see the negative effect of the boo boys and groaners:

Denilson Stats

Pass completion:

2008/09 – 86%

2009/10 – 86%

2010/11 – 91%

Chances Created:

2008/09 – 35

2009/10 – 11

2010/11 – 1

And before anyone tells me that it is not the fans job to give these boys encouragement that the coaching team at Arsenal should be good enough to send them out confident ask youself this:

If you went to work today and your boss told you had a great day but on the way home a third of the people on the train told you you had been awful today, which one would affect you more?

Written by dandan

So three days of gloomy inquests have come and gone. It’s amazing how quickly hope turns to depression in the blogging world.

Leaving aside those sites that are used primarily by the doomers and verbal bovver boys to vent their spleen and whose anger is in many cases directed at clubs like the Arsenal. For them, it is simply a way to assuage the bile that chokes them, whilst they struggle to face the realities of a fast changing world they believe has no place for them.

Witness Rooney and his foul-mouthed rant at the cameras. He has everything that most young people could aspire to and yet still cannot handle the fires that consume him.

What chance then for those who really do have nothing, no job, no real role models, no hope or expectation of personal success?  Those supporters whose standing among their peers, associates and indeed life in general, is dependent on the bragging rights and reflected glory provided by the achievements of their chosen football team. Remove that success and the result, as we have seen, is predictable and inevitable.

But even beyond that, the contributors to respected mainstream sites of which ours is one, struggle to hide the anger and frustration that has come bubbling to the surface of our red and white world. That corner of every fan’s mind that is never far from his thoughts as he lives his daily life, among commitments to family, job and himself has taken over in a sort of collective disappointment that is thrashing around looking for a scapegoat.

We failed to win a football match on Saturday. No, worse than that, our heroes didn’t perform, they let us down. But did they? We all have bad days at the office, why not footballers? Do we expect those that support us to react so angrily when we have a bad day? No of course not, so why so hard on the team? Does the booing solve the problems? Does nagging solve yours?  Again I suspect not.

The clouds are lifting. Spurs have been well beaten by Real Madrid and the man who did the damage was ex gunner Adebayor. How that man loves scoring against the spuds. How they will hate the fact that he put them out of the CL barring a miracle. Will they finish in the top four this season or is that one appearance in the champions league in fifty years and out again?

Chelsea and Utd  have a very important first leg CL game tonight, they can’t both win. So one or the other is going to be feeling down by tomorrow. Will they raise themselves enough to bounce back for the weekend or maybe do an Arsenal and have an off day and re-open the title race? You see the imponderables have started again.

Football is like that, down one week, up the next. None of us knows what lies ahead, but the great guessing game keeps us fans  hooked and we will be back, pumped up again next week, next month, next season.

Ah!! Next season, not so far away is it? A new transfer window awaits. Fact and speculation will soon become entwined as myriad players are named and shamed as likely ins and outs at clubs large and small.

But we at The Arsenal, what do we need? Well, a goalkeeper of course, goes without saying, but a back up or number one? That’s anybody’s guess.

Clichy, is he away as per the rumours? Will Gibbs stay if he isn’t?Will we indeed play Gibbs or buy another full back? Everton’s Baines is flavour of the month according to the tabloids, but do we need or want him?

A centre half is a popular choice, now who could he be? The blogs demand a colossus, a man mountain of a player, a natural instinctive leader, so a captain as well perhaps. How is Cesc going to take to that? Will we lose Cesc? Probably. It’s almost a certainty if he loses the captaincy. But if he is fit and stays, is there a better midfield in the league than the Cesc/Jack combination with Aaron coming through? Maybe, as they say, Denilson is on his way, has he had enough of the constant flack, who else will go with him?

What can we offer Song to stay? We also need someone to lead the line and score the goals we missed this season. Fragile RvP is hardly a good bet to manage a full season; great player that he is, he will have to be nursed.

Who then is out there available to be purchased with Premier League experience? Will the other clubs sell us the missing link we need? I think not, so it’s abroad again for another foreigner to bed in, how long will he take to settle?

Do we perhaps owe our reserves and out-on-loan players a chance? Could those guys, schooled in the Arsenal way, do the job?

If they don’t get the chance, will other clubs faced with same dilemma descend en-masse to steal tomorrow’s stars at a bargain price from under our noses (Barca and Cesc anybody)?

Then there is Arsène: will he stick to his own beliefs regardless of what others think, is the club even bothered what fans think, providing he keeps us in the gold mine that is the champions league, do they know more than we do, are their deals already done?

Questions hundreds of them: just think, some fans are down now, how will they cope in the close season? No football, just the endless controversy. Will the blogosphere melt if clubs and supporters are at odds on the way forward and the clubs take a different route to the fans perceived preference?

Money talks they say – do we have the money? My word it’s going to be a great summer for cyber warriors. I see smoking keyboards and exploding irate fans. Bring it on, say I.

Written by Red Arse

Wengerball or Not Wengerball? That is the Question!

OK, so everyone is disappointed and frustrated by Arsenal’s recurring annual springtime aversion to winning games and clinching titles. The Blackburn game is just the most recent example of a flaccid performance leading to an unsatisfactory anti-climax.

Look, it’s not over until the fat lady toots her flute so let’s not give up yet, there’s many a slip twixt cup and lip, as you well know. That being said, what the heck is going wrong?

There is a pernicious and increasingly acrimonious split, verging on a gulf, emerging between Gooners with very different schools of thought as to what they see as an acceptable level of  achievement for the club, and we need to determine if there is anything to be learnt from this division.

A First up; In the pro-Wengerball camp there is a firm belief that Arsène Wenger, and his vision of playing an exquisite style of fast, technical football, is the right way to go, while also remaining within tight financial constraints to ensure the long-term financial and commercial viability of the club.
An important rider to this is that many of the slightly older supporters do not want to return to the days of unedifying clogging and exhaustingly dire football which blighted their lives in the past.

B In the other camp; there is a frustrated, angry and increasingly strident element whose impatience is leading them to declaim the manager and many of his players. Their mantra seems to be ‘we want trophies, at whatever price’ and if that requires more prosaic, ‘industrial’ football, as well as Wenger and several of his players going, then so be it.

The consequences of this approach calls for an end to Arsène’s derided youth project and the purchase of expensive established footballers and to hell with financial stability.

These are, of course, broad brush descriptions of the opposing camps views and there are many variants on these themes.

I fall, unapologetically, into the pro-Wenger camp, but with my own addendum. I firmly believe that playing wonderful football will, in and of itself, produce the longed for trophies, provided we can establish what has brought on this annual malaise and rectify it, as discussed below.

Watching the Blackburn and other games on TV, and recording them for more sober reflection, it becomes apparent that the Wengerball style has gone into hibernation. Gone is the fast, slick passing, high scoring, attacking game many of us so love. Instead we are being treated to a team of imposters who present a slow, cumbersome, poor passing game sadly lacking in guile, creativity or firepower.

Why has this happened? Well, if Denilson or Diaby had been playing recently we could have blamed our ritual scapegoats. But they were not. If Almunia had let in a couple more goals on Saturday, which he did his best to do, we could have blamed him. But he did not.

So what has happened to the team who have played so beautifully, earlier in the season, and have achieved success which leaves us a creditable second in the EPL at the moment?

‘Confidence has deserted a number of our players,’ I can hear many of you say, and that is undoubtedly true, but that is surely not the whole story. Good teams can overcome individual drops both in form and/or confidence and still come out on top.

Debates will surely rage about the ‘whys and wherefores’ of the team’s demise, but I will not attempt to engage in that discussion in this article.

What I can say, is that the team’s performances, however forensically we may examine the individuals or the tactics involved, will no doubt reveal various shortcomings, to one degree or another, but will not reveal the main cause of the problem.

I have been quietly watching our main competitors, both in the EPL and Europe, and also looking back at our successful teams of the past to discover the missing ingredient, and hopefully find the solution to our current problem.

And eureka I have arrived at what seems a blindingly obvious difference between success and failure.

The ‘old’ Arsenal teams, and the most successful contemporary football teams, had that va-va voom ingredient, able to pull irons out of the fire when things were not going smoothly.

That special ingredient, capable of turning a good team into perennial winners, is/was the possession of a very special player, or two, such as Ian Wright, Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Paddy Vierra, Messi, Villa, Bale and, yes, Rooney.

Much though I treasure many of the talented players in our current team, Cesc, Jack or Samir, for example, I also believe we need someone special, in addition, to make us all tremble with anticipation. That player should be capable of grabbing the game by the ghoulies and changing a loss to a draw, or a draw to a win. That player could be a special centre back or a special centre forward or a special midfielder, or better yet, all three.

Note the deliberate use of that word ‘special’. We do not need another player with potential or an inexpensive journeyman who can ‘do a job’, but someone ‘special’.

I can already hear the yells of the financially aware Wengerball literati out there saying that we cannot afford the money such ‘special’ purchases would require. Others are, probably, yelling that they are not prepared to watch ‘pretty’ football any longer and go trophyless, as a consequence.
Clearly neither camp is happy with the current situation.

The paradox is that if we do not invest in special players because of the risk to our current financial stability, we risk losing our place at the top table which will affect both our prize money and our commercial income to the detriment of the club’s future financial stability.

It’s a tough call, but if we need ‘special’ players, and I think we do, with all that means financially, the club and Arsene have got to carefully reconsider their strategy and act accordingly.

My advice, Arsène, would be to trust your instincts, continue with the youth project, please carry on with Wengerball but also select and buy the right ‘special’ player(s) and he or they will repay you with trophies and be a self funding project to boot.
That will close the divide between the fans and you will rightly be a hero to all!

This year’s EPL trophy is still within our grasp, but following the above advice would make next year a sure fire certainty for success.

Go for it!!

You can count on one hand the amount of times Arsène Wenger has blamed his team after a defeat.

His usual patter is to put it down to any of the following:

Bad pitch.

Bad officiating.

Bad luck.

Opposition goalie being Man of the Match.

Opposition being too dirty.

Opposition being too oppositiony.

Tired players.

Injured players.

Tired players getting injured.

Sir Alex Faustuson’s pact with the Devil.

Mice.

Ok, he may never have actually blamed a defeat on the activities of mice, but if he remotely could he would.

The point being that, whatever he says to the players in private, for public consumption he never lays the blame on them.

Which makes his words after yesterday’s disappointing home draw against Blackburn quite significant:

“It was a flat performance with a lack of energy level, a lack of sharpness. It was quite a big concern to see what we have seen today. It is difficult to identify one special thing. I felt we started OK and after, our game became flat. Very few players looked to have the resources to put the pace up in the game. Part of it is down to the fact that Blackburn defended well but I don’t put the majority of reasons down to that. I feel it is more down to our poor offensive performance today.

“I am concerned about our performance today. Before we speak about the title we have to focus on our performance level, because it was not good enough today. That is our first concern.”

Watching him talk in the televised post match interviews I had the sense of a man grasping to understand what’s gone wrong – and not finding many answers.

Normally after a result and performance like this we can fall back on injuries and the usual scapedonkeys – players like Diaby and Denilson – as an excuse. But on Saturday we had our full complement of attacking options available.

We may have been injury-hit at the back, but we can’t shift the blame to that end of the park given that we kept a clean sheet.

The stark fact is that our first choice attacking line-up could not score against a team that has failed to keep a clean sheet away from home all season.

Man Utd put seven past Blackburn at Old Toilet.

Spurs put four past them at Wet Fart Lane.

Wigan and Villa also scored four against them at home.

Even Fulham and Sunderland hit three each against them.

We drew a blank.

If scoring against Blackburn on their travels is like shooting fish in a barrel, we ended up with a hole in our foot and the fish laughing at us.

I would hate to think the Arsène sceptics may be proved right, but his quotes imply that he has no idea why his team couldn’t perform and, by inference, he has little idea how to get them to rediscover their mojo.

That’s quite frightening, because it hints at the absence of a key quality that every successful team needs: call it heart, drive, mental strength, morale.

Whatever it is we don’t seem to possess it at the moment and, whatever you say about Manchester United, they have it in spades.

Worryingly, Arsène was hinting that he doesn’t know where to find it; he was admitting that he could not motivate the team (even though you would think players with a serious chance of becoming champions shouldn’t need any motivation).

I believe he has always felt that if he can get all his best attacking players on the pitch at the same time their technical ability will simply overrun the opposition. On Saturday the Ferrari was primed and ready, but it was packing a Reliant Robin engine.

Which brings me back to the question at the top of this post: when the priest loses his faith, to whom do you turn to bolster your own? When the writer hits a block, who provides the words? When the professor has no answers, who do you ask?

Is it possible that Arsène has realised that he does not have it in him to motivate this particular group of players?

When his previous teams won trophies, was he motivating them to perform so well, or were those teams full of players capable of motivating themselves?

We’ll never know the answer – perhaps it was a bit of both – but one thing is sure: Arsène seems to have realised that he is now staring at the biggest challenge he’s ever faced in football management.

RockyLives