Alex Song – Presser in Chief. Mens Suits £8.50, Ten shirts for £15.00

December 7, 2010

Written by SharkeySure

I started to write this on Sunday evening, and have also read through yesterday’s debate without getting the chance to comment much. So now my rambles have been requested by Peaches for a post in Song’s defence. I make no apology for the biased reporting and rewriting of recent history that follows. I’ll even steal a line of MickeyDidIt’s to make matters even clearer: “I must stress, every one of my theories and brilliant ideas have absolutely no basis on factual research or rational thought!”

I guess football is about opinions, but whilst I agree that Song wasn’t at his best on Saturday, I can’t see that he did much wrong bar horribly misplace two or three passes, and take a wild shot from a very difficult angle.

I watched it on a stream at 3pm then again on footie first at 8pm, and I was surprised to see how much closing down he did and how many balls he won in the air and on the deck, that hadn’t registered that forcefully with me earlier in the day.

Before horribly miscuing a pass to Arshavin, he won an aerial battle against two Fulham players, one of whom was the man mountain Hangeland. Credit first for coming out with the ball from a position in which he almost had no right to. Song also had a good penetrating run into Fulham’s bus garage (?) which opened them up a bit and led to Rosicky’s volley that went narrowly wide. Again, good pace shown to get in there.

Prior to his wild shot it was a long sprint after Pantsil, whom he caught and robbed (you all saw that right – Song’s slow ..Lol !) . I’m very happy to see him doing that, as it shows us pressing higher up the pitch. We started last season that way, and then it tailed off a bit, for some reason.

This season Song seems to be tasked with being presser in chief, and I for one think that he does it very well. When required, he sits deeper and is much more disciplined as a pure DM (M City, Everton and Villa away?).

Maybe part of the reason is that Song is very adept at using his strength and physicality to break up play, and perhaps Arsène feels that it’s better that he does this further away from our goal, in an area of the pitch where the opposition are less likely to roll over for a foul and set piece opportunity. Additionally he’s less likely to get a yellow for fouls high up the pitch.

Beyond his strength, Alex Song really is one of the best CMs in the Prem in my humble yet unbiased opinion. It’s rare to combine his physical strength and sublime technique. His quick feet and speed of thought get him out of many sticky situations that would have many others hoofing the ball into touch. He is also a very good passer of a football – slide rules inside the full back, chips, dinks, deft touches, he’s got the lot.

Yesterday Gunner N5 posted some wonderful stats that showed Song as being the 2nd most successful passer of a football in the Prem this season (up until Nov 27th). To see Song’s passing stats at 87% and to know the sort of cute and sometimes audacious passes that he attempts is fantastic for me, as I am just about one of his biggest fans. He’s second only to the Black Ray Wilkins at Chelsea (on 88%) who may as well be called CrabMan, and work at the CrabShack. (My Name is Earl is just about my fave comedy!)

To see Song do that receive and turn, look up to pass, then glide away in the opposite direction is a thing of much beauty and grace to me. To watch Crab Obi Mikel knocking the ball 2 and 3 yds to Ivanovic, Terry and back to Cech is horrible to watch. So taking into account points for artistic merit, Song’s a very clear winner. Simple really. So whilst I accept that his standards may have dropped a little I still believe that he remains one of our most effective and consistent players, who gets through the donkey work and adds the steel and never say die spirit (W ham at home!!) that we’ve all been crying out for since Flamini left. Anyone got Flamini’s passing stats for his final season..??

As this post lacked the humour I’d ordinarily aim for, here’s a gag to finish. A blonde (no, not our beloved Alex !!!) took her car to a garage as it wasn’t running too well. She left it with the mechanic to look at for an estimate of the problem and likely cost. One hour later she returns to hear the car running smoothly.  “Wow you’ve fixed it already,” she says, “yeah just shit in the oil filter” says the mechanic. “Really” replies the blonde, “how often do I need to do that..?”

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Posted by peachesgÖÖner

The One Move Wenger MUST Make to Reclaim the Title

December 6, 2010

Never mind another swoop into the French league for Eden Hazard, or a crafty pickpocketing of the Hammers midfield to land Scott Parker.

The one move that Arsène Wenger can make this winter to transform Arsenal’s title aspirations is sitting right under his fine Gallic nose.

All he has to do is move Alex Song back to the position that suits him best.

I have banged on about this before but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of good banging. So consider this to be the Song Bang Part Deux.

First some home truths for the misguided souls who take time away from their very pressing duties watching daytime TV to write comments on the internet about how rubbish our defenders are.

  1. Squillaci and Koscielny have both started extremely well this season. They were never intended to be a starting partnership but the Vermaelen injury has thrust them into the firing line from the outset and they are showing signs of adapting quickly to the physical nature of the EPL.
  2. Johann Djourou inevitably made a slow start back to first team action after a year out through injury but he, too, is showing his class. In his last couple of outings (including against Fulham on Saturday) he has been outstanding.
  3. Bacary Sagna is back to his best form of two or three seasons ago: solid as a rock defensively and starting to put over some really good crosses.
  4. Gael Clichy is, er, no more accident prone than last year.

During the second half of last season we started to get into a bit of a groove. Our previous defensive fragility was gradually replaced with a grittier, more effective shield for whichever dodgy ‘keeper happened to be playing.

How did we manage this? Well, we had a good central partnership of Vermaelen and Gallas and we had an excellent defensive midfielder sitting in front of them in Alex Song.

Then the wheels fell off. Song got injured before the Tottenham away fixture and in that game Vermaelen suffered a serious injury and had to go off after 19 minutes. I don’t need to remind anyone how that match ended up.

Without Song and Vermaelen we went on to suffer two more bad defeats in our final run-in – the infamous 2-3 away at Wigan, where we collapsed like Rooney in the penalty area after a non-contact challenge; and the 1-2 at Blackburn.

Who knows what might have happened if TV and Song had stayed fit?

And so to this season. No Gallas, but two new centre backs came in and we could also look forward to having the fastest improving defensive midfielder in the Premiership.

We got off to a flyer but after only three games two bad things happened: Vermaelen’s achilles tendon started twanging like a country guitar; and Alex Song started thinking he was Lionel Messi.

There’s nothing to be done about the first misfortune, but surely it’s time to do something about the second.

In game after game Song has traded the defensive cover role for what is probably meant to be a marauding box-to-box role. It’s as if he’s trying to be a Stephen Gerrard (minus the punching people in bars) or a Frank Lampard (minus the pie-eating). The only problem is that until this season Gerrard could maraud because he had Mascherano watching his back; and Lampard gets all those deflected goals because Essien is watching his.

When Song charges forward the defensive cover at Arsenal is left to either Wilshere or Denilson. They’re both decent players, but JW is young and inexperienced and, in any case, has a style of play much more suited to the attacking midfield role; and Denilson, while excellent in possession, has the attention span of an amnesiac goldfish when we don’t have the ball.

End result: two central defenders completely new to the EPL are left with negligible midfield cover in most games. It’s no wonder they’ve looked exposed at times.

Clearly, as a highly paid professional, Song hasn’t dreamed up this new role all by himself, so the responsibility lies with Wenger.

In early November, after Song scored the winner against West Ham, the boss had this to say about his cuddly Cameroonian:

“Song wants to get forward. Sometimes defensive midfielders just want to defend. It’s not just his main role. He does it well in fairness. He came here as a centre-back, maybe he will finish centre-forward.

“He sees there is big competition in midfield and that helps. Nobody is guaranteed a place. We’ve had so many good players and so many players who have become exceptional here but, at the moment, Song is moving forward.”

Well bloody well tell him not to move forward then Arsène! It’s not as if his forward momentum is unstoppable; he’s not a glacier, despite the dusting of light frost on his bonce.

If it’s an experiment to create our own Gerrard/Lampard it was doomed from the start because without Song shielding the defence we don’t have a Mascherano/Essien.

Wenger has also gone on record as saying that Denilson takes the holding role when the two play together – but who, reading this, really feels comfortable with the little Brazilian as the chief protection for our defence?

There were some excellent comments on Arsenal Arsenal yesterday about this issue. As someone pointed out, last year Song was a round peg in a round hole. This year he’s a round peg who’s flirting with all sorts of squarey, oblongy and rhomboidy type holes while ignoring the lovely round hole that’s sitting waiting for him.

It almost cost us dearly against Fulham. I have no doubt he worked extremely hard and put in a lot of miles in that game, but too often he was in the wrong place when Fulham attacked.

Aside from the weakness this causes our defence, he is also not as good at the attacking midfield part of the job as most of the other candidates for the role, including Rosicky, Nasri, Wilshere, Fabregas and Arshavin.

It makes no sense to have moved him from a position in which he was becoming world class to one in which he will never be better than average.

Come on Arsène, give us back the Song we love.

RockyLives

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Posted by RockyLives

Sometimes all at sea, but a big thanks to Nasri.

December 5, 2010

Written by kelsey

Not for the first time at the Home of Football, we were about to witness a feeling of déjà vu, though after the first twenty five minutes we should have been totally out of sight against a bemused and disorganised Fulham side. Time and time again their defence was carved open and several chances fell to Nasri, Arshavin, Chamakh and in particular, to Song. Then on 14 minutes, a sublime piece of magic by our star player Samir Nasri gave us a wonder goal and surely we all thought that a cricket score was inevitable.


However, it was not to be, and a misunderstanding between Squillaci and Koscienly resulted in a clash of heads and the ball dropped to Dempsey who fed the ball through to Kamara,and he coolly slotted it past Fabianski. If Koscienly had initially stayed down, the game would have been stopped, but he had some sort of delayed reaction and slumped to the floor after the goal was scored. Djourou came on in place of Koscielny, and suddenly Arsenal seemed to completely lose their momentum. We gave the ball away cheaply and there was no fluidity in movement. Fulham began to dominate, Fabianski having to make a save from Kamara yet again.

This game was all about Nasri, scoring his eleventh goal of the season and what proved to be the match winner. It was a goal of which the great TH14 (watching from is box) would have been proud. Chamakh again had a fine game and just needs to add the shoot on sight policy to his game, but that will come as his confidence builds.

Arshavin showed he is returning to form and provided another assist, and Rosicky had a reasonable game, but the fact that it is 34 games since he last scored must be playing on his mind.

For once both full backs were producing decent crosses and Sagna had a most impressive game. The centre back pairing is still a worry and we definitely miss Vermaelen. Song still tends to go too far up the field, and this certainly wasn’t his best game.

RVP supplied the deft touch for the winning goal, but he is clearly not fully fit and Walcott seems to have regressed and made no impact on the game. We sit proudly on top of the league, and we have to thank the reactions of Fabianski in the dying minutes for that, but defensive issues still remain.

Player ratings added by Rasp

Fabianski 7

Clichy 7

Sagna 8

Squillaci 8

Koscielny 6     Djourou 8

Song 5

Wilshere 7

Arshavin 8

Nasri 9

Chamakh 7    

Subs

van Persie 7

Walcott 4

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Posted by kelsey

Stand Up if you hate Mark Hughes

December 4, 2010

Two certainties this afternoon. Firstly, that Sparky will be telling his midfield to “let them know you’re there” and secondly, that Mark Schwarzer will have an outstanding game. In my opinion, it is upon these two personalities the game will hinge.

Hughes is man under pressure, having seen his team fall to one point above the relegation zone. However they are the draw Kings of the PL having won none of their away fixtures but drawing 5 out of 7.  In fact Fulham have only won twice this season and I remain sure they will not add that that tally today. Fulham have a nasty injury list, longer than ours (for once) and Bobby Zamora’s broken leg has seriously blunted their attacking threat.


This being a purely personal pre-match and not representing the ethos of the site, I can give vent to my dislike of Mark Hughes. He was a spiteful, dirty player who specialised in kicking the ankle tendons of the opposition and feigning innocence when challenged. He was all I hate in Man Utd (and then Barca where he sank ignominiously). A quiet assassin whose pretence of being a fair and honest player was pure sham. Then into management and  you will not be surprised to learn that his Blackburn team finished bottom of the Fairplay league the 4 seasons he stayed. Upon moving to Man City he proceeded to freely spend the Arab money – €25m for the totally erratic and troublesome Adebayor was great business for us, and the €32m he wasted on Robinho was another example of his poor purchases. At the same time he bought Ben-Haim, Kompany, De Jong, Bellamy and Barry to make sure the team had a violent edge to it. He had 2 wins from 11 before being sacked and has continued his good form with Fulham who have now won 2 out of 15. The man gets paid millions for results like that –  he must have the best interview technique and agent!!

And then there is Schwarzer. Hughes has openly stated that Mr.Wenger was trying to sign him right up to the point Schwarzer signed his contract this week. I do not blame Hughes for wanting to hold onto his player, and it is to the Aussies credit that he was not bitter about being held back from achieving his ambition to play CL football. What I don’t like is the glee with which Hughes thwarted both AW and his goalkeeper, it was the actions of a small, petty man.

Which brings us onto his spat with our beloved Captain. Hughes took umbrage at Cesc’s assertions that Blackburn’s football ethos had nothing whatsoever to do with what Sparky learned at Barca. Then he went public – not something that did him any good at all, after all everyone who saw the game had to agree with Cesc. Hughes demanded respect from Cesc who apologised (under pressure from AW), but if Hughes wants respect then he has to earn it – fans, players, and managers respect people who adhere to the traditions and artistry of the game, not a man who sends out teams with instructions to kick the lunch out of the opposition (apart from a few notable exceptions Fat Sam, Pulis etc)

Enough of my rant ….. onto the Arsenal.

Can we continue to scrape wins or will Fulham get the draw they will come for? If Fulham score first (and with our leaky defence it is a reasonable assumption), we could be in for a long, frustrating afternoon. But our midfield sans Cesc looked great at Villa and with AA and Chamakh on form, we have lots of firepower.

My team:

Bench. Chesney, JD, Gibbs, RvP, Theo, Denilson, NB

I see this game being a classic attack v defence, with many Arsenal attacks floundering on the head and feet of Hangelaand and Aaron Hughes, and Schwarzer desperate to show us what we missed. But we are on the verge of something special with this Arsenal team. Fewer and fewer people believe me but a poor half against S***s doesn’t preclude us from winning the League, and as we have already seen all the top sides have lost points to inferior opposition – let us hope today is not another example.

COYRRG

p.s. Sorry about the rant 😉

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Posted by Erik the Red

Wenger Will Buy in January

December 3, 2010

The frothing fury of those who feel personally betrayed by Arsène Wenger’s recent comments on the January transfer window has had me splitting my sides.

You will recall that our leader seemed to categorically rule out taking the AFC wallet out of the club strongroom (where it is permanently protected by Peter Storey and some ‘friends’) to add to our squad this January.

I have seen him referred to as a liar, a fraud, a betrayer, a loser, a geriatric and a Frenchman. Not all of those descriptions are true.

What amuses me is how people continually take at face value the comments of a master tactician whose words are carefully framed to hit the right note for multiple sets of ears (the press, his players, other clubs, agents, his own Board and, lastly, the fans).

If some of these bloggers were writing in Renaissance Italy just imagine the headlines they would come up with:

“Lying Machiavelli Is Such A Fibber.”
“Outrageous! Cesare Borgia Has Gone Back On His Word.”

It has been well publicised that Arsenal have plenty of dosh. The last thing Arsene wants is to tip off the entire weaseldom of European football agents that we are in the market for a centre back or a new defensive midfielder.

When we buy this January – as I believe we will – it will be a bolt from the blue. The press won’t get wind of it until it’s a done deal and neither will we. Remember – Arsene left himself a clear get out if he wants to buy. He said he had no intention of adding to the squad unless he had to cover for injury problems. Well, he already has one serious injury problem (Vermaelen) that demands a solution. And given that if our team was a Mister Man it would be Mister Bump, it’s a racing certainty that we’ll have at least one more serious injury before the end of January. Which will mean he will spend.

Of course that’s no guarantee that we’ll all be thrilled with the purchase. Any new signing is far more likely to be from the Koscielny category of megastardom rather than the Arshavin one. But if we haven’t got at least one new member of the squad by the end of January I will eat my hat*.

RockyLives
*My hat is made of marzipan. It’s crap in the rain.

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Posted by peachesgÖÖner

January signings …… not necessary

December 2, 2010

Written by peachesgooner

Arsène has already lit the touch paper – ‘I won’t be looking to buy in the January window’.  So, let’s discuss this and think about if we were Arsène Wenger whether we would be thinking of buying in the January transfer window.

We have talked about the lack of depth of our squad for nigh on five years now. We now have a squad where we know that for most positions, we have a really good deputy – excepting injuries – in most positions. If we start shipping out the deputies then surely we’ll be back to square one.

This team has grown up together and we and Arsène have been patiently – too patient with a few players – waiting for this moment when the fine tuning will reap rewards.

Yesterday two bloggers offered different opinions of what should happen with regard to certain players. In order to buy new players we’d need to ship some out and therein lies the problem. Do we move on players that we’ve invested so much time in developing to bring in a new crop of footballers untested in our system?

There is a clutch of players that divide opinion – Almunia,  Diaby, Vela, Clichy, Eboue, Bendtner, Theo; these were all offered as the fall guys.

Rocky offered the following comment in support of some of our much maligned players

Apart from Almunia, who is clearly out of sorts with the club, I wouldn’t flog any of them unless we bought a top notch player and one or more of our lot became surplus to requirements.

Diaby still hints at the possibility of being a top player.

Denilson (not my favourite because of the way he switches off when the opposition have the ball) can still put in a tidy shift.

Clichy and Eboue – keep ’em for the squad as back-up FBs.

Theo – come on – he was tearing sides apart at the start of the season and just hasn’t had a proper run of games since he got injured.

Eastmond – Redders, he’s only 19 and AW clearly sees something in him. Who knows how good he’ll be when he’s 21? I remember people writing off Song when he started getting some first team games but now I keep reading comments about how we’ll be screwed if he gets injured.

Bendy – would keep him also, but only if he’s happy to be a back-up striker.

I don’t see Bendy, Diaby, Eboue, Clichy, Vela, Eastmond, Almunia as being in our ideal first team, but they’re all part of what makes our squad the strongest in the EPL. Just look at what happened to ManUre’s second string last night (and they had Giggs, Fletcher and a couple of other first teamers playing too).

I think we’re back to where we always are as the Transfer Window opproaches, what position needs the back-up, is there a priority that should be addressed? If Song is injured do we have a player that steps into his role effectively? Can Almunia ever again go in goal for us? We have creative mid-fielders to spare but who would you sacrifice in order to bring in someone new?

We have decent choices for most positions:

Fabianski or Szcsesny?

Djourou or Koscielny?

Clichy or Gibbs?

Diaby or Denilson?

Cesc or Nasri?

Arshavin or RvP

Chamakh or Bendtner?

In addition Aaron Ramsey will be returning in the new year and we’ll be able to use Wellington Silva.

The other question we could pose is…. “Is our No.1 choice for that position good enough?”

I don’t think Arsène has any intention of buying in January, and all things taken into consideration, we shouldn’t need to add to the squad.

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Posted by peachesgÖÖner

A Cup Final Beckons ………….

December 1, 2010

Written by 26may1989

The important bit is that we are through to the League Cup semi-finals and now stand as favourites – it’s no longer a case of a good opportunity to win the trophy, it will now rank as a significant disappointment if we don’t lift the League Cup in March.

As for the quarter-final game against Wigan last night, that can be summarised in a few words: cold, one-sided and cold.

We faced very accommodating opponents, who never seriously got their game going and made life pretty easy for us. It helped that some of their best players, Rodallega, N’Zogbia, Gomez and Diame, weren’t in the starting line-up, and they included players from their ranks like Victor Moses and Ben Watson. In fact, both of those two didn’t do too badly, and Moses was unlucky to suffer a dislocated shoulder in the first half, prompting his replacement by Charles Insomnia, as the very classy Joe Kinnear once described his own player. But overall Wigan were poor on the night, and only had two meaningful attempts at goal all night, one of those coming in second half injury time.

As for our lot, as Wenger promised, a young but experienced side was fielded. Other than van Persie’s inclusion to assist in his recovery from injury, this was a genuine second string side. Wilshere and Koscielny could argue that they are first choice players at the moment, but none of the other starters could argue the same. That is not to downplay the ability of our starting side: the only starter who wasn’t a full international was Koscielny, but these were our back-up players. The formation was interesting, with three would-be strikers (van Persie, Walcott and Vela) playing in the AM roles behind Bendtner. In fact, it played more like a 4-1-4-1 (with Wilshere pushed up) than our usual 4-2-3-1, and with Wigan in such a passive mood, that made sense.

The performance was ok, nothing special, but more than sufficient to get the required result and provide a bit of entertainment along the way. It could easily have been 3, 4 or 5-0, especially given the various one-on-one chances that were missed. Vela was surprisingly culpable – he may not have convinced us that he will make the grade, and there is every chance he will be playing for a new side within a year, but one thing he has always done well is convert efficiently and stylishly when clear on goal. Not last night though. Van Persie carved open the Wigan defence with back heel passes to Vela, not once but twice, but the chances, along with a couple of others, were still missed.

Wilshere had an excellent game, as did the now convincing Johan Djourou, who won just about every header he went for, intercepted well and passed unfussily; he must now be ahead of Koscielny in the CB stakes.  That said, the Frenchman had a decent game as well, including some bursting runs forward.  Gibbs looked jittery at first but settled in and ended up having a good game. Szczesny didn’t have a lot to do but what there was he did well, including one very smart save in the first half. Vela, Bendtner and Walcott had typically mixed performances, but at least they got into good positions, and Walcott’s deliveries from corners were especially good, one of which led to our first goal, when the ball bounced off Wigan defender, Alcaraz, and flew into the net. Vela also got an assist on the evening, sending the ball across from the left wing midway through the second half for Nic Bendtner to bundle the ball home.

Van Persie’s performance was also uneven but overall seemed to be getting more into the groove of things, and clearly suited playing in the AM line well. Looks like it will be a few more games before he can really start hitting decent form though. Nasri and Eastmond came on around the 70 minute mark, and were ok, Nasri expertly rounding the keeper but then missing another of the one-on-one chances we had.

On the negative side, Denilson (a player I generally like) had a dreadful game, making mistake after mistake and giving up possession way too often. In a higher pressure game, that would have cost us. Eboué also played badly, though he is at least coming back from injury. I was annoyed at waiting until the 83rd minute before Jay Emmanuel-Thomas was brought on – how is he meant to prove himself with so few minutes on the pitch, especially when he played most of those few minutes as striker, which is not his best position?

Ratings:

Szczesny 7

Eboué 4

Djourou 8

Koscielny 7

Gibbs 7

Denilson 4

Wilshere 8 (Eastmond 6)

Walcott 6

van Persie 6 (Nasri 6)

Vela 6

Bendtner 6 (Emmanuel-Thomas n/a)

A word about the weather: did I mention it was bloody cold last night? It wasn’t an evening for anyone to enjoy playing football, so some of the disjointed and low-key performances on both sides can perhaps be forgiven a little. The fact there were players from countries like Saudi Arabia, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Brazil and Honduras on the pitch and in the occasional blizzards underlines the point. But the conditions also made it tough to be a spectator yesterday, so a bit of entertainment was essential. Some of that came from younger members of our own number, with three or four making it onto the pitch late in the game for a pretty tame (the less kind would say lame) pitch invasion. Luckily, our own Captain Marvell, the Reverend Emmanuel Eboué, was on hand to do his peace broker bit and save some running for clearly unenthusiastic stewards, who were expected to charge around to quell the high-jinks. I just hope the club isn’t so humourless as to ban the kids in question, who clearly had a great time doing mock goal celebrations in front of the North Bank.

So, all in all, the performance was fine. Obviously it didn’t match what our friends in East London managed against a strong United side (got to love that), but we go into the League Cup semis confidently and with the real prospect of picking up the trophy in March.

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Posted by peachesgÖÖner

We’re Better Without Cesc

November 29, 2010

If you listen to the excellent Arsenal podcast by actor and comedian Alan Davies, you will know that he regularly refers to our captain as Jesus.

And who would argue?

At times our little Spaniard does indeed seem to be the son of God (yes, that’s right – his dad really is Dennis Bergkamp).

And, at the risk of a little mild blasphemy, the similarities between our midfield Jesus and his Biblical predecessor are many.

Jesus fed the 5,000 with nothing more than five loaves and two fishes; Cesc regularly nourishes the 60,000 with nothing more than five half decent colleagues and (at least) two donkeys.

Jesus walked on water; Cesc pissed on Tottenham.

Jesus sits at the right hand of the father (Dennis); Cesc sits in the right of midfield, (with licence to roam forward when we’re in possession).

Jesus was tempted by Satan. Cesc was tempted by those satanic twunts at the Camp Nou.

But now, just like the Biblical Jesus, Cesc is experiencing a period in the wilderness: his dodgy hamstring won’t clear up; his touch has gone missing; his passing has deteriorated to its worst level since he started playing for Arsenal; his goals have dried up.

Quite frankly, right now we are a better team WITHOUT Cesc Fabregas.

I know this sounds like heresy. It even crossed my mind to attribute the opinion to someone else, then it would just sound like hearsay.

But I have to hold up my hands and admit it’s all my own.

The game at Villa Park showed how we can function perfectly well without our captain. Rosicky, Nasri, Arshavin and Wilshere are all gifted footballers with creativity to spare and they combined well on Saturday.

There was a balance to the team and, crucially, there was not a misfiring piston at the heart of our machine.

When you think about it, our squad is probably better equipped than any in the EPL to cope without its leading creative playmaker.

I don’t believe Cesc’s form has been poor because his head (or heart) is in Barcelona. It’s just that, having played all the way to the World Cup Final and missed pre-season, he has never fully found his stride.

Added to that, his niggly hamstring problem has got into his head (is that a medical first?) to the extent that he is playing in the constant expectation of pulling it again.

At times he has been excellent (Man City away) at others woeful (at home against Newcastle he misplaced 27% of his passes).

You might say that, in that case, we should keep playing him because some of his performances may turn out to be good. But then you run up against the Thierry Henry problem (mentioned by Peaches yesterday): in his later period with us TH14 was so much the superstar of the team that the other players always tried to pass to him, even when there were better options on. This was fine when he was in world-beating form, but as his powers waned it meant we became less effective.

You can see it with the current team: when Cesc is playing he is so much our talisman that they automatically try to give him the ball in the expectation that he is the one who will make something happen.

So when he’s off his game, as he has been lately, most of our play is being channelled through a lame duck.

What some of these other players need is a run of winning games without Cesc, where they learn that they can do it on their own; that Arsenal Football Club would not collapse if he left; and that we (and they) are bigger than any single player. Maybe it was no coincidence that Arshavin had his best game of the season at Villa.

At the moment Cesc is being kept out because of his hamstring, even though the club has acknowledged that the injury is something of a mystery.

Personally, I think the hamstring gave Wenger the excuse he needed to drop his captain.

I hope he keeps Cesc out of the front line for several weeks, to the point where his physical and psychological issues have been well and truly ironed out. About a month would probably allow Cesc to recover fully, so that’s he’s raring to get back in the action.

If he can come back at anything like his best, we will reap the benefits for the second half of the season and, of course, a fit and firing Cesc Fabregas is one of the very best players in all the football world.

A month on the sidelines would bring him back at Christmas. I can’t think of a better time for the second coming of the Messiah.

RockyLives

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Posted by RockyLives

Arshavin lifts the November blues

November 28, 2010

Written by peachesgooner

It was hard to imagine that November could get any worse, with two dreadful results behind them the team took to the field for the early kick-off against a struggling Aston Villa. Cesc was not in the squad following further excacerbation of his hamstring injury on Wednesday night against Braga but Arshavin, Nasri, Song and Chamakh returned. Tomas Rosicky was the captain for the day.

The added spice for the commentators came in the form of our very own Robert Pires lining up for Villa. Bobby had been training with the Arsenal squad and expected to go to a lower league side but AW had bigged him up and Houllier had snapped him up. Was this to be another performance undone by a former Gunner? No chance.

The opening 10 minutes were as exciting as any we’ve seen so far this season. Arsenal were rampant and imperious, creating 6 really good chances. We seemed to have our shooting boots on today even though the cob-webs were preventing some clean finishing. Arshavin was playing like a man possessed or at least like the Arshavin we always hoped he would be, finding space for himself, running at players and seeing the pass to set up a shot. Chances come and go for this Arsenal team and there is always the nagging doubt that we’ll have squandered ours and the opposition will get a lucky break.

Arsenal were in total control of the first half with Villa hardly managing to get the ball out of their half of the field. With six minutes left Arshavin picked up a ball just on the half way line and set off on a run, jinked pass a couple of Villa players, found himself the space to shoot and scored. Within a minute it should have been 2-0 as Arshavin put a great ball through to Nasri who rounded the keeper but put his shot just wide of the post. A corner gave Chamakh the chance with a great header that was stopped by Freidel. Another corner swept in by Arshavin was met by Nasri who thumped it through several players and into the back of the net. 2-0 at half-time.

How many of us knew the second half was not going to be so easy?

A defensive mess up allowed Villa to score early in the second half and there we were 2-1 again and looking shaky. Another great collapse in the making ……………. not this week. The combination of Jack, Arsh and Nasri feeding Chamakh and Song putting in a great shift meant that although my heart plummeted when Villa scored I felt we were in good shape to ride a small storm. A great pass from Arshavin to Rosicky put Chamakh in to score our third but of course we had to let Villa score again before Chamakh floated a ball to Jack to head home.

Another great win on the road and we were top of the league for a couple of hours. It doesn’t disguise the fact that this could be a great team that will in all probability be undone by lapses in concentration. We flatter to deceive, we let the opposition back into games and  we undo all our own good work. But it’s only November and the season isn’t over until May.

If anyone  wants to add some player ratings I’ll tuck them on the end.

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Posted by peachesgÖÖner

What’s with the negative vibes, man?

November 27, 2010

Feeling lucky punk? Well are you? I am, and here is why. We are a very good team who have suffered from a mixture of bad form, bad luck and bad refereeing over the past two games. Prior to that we had won two difficult away games and had discovered our fighting spirit.

Does the dire 45 mins v Spurs and the very poor performance in Braga mean we are a poor side fortunate to be in 3rd place?  I would shout a definite “No”. We still have the ability to beat anyone and we are still title contenders. Some may say (and do say) that this side is brittle, lazy, and lacking in spirit; some say we lack leaders, that the defence is a shambles,  the GK is a fool and Mr. Wenger should be reading his P45 on the bus home (are there still P45’s?). Rosicky is finished, JW is overworked, Denilson is not good enough, Nik, Diaby and Theo must be off-loaded, Squillaci is wooden, Koscielny too weak for the PL and Chamakh won’t shoot. Oh, and Clichy is too inconsistent,  Sagna can’t cross and Arshavin isn’t trying. That is without Cesc constantly thinking about Barca!!

Cobblers I say. This team is on the verge of something special. We are in the mix and with a good run can be top going into the New Year. Now I know one could counter and ask “upon what do you base your positive opinion” My main answer would be that I prefer to believe we are going to win than to lose. Plus we have seen this team destroy other sides – it is not so long since we dismantled Man City.

Our away form is good, for once better than our home record. What that shows I have no idea, we have played more difficult sides away!

Villa. We have an OK record against them at Villa Park. They are struggling to adapt to their new manager and the loss of two midfielders (Milner and Barry). The signing of Stephen Ireland looked inspired but he has yet to achieve the influence he showed at Citeh, 20 y.o. Bannan  has been on fine form and is highly rated by Villa fans. Upfront there are the usual motley crue – Heskey, Young, Carew, Agbonlahor and the new rising star Delfouneso. We should have enough to hold them, though on current defensive form we are almost sure to concede and will be looking to our attackers to create a winning platform.

Of course there is a special player in the Villa squad, one who is a particular hero of mine, a man who lit up the green fields of Highbury and many other pastures, a player who was so respected by his  colleagues that they all bowed down to him when he limped up to take his PL medal on that great day at Highbury. I hope Bobby gets some pitch time when we are 3 up with 10 minutes remaining, but unlike Eduardo doesn’t score!

The loss of Cesc for a few weeks is painful – he was just returning to some form, but Nasri has the opportunity to take his creative role. Once again, I lament the absence of Diaby, who plays well in tandem with his French midfield buddy

My team:

I would love to see van Persie start but “chocolate legs” doesn’t seem to have the confidence of his manager.

Finally, much is said about the “5 years”. If one takes out the League Cup (winners in ´94 & ´96) the last time Villa won a trophy was 29 years ago, though to be fair, it was the European Cup! Maybe it is our turn this year  ………

COYRRG

written by Big Raddy

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Posted by Erik the Red

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