Have you ever seen an ex-champion boxer? I have.

Ageing, outdated, short on his wits. He can’t dodge the punches or predict his opponents next move.

Weighed by expectation, jaded by the years.

Last Saturday I watched Arsène Wenger stand on the touchline at Villa Park, drenched and lifeless.

Is this the man I have come to know and begrudgingly admire? The Professor?

The sophisticated, urbane, mastermind. The man with the plan.

He looked a beaten man.

I have spent the last week thinking of the good times. Of the first double, of Bergkamp, Henry, of Vieira and the Invincibles. Of the fast football, a team playing off the cuff.

Arsène deserves respect and lots of it but not immunity.

We convince ourselves every time that the players leave for the money and I’m sure that’s true but they also leave for success.

If you deny that you are deluded.

In recent summers Wenger has failed to convince stars to stay with a salary budget that was big enough to keep them.

Meanwhile millions are wasted on the salaries of players that are not good enough for this club.

Are the Board really offering Wenger a budget of £50m for transfers?

In my opinion, No

Is Wenger told he has to break even in the transfer market?

Well the proof of the last 7 summers tells you that is the policy. We break even on transfers, that isn’t coincidence.

So let me ask this, if Arsène came out tomorrow and said “the board are withholding funds from me” who would you back?

I wouldn’t trust our board with a pound in a phone box. I would trust Arsène.

Would I trust them to pick a successor? No

I don’t like 4-5-1 or 4-3-3 and the use of it coincides with the start of our demise. It coincides with a loss of direction, a loss of nerve.

Play 4-4-2, and for god sake play Walcott up front before you lose yet another one you stubborn old fool.

If you had  told me 7 years ago that I would be watching a bunch of overpaid minatures playing 4-3-3 with thousands of empty seats and a club run by Americans I would have laughed. I’m not laughing now.

I don’t claim to understand tactics but I understand this.

If you lose your sharpness, if you lose your edge in any sport then your are finished.

Play your system, recover your style, have a go Arsène, have a go.

If this is it, if this is how you go out, then you’re not the man I thought you were.

“We could have made a 0-0.”

Really, Is that all you’ve got?

Is that where we are now?

We could have made a 0-0 with Swansea.

Get some pace, take “le handbrake” off, play your way and be true to your beliefs.

How many times, have we heard “we had the handbrake on”. It’s your car Arsène, your handbrake.

Are you going down with a whimper?

Have you lost your nerve?

Have you gone soft?

If this was a fight then this is the moment with the sponge in the corner. The trainer telling you to step up, throw some punches and move your feet. This would be that moment.

I’m not suggesting we have a team of champions but they are good enough to beat Sunderland, Norwich, Fulham and Swansea. We got 2 points.

Either they aren’t trying or they have lost faith in what you are saying.

Stop talking about the spirit of team. Stop telling us the world is against us. The whole club has a complex.

I still think you can win the last round but if you can’t dodge the punches Arsène, maybe it’s time to get out of the ring.

Written by Arsenalista

Swansea were very good, Arsenal were very poor. Why?

GiE – who was at the game – made this fine comment yesterday after the game………………..

Several times in the first half with the ball at centre backs feet I looked up to see a high Swansea line and Theo one on one with the left back. This is where you would normally see a player of Theo’s pace point to the space and start running. The statuesque nature of some of our players up front today was something I have seldom seen throughout Wenger’s reign.

Oh and finally what most impressed me with Swansea today the unselfish runs of their midfielders and attackers, runs they made willingly despite not being likely to be played in, it’s that movement that creates space for others.

In short the teamwork that we displayed at Anfield has disappeared, and the question that has to be asked is why? Same manager, pretty much same players, but for some reason the workrate has dropped…. fatigue I certainly hope not they are paid a lot of money to be match fit…..so it’s mental, confidence or desire. My fear is its the latter the only Arsenal voices in the dressing room are too young to be listened to.

Discuss …………….

How do you feel Arsenal – the business model – will cope with non-qualification to the Champions League if we fail to get into the top four?

MickyDidIt89 put this comment out there this morning …………….

Almost to a Man, and Woman, we will all continue to attend games whenever possible, irrespective of performance. Both GiE and Chas have made this point very well, in respective of meeting up with Mates and watching our beloved team and so on. On the whole, we have also lived through a wonderful period, as well as attending throughout darker days.

However, the 60,000 Emirates Project relies heavily on Corporate as well as attracting/keeping the new breed of more fickle fans, and to that end, I see real problems looming from the point of view of the business model.

I may well be wrong, but it is my belief that CL football is very important to sustain what is, somewhat tragically, a business.

The club has been holding onto a sum of money for some time that would be used for running costs should we fail to qualify for the Champions League, if that becomes a necessity then the funds available for players will be reduced. The new sponsorship/tv money will just get dropped into the hole created by no Champions Lge football.

Has the club mismanaged this ‘rainy day’ fund?

Kelsey has made some good comments recently which were echoed on Saturday Supplement ……….

I just watched Sunday Supplement and nearly word for word they are saying what I have been on for months. We are a team of individuals not a unit. The few big name players that are left will be having their doubts and will maybe also move on.
The board believe qualifying for CL is basically a trophy.

AW panicked last season and to an extent this and bought in the main sub standard players realising project youth had failed.

The question for me is if there is money available,will Wenger not spend it or is he under instructions to be over frugal?

Danishgooner was very kind to put up some player ratings from yesterdays game which are always good for some discussion.

Player ratings

Chezzer 9.Absolutely kept us in the game with amazing saves.

Per 7.Solid as ever,had a lot of firefighting to do because Vermaelen went missing several times.

Vermaelen 3.His promising start to his is Arsenal career is well and truly over,pulled out of position to easily and generally all over the place.

Carl J 4.Completely out of his debt today,tried hard and that is a positive but simply isnt very good at the moment.

Gibbs 3. Woefull in defending,absolutely atrocious and going forward not much better.

Arteta 6. Did ok but not one of his best games,lost a lot of midfield battles.

Santi 8. The one intelligent player in attack,drove us on and tried his hardest but his colleagues are not on the same wavelength.

Walcott 3. When will Wenger realize that he is not a Winger,keeping playing him in a position he doesnt do well in isnt exactly doing him any good.

Podolski 2. The games biggest disappointment, looked tired and ragged,welcome to the PL.

 Gervihno 3 Simply not suited to the Pl,to skinny and cant beat his opponent,atrocious decision making.

Jacky boy 5. Always tries but even he had a stinker and couldnt stamp his autorithy on the game.

Lots to chew over there, however you feel about yesterdays game or the way the club is going or whether you  think the manager has lost his players please don’t take your frustrations out on other bloggers if they don’t share your opinion.

A match report talking about a win would have been much more fun ………

peachesgooner

Yeah, it wasn’t a great performance up at Goodison Park last night.

Yeah, the same faults in evidence at Villa were on show again against the Toffees.

Yeah, we would all like things to be better at the moment.

But for crying out loud let’s keep some perspective.

We have just recorded our second consecutive draw on the road. Aston Villa are always tough opponents even if they are in the doldrums right now; Everton, meanwhile, are being strongly tipped for a top four finish this season.

Neither draw was a bad result, unless you are so ridiculously entitled that you are going to strop out on principle every time we fail to win.

To judge by the reaction of some fans you would think we had just suffered two heavy defeats to teams of no consequence, not two away draws at difficult venues.

Here are a few thoughts to put things in context:

• We are unbeaten in six games (since the away defeat at ManUre).
• While our attacking game stutters, we are at least becoming hard to beat.
• Manchester United lost at Everton this season and Liverpool failed to win (in fact the last team to win there was Arsenal, last season).
• Our goal difference is Plus 10 after 13 fixtures. At the same point last year it was Plus 3.
• Our squad is returning to full strength.
• At this point last year we had suffered four defeats compared with three this season.
• Last year we lost four of our next nine league games: I don’t expect us to do that this year.

This is not to say that there are not problems with the way we’ve been playing recently.

We lack fluidity up front; we are disconnected in midfield; we are still prone to silly individual mistakes; our midfield seems to struggle physically with a lot of opposing teams.

But this is not a crisis.

We have the players and the manager to put things back on track. If I were to bet, I would say we will be top four by the end of the year.

And I also expect Arsene Wenger to spend some money in the winter transfer window.

If you are feeling down in the dumps about all things Arsenal at the moment I understand: I share those feelings. But, as the saying goes, it’s always darkest before the dawn. And the Arsenal dawn is coming.

RockyLives

Lovely club Everton. Good manager,  proper ground and fans, history, decent board, solid team with some much-in-demand players but ….. they would sell their grandparents to get 4th, something we spoilt Gooners have started to sneer at.

Would you be happy if Moyes took over from Mr. Wenger? I thought not.

If you were Moyes and had a chance of getting a CL spot would you sell Fellaini, Jelavic and Baines in January? No, I thought not.

Do you think, apart from Baines and Fellaini, that any Everton players would be first choice for Arsenal?

So why are they above us in the table?

Everton have won one out of their last 7 PL games, however they have yet to lose at home this season. We have a fine recent record at Goodison, something AW will be looking to continue.

The return of Theo and JW will add much to our team and hopefully give some thrust  to our attacks, something lacking at Villa. I feel for Ramsey who had a decent game on Saturday but will always be in Wilshere’s shadow.

My Team:

Mr Wenger is prone to adding an extra midfielder when we are playing away but I hope he takes the risk of attacking from the off; we have been awful in the first 20 minutes for over a month. Ox was poor last week and must do better if he is to force his way into the starting 11.

Given the power of Fellaini and Jelavic I would play TV rather than Koscielny, conversely Kos has been back to his best and we haven’t conceded in the last two games.

Today’s English Explorer: May I introduce you to George Vancouver (1757-1797) who explored and surveyed the Pacific coast of North America from Oregon all the way to Alaska. Like  many explorers of the time he had a penchant for naming things after himself – Mount Vancouver, Vancouver Island and 2 Vancouver cities (Canada and USA) plus the Vancouver Peninsula in Australia, He learned his trade on two trips with Captain Cook to Australia and Hawaii aboard the Discovery.  Vancouver died young at just 40. He is buried in Petersham, Surrey.

No facial hair. No title

Arsenal are on a 5 match unbeaten run. In order to make it 6 we shall  have to be resolute in defence. I expect the game to centre upon who wins the midfield battle, Arteta’s return to Goodison will fill him with enthusiasm and hopefully be the springboard towards a victory. Set pieces could well be the key. Scoring has not been a problem but we really have to be more accurate with our crossing – in Giroud Arsenal finally have a player who is excellent in the air, let’s use this ability and make sure there are enough runners into the box to capitalise on the knock-downs.

We can win this ……

COYRRG

written by Big Raddy

No apologies, but this is a slightly misleading headline.

Regular readers will know that one of my bugbears is the way media coverage of Arsenal is so often ill-informed, sensationalist or plain biased.

But that’s not the kind of “press” I want to talk about today.

After watching our attacking endeavours thwarted – yet again – by a defence whose recent record is leakier than Julian Assange’s outbox, it’s clear that there is a problem in search of a solution.

Aston Villa had conceded eight goals in the two games before we rolled into town. Afterwards they had conceded eight goals in three games.

We were similarly impotent away at Norwich, who had shipped nine goals in their two fixtures immediately before meeting us.

We’re like a travelling tube of Super Glue, ready to lock tight any previously gaping defence.

Why is it happening?

Many reasons, no doubt. But one of them appears to be the fact that we are struggling to create chances when other teams press us in our own half.

“The Press” is a tactic that requires lots of discipline, concentration and hard physical work from the team employing it. Barcelona, of course, are the highest profile exponents (although their version often entails the two or three players closest to the opponent with the ball swarming him until he loses possession).

The way The Press is being used against Arsenal is best illustrated by the away game at Old Trafford.

The ruby conked Hibernian ordered Wayne Rooney to man mark Arteta, who normally receives the ball from our defence. Arteta was suddenly not available. Other United players applied pressure elsewhere in midfield and our defenders had to play higher risk passes to get the ball away.

It’s safe to say that if Aston Villa had strikers of Manchester United’s quality, they would have completed the job against us, having nullified our attacking threat by snuffing it out at source.

When Arteta is given time on the ball, we look fluent in attack. Players move, passes travel quickly and openings are made.

But when the Spaniard’s influence is limited by the opposition pressing him deep in his own half, the opposite happens.

If we can’t get the ball to Arteta, or he receives it and is immediately under pressure, there is less time to move the ball quickly on to Cazorla or one of the other midfielders; when (if) it eventually finds its way to another midfielder, that player is also already under pressure so their chances of making an effective pass are similarly reduced.

I was very struck during the Villa game how little movement there seemed to be from our players not on the ball.  One of the hallmarks of Arsene’s Arsenal has been the dangerous movement of our midfielders and strikers – and it’s worrying to see them so static. It was as if they weren’t moving because they didn’t expect to get the ball.

Some of our best moments – and our very best chance of the game – came when Laurent Koscielny surged forward from the back, breaking The Press and causing confusion among the Villa players.

The Premier League being what it is, other managers are going to look at what has worked against us and try the same thing themselves. The worst part is that you don’t need high quality players to make it work, so all the mid to low table teams can give it a go. They just need lots of effort from their players. So it’s up to us – or rather, up to Arsene – to find an answer.

Using the wings is one obvious alternative: it was noticeable on Saturday that we looked better when Oxlade-Chamberlain stayed out wide. Unfortunately, whether under instruction from the manager or whether from youthful inexperience, The Ox drifted infield far too often. Podolski sometimes stays wide, but always gives the impression of wanting to head inside.

Walcott and Gervinho will certainly help in that regard and it’s good to know both should be available for Everton.

We could try hitting long balls up to Giroud, with our other forwards and midfielders looking to get closer to him to pick up knock-downs and lay-offs, although this does not seem a natural Wenger tactic.

Or we could look to shift things around in midfield. Perhaps it’s time to give Coquelin a run in the holding role, with two of Santi Cazorla, Wilshere and Arteta ahead. Coquelin would play that role differently to Arteta, and the two other MFs would have to drop a little deeper to collect the ball and start our attacks.

Those of you who are better at tactics than me may well have some other ideas – it would be great to hear them.

One way or another, Arsene has to find a way of overcoming The Press and getting his team’s forward threat back to what it should be.

Right now, it’s the biggest challenge he faces in terms of keeping us in touch with the top four in the table.

There was a debate in the Arsenal Arsenal comments yesterday about whether it was time for our manager to step aside for someone else

How he tackles this latest dilemma will go some way towards telling us whether he still has what it takes.

RockyLives