I hate losing to the Spuds.

Obviously I don’t like losing to anyone: not Chavs or Dippers; not Surrey Mancs or Northern Oilers; not Orcs or jumped-up Yorkshire giant killers.

But a Spud defeat always brings a special hurt in a tender place, like trying to straddle a fence and landing hard on your gentleman’s under-chassis.

However, Sunday’s loss was a curious one in that, since the dust settled, it seems to have become all things to all men (and women).

If you believed before the game that we were a mediocre team in terminal decline, there was nothing in that result and performance to change your mind.

Likewise if you felt we were a superior team and squad to the Spuds, you could point to the fact that we were the better team for most of the game and only lost through making a couple of silly mistakes.

If you thought we were a team with great creativity but no defensive nous: the performance proved your case.

If you felt that we had never adequately replaced Brave Sir Robin and, therefore, did not have the finishing power to win tight games: Bingo!

In fact supporters from just about every shade of opinion (and we have more shades than a Roy Orbison lookalike convention) could find something from the match to back up their prejudices.

And boy have we been happy to share those prejudices. The more immature among us call them FACTS, with capital letters and write about them at great length in the digital equivalent of green ink. The more considered, recognise them as opinions and present them accordingly.

I have read them all and, frankly, I feel like I’ve been on the receiving end of a barrage – like standing near the corner flag when Emmanuel Adebayor is taking shooting practice at the goal.

And I have come to the conclusion that the latest North London Derby tells us precisely nothing about where we are now as a team and what the future holds.

The only certainty is that we started the day with the possibility of being just one point behind the reprobates, but we ended it seven points adrift of them and with the task of qualifying for next year’s Champion’s League much, much harder.

Their win on Sunday is not a shift in power in North London. Even if they finish ahead of us this season (leaving poor old St T to rotate in his sepulchre) it will not constitute a shift in power. Let’s remember that last May the all-knowing scribes of Fleet Street declared that a permanent shift in power was under way in Manchester.

Sunday was just a close game that we narrowly lost.

Across the season we have played the Spuds twice, won one, lost one and scored six to their three. Over both games we were the better team for, I would say, 140 out of 180 minutes (although that includes a fair chunk of the first game where they were down to ten men).

Arsenal have been underachieving this year. It has made people angry and angry people look for scapegoats.

Our scapegoats range from the Head Goat himself, Mr A Wenger, to Per Mertesacker (too slow); Thomas Vermaelen (too error-prone); Laurent Koscielny (too own-goaly); Wojciech Szczesny (too Almunia-ish); Gervinho (too run-in-a-straight-line-ish); Olivier Giroud (too unHenry-ish) and so on.

Personally I blame Vic Akers and his tight shorts, which must surely distract even the most focused of our players.

Whether or not we get top four, it’s fair to say it will have been a particularly poor year, with embarrassing cup exits and a failure to challenge in the league.

But I don’t conclude from that that our players are rubbish or that Arsene is a busted flush. I conclude, simply, that we are having a bad year and that we can put it right next year.

Part of the reason it’s a bad year is because we had another lot of new arrivals, lost our star player (again) and you can’t expect all those new players to form an instant rapport and pick up a new system without hitches.

There have been games this season that I have enjoyed much, much less than Sunday’s defeat. Away games like Norwich, where we didn’t turn up, didn’t fight and didn’t register an attempt on goal in 90 minutes.

At least at the Swamp we fought and tried hard, even if our game was a bit off.

Some of our shortcomings are apparent (we really need a world class striker) and I expect them to be put right in the summer.

For now let’s get on and, as GiE said yesterday, try and win every game we have left and show the critics what we can do.

Sunday, after all, was just another game.

RockyLives

From the off this was never an easy fixture, and also it was not a must win fixture, but in my and many others eyes for any hope of finishing above that lot down the road it was definitely a must not lose fixture.

Fro the start there was an added edge to the play, I thought we did well in possession and moved it well enough through the midfield, in the final third Jack failed to pick passes to Giroud, Cazorla and Walcott unfortunately hardly featured. Spurs were rarely presenting a threat, apart from set pieces from silly free kicks, but they did nothing with them and our defence coped admirably.

A few tackles were flying around and Adebayor was lucky not to see red in consecutive North London Derby’s for an ill timed lunge on Wilshere. The only thing that saved him was that his leading foot was not off the ground, everything else about the challenge was red card worthy, late, out of control, studs up and endangering the safety of others. Clattenberg decided it wasn’t a red and brandished a yellow instead.

0-0 at half time would have been a fair result given the 36 minutes played so far. But then we decided (as we so often have this season) to gift an opening goal to the opposition. Sigurdsson running with the ball had all the time in the world to pick a pass to the through running Bale, who absolutely no one had decided to track. At first glance it looked to me like he was miles offside but to be fair to the linesman he was spot on, BFG had shifted back a couple of yards to track the run of Adebayor, the rest of the defence did not respond and Bale was through with just Szczesny to beat, which he duly did.

1-0 down was not too concerning, yes it had got the home fans up on their feet, but the game was still finely balanced, that was until 2 minutes later and we decided yet again to play a high line when we shouldn’t have, this time Lennon leaving Monreal in his wake and leaving Vermaelen standing still rushed on to a through ball to make it 2-0. To be honest I also felt like Szczesny got caught out of position on this one, but with the defence in front of him parting as regularly as they do I feel sorry for him and can’t be too harsh on the young man.

2-0 down and we had given ourselves a difficult task again.

We started the second half briskly and the deficit was halved by a combination of Mertesacker and Bale, I’d say it was probably a Bale own goal as Mertesacker’s flick was not really going anywhere towards goal. A bit of belief and Arsenal pushed on in search of the equaliser, unfortunately Spurs were ready for the battle and dug in for the following 40 minutes to hold on to victory.

Our players toiled hard, but it is unrealistic to expect the attack and midfield to constantly pull the defensive mistakes round to a positive result on every occasion. Its about time the defence stood up and took some responsibility for the results this season.

I’m sure you all have a lot more to say on the game so i’ll leave it up to you to fill in the blanks, now the big question remains can we qualify for Champions League, but don’t worry its not a trophy so there is no need to get too worked up if we don’t is there?

We can just cruise along to seasons end now, bar performing some miracle in Munich, we have 11 games to go (10 in the league) so we can relax and enjoy them for what they are…meaningless rubbers, and look to build for next season, blood some youngsters and see what improvements are needed throughout the squad.

Ratings

Szczesny – 7 could have done better with his positioning for the second, good handling all afternoon

Jenkinson – 7 solid from the young man, failed to offer too much support going forward because he was pressed back by Siggurdson

Mertesacker – 7 minus one for the goal against plus one for the goal, rest of his play what we have come to expect

Vermaelen – 5 culpable on both goals

Monreal – 6 undergoing a Premier League baptism of fire, he hasn’t quite found the pace yet.

Arteta – 6 went quietly about his business

Wilshere – 7 runs and works and tries to drag the team forward, maybe a case of trying too hard first half and trying to force the final ball

Ramsey – 7 thought he had a very tidy game, battled hard to win control of the midfield.

Walcott – 6 very quiet

Cazorla – 7 quiet first half, came more into the game second

Giroud – 7 led the line willingly but was well marshalled by their defence and had little support.

Subs:

Rosciky – 7 be good to get some more regular game time from the pass and move master

Podolski – 7 got involved, unlucky not to pick his way through on a number of occasions.

Written by Gooner in Exile

As a relatively young fan in 1989, I don’t think I ever fully understood the feelings of Nick Hornby as written in Fever Pitch….I have never really been let down by Arsenal, I’d never been given that false hope, I definitely had never felt like he did during that 90 minutes of football, well that is until the elation that followed Thomas charging through the midfield I have always known what that moment felt like. (I also remember how that half term seemed to take an eternity as I couldn’t wait to go back to school and rub my Spurs supporting mates noses in it)

In my first few years supporting Arsenal it was not really with any hope or expectation, there were no real glory years to speak of in recent memory. We had won the League Cup in 1987 breaking the Rush hoodoo (“they always win when he scored you know”), and been at Wembley the following season to watch the horror of losing to Luton….thanks Gus and Nigel. Then that memorable night at Anfield.

Then came another League win, and the Cup double plus the Cup Winners Cup, what was Hornby on about? In 10 years of avidly following Arsenal I had seen 1 European Trophy, 2 League Cups, 1 FA Cup and 2 League titles. What was hard about that. And then after Graham relieved himself of his duties by relieving Rune Hauge of £400k, and the Rioch interlude, along came Arsene and his band of entertainers and in the next 10 years I got to see another 3 League Titles and 4 FA Cup wins. Before I turned 30 I had seen Arsenal win 13 trophies (the pedants among you will realise the trophy count was actually 14 but 1979 somewhat passed me by as a 3 year old and you will recall I had a brief dalliance with West Ham from ages 4-9 due to my Grandad buying me the 1980 kit for my 4th birthday).

The following 7 years have not been so kind (and not just to my waistline) and finally I get how Nick Hornby felt on that Friday night in May 1989. Pacing up and down the living room convinced that we aren’t going to get a winner or that we will concede an equaliser. Big games greeted with a feeling of inevitability about the performance/result. Away at West Brom last season the team put us through the mill, and they have done on various occasions this season too, and now Sunday beckons…….I am going to be a wreck come 4pm, and i’m not sure how I am going to survive the match that follows.

I need your help AA’ers: How are you going to get through what could be the most stressful 90 minutes of our season so far?

Gooner in Exile

It’s been a tough season so far, enough to test the patience of a Southampton fan (think about it).

We probably all have our own personal lowlights of a campaign that has had more ups and downs than a Super Mario Brothers game (just when we’re about to reach 100 coins, we always manage to fall in a pit or get zapped by Bowser).

But there have been highlights too (5-2 anyone?), even though some supporters seem to remember only the bad stuff.

And now we are entering the most crucial part of the campaign, at least as far as on-field matters go.

There are 11 games left, from which we must accumulate enough points to finish in the top four of the Premier League.

We have expertly ensured that there will be no fixture congestion by removing ourselves from all the cup competitions (you will deduce from this that I am not expecting any miracles in Munich).

So it’s all about Premiership points from here on in – and every Gunner should get behind the team to help them over the line.

Don’t fall for the media campaign against our club: there is no crisis except one of confidence among some of the fans, which, on occasion, affects the players. If you doubt me, think about these FACTS:

• We are fifth in the league, just two points behind the Chavs and four behind the Spuds with everything to play for.
• We are the EPL’s form team, with four wins and a draw out of our last five league games. Only ManUre can equal that.
• We have scored more goals than every other team apart from ManUre and the Chavs.
• We have conceded fewer than everyone except Man City (although – with 30 against- we’re level with the Chavs and Spuds).
• Our goal difference is considerably better than the Spuds’ (+22 compared with their +15).

If this is a crisis it’s one that most teams would like to have.

And before the pessimisti among you start shouting at me, that does not mean I think things could not be better and that I’m happy to settle for fourth place every year – no more than Arsene Wenger is.

But given that things didn’t gel as well as we would have hoped this season, we have to deal with the here and now.

Which is why it astonishes me when I take a rare excursion through some of the highways and byways of the Arsenal blog world and see people who call themselves supporters demanding that season ticket holders boycott home games; or giving up hours of their time to compiling lists of all the “donkeys” Mr Wenger has signed in recent years; or taking greater delight in our setbacks than our successes.

I’m not saying there aren’t legitimate questions to be asked, but not here, not now.

Now is the time for one thing only: unquestioning support until the end of the season.

If you think we need to change our manager, or that some of our players are not good enough, or that our ownership situation leaves something to be desired then voice those opinions once the campaign is done.

Because nothing of structural significance is going to change between now and the end of May: Stan Kroenke will not sell his stake; Arsene Wenger will not quit or be fired; no new players will come in.

We have who we have and we need to get on with it and support those players and coaches. Apparently Gervinho’s name was booed by some people at the ground when he was announced as one of the substitutes on Saturday. Way to go! That’s really going to help his confidence, not to mention his willingness to fight for the club.

Whatever you think of Gerv, he will certainly have a part to play for us between now and the end of the season. Do you really want to see him mess up again just so you can say “I told you he was cr*p”? Or do you want him to score goals and provide assists, maybe the goals and assists that secure Champions League football next year? I know which I would prefer.

Likewise those who are already writing off Nacho Monreal (yes, seriously, some people are) need to take a look at his personal stats from the Villa game. I won’t go through them here, but they make very pleasant reading.

And if you are a season ticket holder who has stopped going either for financial reasons or because of disillusionment, please try to make sure someone else takes your place.

It’s time for a late season charge – and a charge only works when everyone is united.

Let’s do it!

RockyLives