Catalysts needed please…

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Hello again, I hope you’re doing well indeed on this fine Friday, or whatever day it is in your corner of the planet.

Today finds us smack dab in the middle of another interlull, the most boring of “nothing” patches. Interlull’s serve us up with troughs in what for all of us football fans is all about highs and lows during the frantic pace of a season. It seems strange that before my holiday we were going as low as we could go after a loss to Blackburn, however during this interlull we are very much a team on the rise. Somehow I only remember Interlull’s as a bastion of safety from poor results or a teeth-grindingly annoying red light when our foot is mashed on the gas pedal. Unfortunately for us this time, it’s the latter.

We now sit in 7th place in the league table, technically equal with Liverpool on 19 points, but behind by 2 on goal difference. A very far cry from the team we started the season out as indeed. From 1st (alphabetically, ha!) to 17th, to 7th – no team could claim such a jaw dropping free fall and meteoric rise up the table in quick succession this season, nor any season recently that I can remember, perhaps Liverpool aside post-Woy.

I suppose overall I’m glad that ridiculous questions have stopped being asked of Wenger regarding his ability to manage the club, his tactics, even his transfer dealings. I heard recently that in the last 25 years, clubs like Inter Milan and Barcelona have gone through what is approaching 15 managers, and Real Madrid an amazing 24 managers! I for one am proud that all the powers that be (and have been) at Arsenal have avoided making decisions based on public pressure from fans and the media after a string of poor results. By keeping faith in what is undeniably one of Europe’s best football managers, the club has been there or there abouts on average since Wenger took over in 1996, and our successes over that period were even above average by our high standards, with doubles and unbeaten runs to furnish our rich club history.

I understand that the final few percent needed to consistently win things is the part that frustrates fans, but in fairness I believe that is possibly the hardest part and needs one or two “catalyst” players to really ignite and carry success for a top team. We have one of those now and a few more in the making I believe, so if we continue to strengthen intelligently, and work on our weaker areas which have been acknowledged, we have many elements to carry success needed.

Otherwise the news just has the usual shit about us courting Yann M’Vila from Rennes alongside Real Madrid. Honestly, I thought he was sure to arrive last window, and actually believe he is more likely to come here than to Spain, such has been the noises coming from the bullish midfield himself and some of his mates. I don’t know how Alex Song and Emmanual Frimpong would be affected by this purchase, but either way I’m glad to see that we might be making competition for starting places higher, rather than take the “I don’t want to kill Johan Djorou” line with these things. The raw truth of it is that if Johan was ready to carry defensive responsibility he’d have fought tooth and nail to get his spot and keep it, rather than waiting for other’s defensive fuck-ups to get a place in the team.

Anyways, I’ll leave it there so you can get on with enjoying your boring interlull by playing FIFA or whatever it is you do with the other 30% of your life.

Cheers,

Back in Oz again

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Well hello there again readers. I’m safely back in the land of Oz after my first foray afield. My holiday was to the US of A, specifically California, Nevada and Florida + a Caribbean Cruise to top it off nicely. The US is equal measures cool and insane, but I had a fantastic time and I’d recommend going to anyone thinking about it.

Right, that’s the gap between blog excuses covered. On to the Arsenal.

I thought I’d have an easier time catching the games stateside due to the kickoffs taking place as one wakes up on a Saturday or Sunday, rather than requiring a stay up until 2am on Sunday or Monday morning as it is here on the opposite side of the universe. However this was made difficult for two reasons; 1. The Americans barely know about round ball football or “soccer”, meaning that trying to find a place with the Fox Soccer Channel or Fox Soccer + (which is where the Arsenal games were more often than not) was really frustrating. Not only that, but as I’m sure you holiday makers know after walking and jumping and driving and jetskiing and laughing and drinking all day means you are rarely up at 7:30am on holiday for fear of dying the following evening.

When I left our results were as low as I can remember since supporting the Arsenal these last 15 odd years. We had lost to Blackburn, a defeat symbolic of our ugly problems and shortcomings, and our fearless leader, Arsene Wenger, was one of the leaders for the bookies “sack race”, a horrible thought and terrible times for gooners everywhere.

I am very pleased to report that from that point things got much much better. We went on a run of wins, Sp*rs defeat aside. Although that defeat was spoiled for me by a local pizza shop owner near Union Square in San Francisco. As we were running to make the start of the game at a friends house that had Fox Soccer, we saw dinner at this shop. While we were in there, amazingly we noticed AC Milan jerseys throughout the shop, and that in the back he had highlights of European matches on a TV playing. Huzzah! As I watched the highlights of the Arsenal game came on and the pizza-man noticed me celebrating Ramsey’s equaliser. His response was “don’t bother watching that game, Tottenham won”.

….

“AAARRRGGGHHH!”. Needless to say the pizza tasted like ash after that. Both the friends that were with me (Liverpool fans) found that exchange at the pizza shop hilarious.

In any case, our phoenix like rise from the despairing depths of recent results continued. Robin van Persie, a man on fire, scoring like almost no Premier League forward has in recent times. Every kind of goal, he has shouldered the burden of captaincy with aplomb, and has dragged us to three points on many many times this calendar year since his deep purple patch started, often kicking and screaming at times.

And of course we come to recent results, most notably and most entertainingly, the Chelsea game. The stats have spoken for themselves, not in something like 15 years has a team gone to Stamford bridge and put 5 past a Chelsea side. However I wouldn’t act like it was an easy game for us. The game was more akin to a game of basketball, each team running up the end and then scoring. It was a thoroughly entertaining affair and there were many times where I was throwing things around the lounge room and shouting expletives at the top of my lungs while my dog howls along.

Leaving the memories of Old Trafford behind

More than once I thought our ugly collapsible ways would rear their heads and we would lose all points. When Santos was blocked by running back Reggie Bush…. erm I mean Lukaku, Mata picked up the ball well outside the area on the right hand side and fired one into the opposite corner past Szczesny, making it 3-3, I was sure the momentum had shifted Chelsea’s way. I’m sure for any of you gooners who have watched the deflating Wigan capitulation of two seasons ago, the Newcastle 4-4 last season, would have had your heads buried in your hands expecting the same.

But these boys showed grit, steeled their nerves and bombed forward for a fourth. However it wasn’t truly time for celebration until RVP smashed one past Cech at his near post. Much has been said about this game by better bloggers than I. Suffice it to say that the warm afterglow of this game followed me everywhere for days afterward. Nothing feels better than walking around in team colours and just basking in the happiness of a landmark victory against a quality opponent and leaving dark days and thoughts behind.

Unfortunately even the scintillating mind and legs of van Persie need a rest sometimes, and with a haul of 28 goals in 27 games or something of the sort, I’m sure Wenger and the physio’s are just wearing their lucky rabbit’s feet to each game, kissing their lucky eggs and praying that Robin stays fit for a season. His talent is undeniable, even 4 years ago, but what he can do with momentum and fitness was unfathomable and only just now at 28 is he showing us was he can do with week in week out games. Long may it continue. 

Ultimately resting him was seen by the press as a gamble that didn’t pay off. He brought him on late to try and snake a goal from an organised Marseilles side, and failing to do that the press were all over Wenger as to why such an in form striker wasn’t playing, prompting this from AW:

He was very tired after the game on Saturday so we planned to rest him and make him come on later.

He had the chance though – so if he scores that then it looks like perfect play – but overall we did not create enough.

Overall I couldn’t fault the manager’s decisions. Not sealing up top place in the CL group is annoying, and yes we could face Barcelona or the like again should we come 2nd in the group, but equally if not more important is getting into the top four in the league to ensure we can be there next year. It’s all well and good to throw ourselves at the Champions League, but I think that can wait until the knockout stages, and I think most realistic gooners among us would know it would take an amazing string of results and luck to get to the final, let alone win it. I’d prefer we just keep soaking RVP in champagne baths after league games and then straight into his bubble wrap suit, only to be unwrapped for the next league game, or to go to the toilet and stuff.

Anyway, it’s good to be back. This wasn’t so hard to write, I don’t know what I was procrastinating about..

Talk soon. Go the gunners.

We need a vomit strategy

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Well, here we are again gooners. Picking over the ashes of another heartbreaking result, looking for morsels of positivity.

I would start by saying it’s not often you’ll see an Arsenal team, or any top European club for that matter, go to Ewood Park, score 5 goals and lose 4-3. But even as I type that it somehow seems to have become the norm for us. Why has it come to getting results like these? I appreciate that the general level of talent and pure skill in our best XI has dropped by some amount since last year, but overall our problem does not appear to be one related to tight, technical play or killer final balls. We scored. 3 times. And they were clean goals, no controversial, scrappy ones either.

What does seem to be the problem is our tactics, defensive capabilities and most of all, organisation. It belies belief that we can play all the way through last season, even challenging for the title until our catastrophic collapse at the end, and yet still bear such an obvious and exploitable weakness. The weakness I’m referring to that I’m sure you’re all aware of, is our frailty at set pieces. Our indecision, or unwillingness to attack the ball from dead ball situations was our undoing in something like over half our goals conceded last term! It means that ridiculous excuses for managers like Tony Pulis can tactically get an advantage over Arsene Wenger by indetifying this weakness (probably by watching Sky Sports News) and then instructing players to bum-rush our box from a set piece. It’s outrageously annoying that we still haven’t patched this hole.

In any case, let’s focus on the positives fellow Gooners. I thought Gervinho was the best on the park for large portions of the game, confusing defenders, running at them with outstanding dribbling, and most of all LOOKING FOR TEAM-MATES when crossing *cough Theo *cough! His first goal was the result of a well timed pass as Song beat one midfielder and slid a nicely weighted ball through between the centre half and the full back , and as Gervinho collected it while running towards the right corner flag unleashed a shot that slid the the very opposite corner extremity and into the goal. A well taken shot but definitely nice work by Song to create the goal also, with a great cutting ball like we used to get from name removed.

After the first goal there was a warning sign when a towering Samba header was put wide as it was a few inches too high for even him, and also Dann behind him did not call for the ball when he was clearly in a better position. Still, the uncontested header against such a clear aerial threat was a concern. However we also saw a magnificent save by Paul Robinson from Arshavin. The ball was being worked around the box, two Blackburn players headed it clear and it fell the the diminutive Russian on the full at the edge of the area, and he caught it flush to produce a great save from Robinson.

Gervinho also conspired to miss a great pull back from Sagna after some more great one touch play down the right flank released him into acres of space. Our new Ivorian winger scuffed his shot over though, which allowed another let off for Rovers.

We then promptly allowed Blackburn in the game when they put us under pressure. Junior Hoilett picked up a rebounded ball the we had cleared and waited until he had seen the run of ex-Everton striker Yakubu, slid the ball across him and Yakubu had only to prod it towards the far corner with the outside of his foot to foil Szczesny’s onrushing attempt to cover the shot. A well timed ball and finish not that dissimilar from our own first. Unfortunately our new Brazilian full back Andre Santos could be seen as playing Yakubu onside for the goal as he was not in line with our defence, but we cannot afford to let passes like that through with a new defence as we have, so I can’t blame him fully.

The next goal was our own, and a great one indeed. Wing play had spread Blackburn’s cover and when Sagna played a one touch ball to Song, who did the same down the exposed right flank, Ramsay ran onto it unchallenged and had time to look up, and cut it back to the edge of the box where the onrushing Arteta smashed it into the roof of the net for our 2nd and his 1st as an Arsenal player. A well sprung move executed with nice one touch play and a great finish under pressure from Arteta.

Still on the attack, Gervinho perhaps selfishly decided not to pass to RVP when he was open and his shot was deflected over. He did receive a few words for his decision from Robin, and I’m sure he’ll be looking for him next time.

Next we had Alex Song tip in an own goal unluckily from a spot kick outside the right hand side of our box. Arshavin committed a silly foul on the edge of the area after being beaten. I think we were just unlucky on this one as Szczesny looked uncharacteristically slow to react to the deflection and couldn’t save it. The ball went through the heads of the Blackburn attacker and our defender and just landed on Song’s things and went in bottom corner. As I said he could have been more ready in case the ball came through, but it’s very difficult to cushion a fast moving cross with your things and I think we were unlucky on this one.

With the rain starting to pour down a neat through ball through to Formica well saved by Szczesny, you could sense the tide of this match starting to turn against us and we were well and truly under the kosh. The Rovers faithful were starting to believe and we know what happens when we let the crowd believe.

The next goal by Blackburn was definitely not unlucky. Junior Hoilett again found Chris Samba at the far end of the box unmarked, he took a touch, and smashed it across the ground to the far post, where the ever dangerous Yakubu had only to turn his foot to hit it home for Blackburn’s third. This goal was definitely preventable as Samba with the threat he possesses should not have been unmarked, and none of our players attempted to intercept the cross just by simply hacking it clear. More evidence that we are unwilling to attack the ball under pressure, even if it’s only to put the opposition under pressure.

I found myself having a mental battle at this point. Blackburn are clearly one of the worst teams in the league at the moment, and a hot favourite to be relegated. Steven Kean, is a terrible manager in my opinion, and even at 2-2 I thought we would still nick the win and three points as we were creating more and looking more dangerous. But at 3-2 I realised that we were simply collapsing too fast at the back for our forwards to make up for it by scoring. I realised that this would be another day to forget, one of which we’d had so many recently and I can’t help but think that this one wasn’t due to “special circumstances”, merely just a lack of organisation and coaching.

The next own goal (becuase yes, there were two fucking own goals in this professional football match) was conceded by Koscielny. This is a tough one, because I thought his form had been improving lately. After some neat wing play and an overcommitted Djorou challenge allowed the winger to weave into our area, Koscielny’s tired legs simply ran out of ideas when the ball was crossed on the ground to him and he just side footed it home like Fernando Torres wishes he could do.

At this point we were fully deflated. I though to myself I went from thinking this was the old Arsenal, to hoping we might nick a win, to hoping desparately for a point, to the crushuing realisation we would get nothing from this trip. RVP had a nice header palmed back by Robinson who was having a good game, but still I had that hopeless feeling that the hurting was not over. Even when Chamakh turned in a nice cross by van Persie under pressure (IE what we bought him for!), I still somehow knew were just just huffing and puffing to little too late. Per Mertesacker’s clear header over the bar on the dying minutes just summed up our day.

Failing to convert these chances comes back to haunt us more than any team it seems. And so he were are now. Post game Wenger said

This is not more humiliating (than the 8-2 at Old Trafford). I do not have the measurement of humiliation,It is frustrating more than anything else, because we had the potential to win.

He also went on to say:

Football is like that, when you are 90 percent of the way there, you miss the 10 percent, you don’t win. We have to gain this 10 percent back because the potential in the side is huge

No disagreements on that from me. My issue is whether he and the coaching staff are ready to say “ok, we have a problem here that teams keep exploiting” and decide to actively work on that. Almost to the exclusion of all else I’d say. Our attacking players can still create, and even if we train them slightly less on that front for a week or two and just work on defensive tactics. I want them to train these basics so that it’s burned into the minds of players, that way when legs and minds are tired we will still always automatically attack the ball and mark dangerous players at set pieces, the same as countless hours of repetition always make you play back to defenders when you hear “man on” and your back is to defenders. I want us to have a spew play that we run when we have no energy left, just like the hilarious scene in Semi Pro where Woody Harrelson forces players to re-run a boring defensive strategy until they vomit, so that when they are down to grains of energy they still automatically defend. That’s what Pat Rice needs to instill in our team defensively, some vomit.

Anyway that’s about it for today. Here’s hoping that watching the Scousers fail badly made your morning, and we’ll just ignore that team from Manchester and whatever they’re doing on the field at the moment. It won’t last. Trust me.

Bye for now.

Take the point and run

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RVP's opener at dortmund

RVP knee slides in celebration of opener at Borussia Dortmund

 

Well here we are, at the first match report on my shiny new site. I’m very pleased to be here. All of this reading of blogs and listening to podcasts on football, coupled with my undying support (via TV) of Arsenal FC compels me to publish a blog of my own, so here goes.

I write this first match report in the wake of our first group stage UEFA Champions League match, which took place away to Borussia Dortmund (the German Champions last year) at their fine stadium, Signal Iduna Park. It’s worth noting that for normal league matches their stadium still has standing terraces available for the fans, so they cram more than 80,000 frenzied Bundesliga fans into that building for big league matches. They obviously do not carry this through to european matches for obvious reasons, but my point is that many Bundesliga teams are not afraid of hearing a few fans roar, especially not at home. And true to form, Dortmund were impressive from first to last whistle.

I hadn’t spent too much time watching the Bundesliga last year, but by all accounts Dortmund were every bit the swashbuckling, enterprising attack based team that we are on our day, even though sometimes it seems those days are few and far between now. Quite how they were drawn in pot 4 along with us is a mystery to me, being that they are German champions. It certainly meant that coming into this game we would have done well to get something out of the game, considering that our other opponents, Olympiakos and Marseilles, are certainly no pushovers themselves. Along with that it’s no secret we tried to sign their star 19 year old playmaker; Mario Gotze, who had a great game, but more on that later.

In any case, we saw Dortmund start at a very high pace. In fact, watching them press us all over the pitch reminded me of the Barcelona game at the Emirates last season. Perhaps their coach Jurgen Klopp noticed that employing Pep Guardiola’s tactics forces us to rush our game, making our passing sloppy and allows our less experienced players, which we have a lot of, to get dispossessed in bad areas. Whatever the opposition instructions were, we did not look excellent. A team still nursing the wounds of the assault we sustained at Old Trafford a few weeks ago was the team I saw start the game, but very importantly, not the one that finished it.

Pat Rice was in charge of our team for the match, being that the ridiculous ban imposed by UEFA was upheld, meaning he not only missed the Dortmund match, but misses the Marseilles one at the Emirates too. Not only this, but Arsene Wenger was forced to suffer the ignominy of being escorted to his seat by some burly looking dickheads and apparently made to stay in his seat till almost 15 minutes after the final whistle. Why? What possible effect could Arsene have on the team after the final whistle? Are UEFA worried Arsene will quickly run into the Dortmund catering area and put salmonella into their gatorade? Ridiculous…

In any case it appeared Pat Rice had enough about himself tactically to play the game right, even though we did very much sit 10 men behind the ball in the 2nd half to try and scrape a win. A tactic which I’m surprised to say was a decent one, as Dortmund were playing very well, the pace being dictated by one Mario Gotze, the young wunderkind I mentioned earlier. In fact the way he orchestrated his team, despite his very tender age, bore more than a passing resemblance to our dearly departed Cesc. A great shame we were not able to wrap up a deal for him over the summer transfer window. Although the reported 35m+ they wanted for him would have still been obscene for a 19 year old, and I could not see Wenger doing this realistically.

We also got some more minutes to assess our newer arrivals to the club. Starts were handed out to Gervinho, Mertesacker, Arteta and Benayoun, as well as a late cameo for Santos. I very much like Gervinho’s directness in dribbling at defenders, something we truly lack when Arshavin is not in form, which, lets face it, is bloody often. Mertesacker I am the other end of the spectrum. I expected him to slot in easiest, however I think he is having the hardest time of our new recruits, albeit with a lot of expectation on his shoulders trying to shore up our much maligned defence. Arteta has played fairly well, but definitely nowhere near like his best form for Everton, just respectably. But he did make an excellent 50/50 challenge for a header to protect our goals and earned himself a bleeding scalp from a head clash for his troubles. It’s that grit and resilience that I found most shocking as I have not seen it from players in an Arsenal shirt for a while, not across the park when we’re hanging on to a lead anyways. Lastly Benayoun, I thought started fairly average, but grew into the game, and even when several Dortmund players attempted to crowd him out forcing him to run back, he still always then attempted to cut back into midfield and get the ball going forward again. What he lacks in quality he still appears to make up for in energy and desire. Alan Davies on the Tuesday Club hilariously said “he’s like a mouse in the kitchen bouncing off the skirtings”, and to be fair I can see his point, Yossi still didn’t appear to have our roadmap of play and didn’t link up with the rest of our midfield and forwards particularly well.

The goal was created and finished by our main man, Robin van Persie. He picked up on a lazy pass by an opposition player, and poked it towards Walcott. Theo stepped one player, and kept his composure to slide a pass back to RVP who was running away from him to goals, and Robin’s finish on his chocolate foot was clinical as we know he can be. While I’m on that note though, why the hell is Theo now more interested in bitching to referees and calling for cards than just playing football? And for the life of me I cannot figure out why his crossing still hasn’t improved, and his “chip and chase with pace” tactic is as one dimensional as it gets. If Gervinho beds in his position and Arshavin’s form improves, which the law of averages says is some point this year, Theo may be bench warming.

Otherwise generally speaking I thought our new blood acquitted themselves well for us on a big stage, and showed when we were hanging on with our fingernails what experienced, calm heads can help the squad weather. Had there not been a simply stunning open-mouthed finish from Perisic on the 87th minute from outside the area, on the full, I’m sure we would have doggedly defended our way to three points for at least half the game.

Perisic's winner for Dortmund away

"For the love of god, don't let it hit me!"

Still I must say it seems myself and most others would take the 1 point from that tough away game. A shame as we could’ve had all 3, but conversely we could’ve had none as Dortmund definitely were able to fashion chances, with only the outstanding Szczesny preventing further leakages, and also a Sagna clearance off the line I seem to remember from the 1st half.

The good news is that both Manchester United and Manchester City could only muster draws against Benfica and Napoli respectively. And I feel that the German champions were at least as stern a test if not tougher at home than either of those two matches. It turns out, surprise surprise, that the Manchester clubs bleed after all. Now we’ve got hopefully no further injury news (none I’m aware of) and a good upswing match (hopefully!) against Blackburn at the weekend. And I will be more than happy to settle for one nil to the Arsenal, like the boring times of old while we regain our confidence and killer instincts.

Anyway, I hope you like my blog, and many thanks if you’ve taken the time to read it.

Till next time.

My first blog post on my very own site

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Well this is my fancy new home now. I now have my very own domain. OzArsenal.com
It has a nice ring to it. Australia is just too long a work and too often misspelt for blog readers, and I’d know because I am one!

Anyways, here’s hoping I can sucessfully post something people will like to read amongst the drivel – an Arsenal Blog with the Australian perspective for any died in the wool gooners living in sunny Australia roaring our fantastic team onto success on the TV.

In any case welcome if you’re just reading down this far. I’m not expecting visitors until I’ve made quite a few more posts.