Arsenal

17th September 2015: Giroud sees red, Art easily by-passed and Ox’s form flummoxing

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. We all foresaw Arsene Wenger rotating his squad for last night’s game against Dinamo Zagreb, what with Hector Bellerin and Aaron Ramsey being left in London, but few would have envisaged us losing our opening group stage game in this season’s Champions League.

Yet that’s exactly what transpired after a wretched first-half display saw us concede a goal, have a man sent off and play with all the coherence of a concussed piss-head. Before the game yesterday, I wrote the following:

… when you make changes to a winning team, as we will tonight, there is always an increased possibility of the side not functioning at it’s best, so the players who come in, will need to be at their best to ensure we don’t look disjointed and play like a pack of complete strangers. It’s happened before, although with the overall quality of our squad vastly improved from seasons past, it’s less of a worry these days. For instance, Hector Bellerin has not made the trip and we can call upon an experienced French international like Mathieu Debuchy to cover for him.

So I was half right. We were a side far from functioning at its best and did look disjointed, going forward at least, particularly in the first half. But I was wrong in suggesting this squad has the requisite depth to deal with rotation, because in one key position, an area of the pitch a lot of people have highlighted for a while as needing bolstering, and I have repeatedly moaned about myself all summer – defensive midfield – was, I felt, a major problem last night.

In short, Mikel Arteta, brought in to deputise for the rested Francis Coquelin, showed he isn’t capable of being an adequate back-up for the Frenchman and frankly, this scares me sh*tless, with a long season ahead and a good few months until the earliest opportunity to address the problem arises.

Many observers have pointed out that most of our starting eleven struggled to find form last night but I’m not sure I agree with that analysis. I think we missed Coquelin’s energy against pacy opponents who broke efficiently in attack and although I personally lay the blame for their opening goal at the feet of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (not so much for deflecting the ball into his own net, but for not tracking their player’s run properly in the first instance, with Mathieu Debuchy shifted infield), I thought Arteta’s attempts to defend the area in front of our defence were pitiful.

He was sluggish in his movement, and clumsy in the challenge and sometimes it takes just one player to not play his role well enough to severely impact the whole team as a unit. I think that was the case last night. When Coquelin was eventually introduced in place of the Spaniard in a triple substitution around the hour mark, we began looking like a team for the first time in the match.

Kieran Gibbs and Debuchy have taken a lot of flak, along with the rest of the team but alongside Arteta, I felt the Ox and Olivier Giroud were the biggest culprits in our defeat. Giroud for his petulant posturing with the referee which led to an early red card for two bookings, and the Ox for playing just as poorly as he did at Newcastle.

Even if you can understand, if not accept, Giroud’s lack of focus right now because of his booing on international duty with France and his struggles in front of goal, the Ox’s lacklustre performances of late leave me wondering what the hell happened to the player who produced such scintillating showings in pre-season and scored a stunner to win us the Community Shield at the start of last month.

At St James’ Park and again last night, he looked as though he couldn’t be arsed. Either he’s struggling with some kind of nagging injury or he’s got off-field issues affecting his focus because otherwise, somebody needs to show him a few clips of what he’s capable of producing on a pitch as he’s clearly forgotten how to play football.

If I look for positives from the game, Theo Walcott’s finish, Gabriel’s continuing growth into a gritty, accomplished central defender and the team’s second-half display with ten men would be the picks. Yet with a double header against Bayern Munich as well as a trip to Greece still to come in this group, we’ve made a dreadful start to the competition.

That said, if we can get back to winning ways at Stamford Bridge on Saturday with those rested returning to reinvigorate our side to success, perhaps we’ll all feel the rotation was worth the opening-night Champions League heartache in the end.

Til Friday.

16th September 2015: Champions League Preview – Squad test in Zagreb

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back Blogees. We get our Champions League campaign underway at the Stadion Maksimir in Zagreb tonight, and with a bit of luck, we’ll begin a sequence of four consecutive away games with a win.

First, some stats: No team has won more Champions League games without winning the trophy than we have (76), and no currently active manager has taken charge of more games in the competition than our very own Arsene Wenger (168).

We’ve won our last three away games in the Champions League and our opponents this evening, Dinamo Zagreb, have failed to keep a clean sheet in any of their last eight home games in the competition. The omens are good.

That said, when you make changes to a winning team, as we will tonight, there is always an increased possibility of the side not functioning at it’s best, so the players who come in, will need to be at their best to ensure we don’t look disjointed and play like a pack of complete strangers.

It’s happened before, although with the overall quality of our squad vastly improved from seasons past, it’s less of a worry these days. For instance, Hector Bellerin has not made the trip and we can call upon an experienced French international like Mathieu Debuchy to cover for him.

That’s depth of quality, unlike bringing in Justin Hoyte for Bacary Sagna for example. And Arsene discussed just this topic at his pre-match press conference last night, when he was asked if he’d make changes to his team with specifically the Premier League game at Chelsea on Saturday in mind:

It is more the global programme we have to absorb in the next three weeks, rather than one (Chelsea) game. I knew since I [found out] our schedule that I have a squad of 20 players, all experienced and every decision I make is very difficult. It is quite easy to change two or three players, [more] than it was in years before because they are all at a very good level. I know the same team cannot play every single game over the next three weeks. I try to keep the balance right and give a little breather to players who need it.

The boss also discussed his side’s desire to win the competition for the first-time in the club’s history, reflected ruefully on last season’s knock-out stage elimination at the hands of Monaco and pointed out that the road to May’s final in Milan is a long one, requiring a lot of hard work along the way. He said:

If we missed one game last year, then it was our home game with Monaco. We were not patient enough and we wanted to make the difference in the first game. We know we have some way to put that right, that is a regret of the season last year. We know as well that we can show that we have learnt from that. This drive [to win the competition] is immense. It has never been done at Arsenal and we were very, very, very, close. On the other hand, I have been long enough in the job to know you have to be realistic and know that you have to put hard work in.

After both Manchester clubs lost their opening group stage games, English teams have been written off before the competition has even really begun, but I don’t agree to be honest. The likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and last year’s beaten finalists Juventus, are undoubtedly top quality sides, but the only team from that quartet I’d really rather avoid on any run to the San Siro is Barca. Besides them though, I would fancy our chances against any side in Europe if we’re fully fit and on form.

After coming so, so close in Paris in 2006, getting to our second-ever Champions League Final ten years on would be more exciting than winning the Premier League for me. I appreciate many younger fans will not have savoured our most recent title wins in 1998, 2002 and 2004 and that’s probably why I’d be in a minority among many supporters in preferring continental success over domestic, but it’s about time we were crowned champions of Europe and a win tonight would obviously be a great way to kick-start our challenge this season.

COYG.

15th September 2015: Wilshere surgery blow as Zagreb boss calls Arsenal ‘frightening’

Posted on by TremendArse

Good evening. Except it isn’t really, because Arsenal have today announced Jack Wilshere will be sidelined for approximately three months as he needs surgery to repair the fractured fibula he sustained in August.

In honesty, the news isn’t as much of a shock as when Danny Welbeck was recently ruled out for a number of months, because in-the-Arsenal-know Sunday Mirror reporter Steve Stammers last weekend revealed the possibility Jack may need to go under the knife. That has now been confirmed and the midfielder will need a small plate inserted into his left leg after his injury failed to heal as expected. The full statement on Arsenal.com read:

Due to a slow healing response from a fracture suffered in August, the club can confirm that Jack Wilshere is to undergo an operation to his left fibula. The decision to intervene has been taken quickly after regular reviews by specialists, who feel that Jack’s scans show that the healing process is not progressing as well as expected. Jack will have surgery in London in the forthcoming days. This will involve inserting a small plate in his left fibula. Jack is likely to be out for approximately three months. Everyone at the club wishes Jack well with his rehabilitation.

Needless to say, it’s devastating news for both the club and a young player, who has been repeatedly sidelined by injury for large chunks of his relatively short career so far. In pre-season, Jack was playing and sounding like a man who was ready to force his way back into the first-team after an injury-ravaged campaign last time around.

It seemed this would finally be the season when the midfielder lived up to his billing as the finest English talent of his generation but with the 12 week lay-off ahead of him now ,and the inevitable period of time after that it will take him to regain match sharpness, another season appears a likely write-off.

The one silver lining I suppose, from the player’s own perspective, is that if all goes well with his recovery and he’s back to something approaching his best in the final couple of months of the season, he’s got the Euros with England to look forward to and he’ll be very fresh to make his mark in France. Hopefully, from an Arsenal perspective, we’ll still be fighting on all fronts for trophies and can welcome back both Wilshere and Welbeck in time to give our squad new impetus at the business end of the season.

As I write this post, Arsene Wenger has been holding his pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow evening’s Champions League clash with Dinamo Zagreb and the boss is confident Wilshere’s long-term career is not in jeopardy because of his latest injury blow. He said:

Jack Wilshere is young enough to get over this. I’m confident he can make a career his talent deserves.

I’ll have more from Arsene before the game tomorrow, including team news etc but his opposite number for our opening group stage game, Zagreb manager Zoran Mamic, has revealed he was at the Emirates stadium to run the rule over the Gunners on Saturday as we beat Stoke, and described our play as ‘frightening’. He said:

I have watched Arsenal in many games, I went to see them against Stoke this weekend and I got the impression they were playing in second or third gear, and should have won 10-0! It is frightening and fascinating how they play. I believe we will be better than Stoke. Cazorla and Ozil are key Arsenal players, but the team is so strong that danger comes from everywhere.

And he’s right, I suppose we are pretty decent at the whole playing football thing but must guard against complacency and not fall into an oft-trodden trap of thinking turning up is all we need to do to win.

Zagreb matched our unbeaten achievement of 2004 in the Croatian domestic league last term and have players such as Angelo Henriquez – once of Man Utd and national team-mate of Alexis Sanchez – in their side, so they’re likely to be a talented outfit, particularly on home soil.

Right, a bit of a short one today but I’ll be back pre-match tomorrow for some final thoughts before we get our European campaign up and running.

See you then.

14th September 2015: Wenger, Monreal and Walcott look ahead to busy fixture-list

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back. It’s time to turn our attention to Europe, as the Champions League group stages get under way tomorrow and we travel to Croatia to take on Dinamo Zagreb on Wednesday evening.

The last time we played Zagreb was, believe it or not, nine years ago now and we ran out 5-1 winners on aggregate, in a Champions League playoff tie at the start of the 2006-2007 season.

It doesn’t seem nearly as long ago as that and I vividly remember being at the second-leg for what was our first-ever continental encounter at a newly-opened Emirates stadium. Time hasn’t so much flown by in my mind, as it’s been eaten up in one frightening gulp like Frank Lampard devouring a pizza.

Anyway, Arsene Wenger has been speaking about the importance of starting well in a group which includes Bayern Munich, suggesting a win would prove his team have the desire to do well in all competitions this campaign. He said:

It is important we go to Zagreb highly focused and conscious at what is at stake there. You can be quickly out of the Champions League and we want to start well and we know we have a battle first to qualify with Bayern Munich [in the group]. You need to find the balance between urgency and confidence and at times that is difficult as you can quickly be too confident and lose your urgency. We have Olympiacos and Zagreb first and we have to finish above them and the result will come down to that. I think it is important to start well because the hunger of a team is shown as well in how well you go in every competition.

Although the Bayern Munich games will no doubt be very testing, and we’ll go into them as underdogs in the opinion of most people, the fact remains that four very achievable wins out of four against Zagreb and Olympiacos, should see us safely through to the last 16, regardless of how we fare against the Germans.

So in that context, beating the Croatians on Wednesday night would be a massive step towards progression, even on Day 1 of the competition. And Nacho Monreal has also highlighted the fact that the Gunners must hit the ground running, saying:

You don’t play too many games so if you make a mistake you pay for it. You have to be really focused in each game and the level is higher. The difference is small but we have to be really focused. In every single game there is a lot of pressure [especially] when you play away, but we are accustomed to this so in this case it is more psychological than it is physical. It won’t affect us. We want to pass through into the next stage and we know that the favourite is probably Bayern Munich so we can’t lose against Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiacos as well. It would be really positive for us to start with three points as we will have more confidence in ourselves and it is the best way to start.

As we embark on a daunting run of four consecutive away fixtures, spread across three different competitions, Theo Walcott says it’s an ideal opportunity to prove the squad has the required depth of quality and highlights quick physical recovery after each game as being key:

We’ve got a tough four away games now but this is going to test the squad to its full ability, I’m sure. It’s always great to start the Champions League – it’s when everyone starts to get even fitter and sharper. We’re competing in the Premier League, the best league, and in the Champions League against the best players in the world. We’re going to improve and we need to have a good solid start. Away from home, it’s always difficult to play your first game but I think it will do us a favour to be honest. Everyone just needs to recover well.

As Theo suggests here, rotation will no doubt play a crucial role in this upcoming period of games and the hope is that those who’ve barely played any minutes so far this season – the likes of Debuchy, Gibbs, Chambers, Arteta, Flamini, Campbell etc – are all sufficiently focused and prepared to come in and perform if and when called upon.

Up front, keeping Theo and Giroud fit is also vial of course, given they can handily cover for one another as well as offer very different options at the tip of the attack, and particularly as Danny Welbeck is out for the foreseeable.

The boss should hold his pre-match press conference tomorrow and we might get more of an idea on who might play/be rested etc when we get the latest injury updates. One piece of news floating around today is that after 18 days out with a chest infection, Per Mertesacker won’t be included in the group travelling to Croatia.

Back tomorrow.

13th September 2015: Sunday night Stoke review

Posted on by TremendArse

Sunday night. It’s everybody’s favourite time of the week. Shirts are ironed, bags are packed and pencils are sharpened as we look forward to another five days of lessons, lectures or if you work, pure, unadulterated, boredom before we get to enjoy the whole weekend thing again. Nice.

Anyway, before we look at the week ahead, which heralds the return of the Champions League, time to take a peek back at yesterday’s post-match reaction and Arsene Wenger was fulsome in his praise of Theo Walcott after the England forward scored a very impressive opening goal against Stoke, as well as the team as a whole for creating so many chances:

His goal was outstanding. The quality of his movement, the quality of his control and the quality of his finish was absolutely outstanding. It’s a real striker’s goal. Scoring is a bit cyclic, up and down, but with the quality of the players we have we know we can score goals. We did against Stoke and if we continue to create that number of chances we will score much more. We had 30 shots on goal and we created bags of chances. We played with good mobility, good movement and good combinations with high technical quality. The only regret we have is that between the number of chances we had and the number of goals we scored, maybe the difference is a bit big. Overall it’s good to win.

I suppose in one way, Theo whole game was outstanding – consistently being in the right place at the right time. I mean, I think it’s a little too simplistic to suggest that any old player would have been in the positions he took up to give himself a chance of finding the net yesterday and although his finishing was found horribly wanting on every occasion bar his goal, on another day, with more confidence in his game, he could easily have grabbed at least a hat-trick.

Like he did against West Brom in the last Premier League game of last season for instance, which I believe, contrary to lots of others, wasn’t just down to the generosity of disinterested opponents. His first that day was a screamer any goalie would have struggled to keep out, his second a stunningly, fast-thinking piece of self set-up play and opportunism to dink the ball past the defender before poking home on the stretch past a keeper left with no time to react, and his third, an intelligent bit of reading to ghost in at the far post for a tap-in.

The other thing about having a mobile front-man, or more mobile than Olivier Giroud, is that we can stretch and disorientate defences, which in turn creates more space for others to work in – something Theo highlighted when discussing his role in the team yesterday:

It’s difficult in any position. The Premier League is the best league in the world and you’re playing against the best players. You’ve just got to adapt to the game you’re playing and then if players drop off, you keep on moving and hopefully create space for other people. That’s all that you can do and when you get given the opportunity you have to try to grab the goals when you can. Luckily I managed to grab one out of my many chances.

Okay, so even if ‘outstanding’ can’t be applied to Theo performance considering his catalogue of spurned opportunities, one man who certainly can claim to have produced a performance worthy of that description is Francis Coquelin, and team-mate Santi Cazorla told the Final Whistle after the game, that the Gunners are lucky to have him:

It’s amazing playing with him. He’s helped me a lot. He plays well, he defends well and I think he’s one of the best players in this position. We are lucky because he plays for Arsenal and I enjoy it a lot with him in this position.

At times, when people say Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini are adequate cover for Coquelin, they’re actually underestimating the qualities he brings to our side I think. That isn’t to knock either of our back-up options for the defensive midfield role, because they have their own strengths, but neither of them can reproduce anything approaching the combination of recovery speed, tenacity and ‘win it and give it’ dynamism Coquelin has in his locker.

If there’s one player in our squad who I think is absolutely critical for our chances of success this season, because of his quality as well as the lack of true alternatives, it’s him. Cotton wool him up Arsene!

See you next week.

12th September 2015: Walcott and Giroud secure win over Stoke

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. And what a pleasant one it is too, after Arsenal secured a 2-0 win over Stoke at Emirates stadium this afternoon and Chelsea got exactly what they deserved at Goodison Park in the early kick-off – a Steven Naismith-inspired spanking.

It’s just a shame City grabbed a late winner at Palace and United beat Liverpool, but I suppose, I shouldn’t complain. We’re third now, five points off top spot and our stuttering start to the season is rapidly morphing into a very solid one indeed.

Arsene Wenger made just one change to his starting line-up from the win at Newcastle as Mesut Ozil replaced Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, with Aaron Ramsey resuming his role on the right hand side. Gabriel retained his place ahead of Per Mertesacker in defence and Theo Walcott was again first-pick to lead the attack.

We started very brightly and Walcott wasted two early chances; skewing one effort well wide before placing a close-range header over the bar when he should really have scored both. But overall as a team, we looked far more fluent than in our previous two home games this season, with Alexis Sanchez in particular, looking back to his razor-sharp best.

So I was confident a goal would eventually arrive from somewhere and that it came from Walcott was the perfect way for us to break our goal-scoring duck at home this season. The move began with Francis Coquelin winning possession with a typically snarling, sliding tackle in our half before finding Ozil.

The German looked up from half-way, spotted Theo’s clever dash in behind the Stoke back four and placed the ball perfectly into the forward’s stride with a lofted through-ball. Theo’s touch as the ball dropped over his shoulder was sublime and he showed great strength and composure to hold off his marker and slide the ball past Jack Butland for one nil after 31 minutes.

It was more of of the same for the rest of the half and the majority of the second as we continued to pass and probe without finding a second goal to kill the contest. Arsene replaced Walcott with Giroud and after missing a glorious opportunity following a mix-up at the back by Stoke, the Frenchman nodded home his second goal of the season from Santi Cazorla’s free-kick five minutes before the end.

So both Plan A and Plan B, in term’s of our current striker options, were utilized today and both, eventually, worked out but the spurned chances by both players today will, in honesty, have done little to convince their doubters. Afterwards, Arsene praised the performance from his team, before explaining why he chose Walcott ahead of Giroud and saying the former has it in him to be a prolific goal-getter for the Gunners:

I believe we put in a very strong performance. Technically we had our moments in the first half and we played the football we wanted to play and created several chances. Maybe if I wanted to be critical I could say that that there is too big a difference between the number of chances we created and the number of goals we scored but that will come quickly once you win your games at home. I know Stoke are a compact, organised team in their own half and Theo could find little pockets to get in their and maybe that you get two or three chances to counter attack at home so maybe you can use that. He scored a great goal because you needed technical quality to score and timing in the finish. It is good Giroud came on scored as well. He has chances. He can be a prolific goalscorer. When you come out of the game and look at the amount of chances he scored. The bigger the belief he has to score the more he will score. But he gets in good situations.

Of course confidence in crucial for any player but maybe more so for a striker who’s primary job is to put the ball in the back of the net. I’ve said in the past that Walcott has had very few games as a lone striker in his time at the club and whilst his weaknesses can sometimes seem all too apparent in that position, in terms of goals per start, his record for us is fantastic.

The main constraint as far as I’m concerned preventing Walcott truly blossoming into a top striker is his mentality, as Arsene alludes to above, not his ability. I actually think he has more than enough to his game to make a success of the striker’s role in our system but is woefully short of confidence and experience. Hopefully today’s goal goes some way to improving his mindset and we see him on the score-sheet again next Saturday at Stamford Bridge.

Til tomorrow.

11th September 2015: Premier League Preview – Time to Stoke our goal-scoring fire

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. Cloid’s history and the real stuff returns. We’ll be hoping to make it third time lucky, in terms of scoring a goal and winning a game at Emirates Stadium this season, when we host a Stoke City side missing key players tomorrow afternoon.

Mark Hughes’ men, thankfully now trying to emulate the Gunners by playing good football as opposed to bad rugby, will have to make do without long-term injury absentee and club captain Ryan ‘not a malicious bone in his body’ Shawcross, as well as the suspended Ibrahim ‘one-time Arsenal target’ Afellay and Charlie ‘decent left peg but what a prolifically-stampy, choke-holding c*nt’ Adam.

In addition, they have doubts over the involvement of Glen Johnson, Mame Diouf and Marko Arnautovic. Which is all excellent to hear, given the fact Stoke have been somewhat of a pain in the arse for us since they were promoted to the Premier League at the start of the 2008-09 campaign.

Since then, we’ve played them 14 times in the league; winning eight, drawing two and losing four. We also faced them once in the FA Cup in that period, losing 3-1 (although in fairness, our starting 11 that day was very inexperienced, as we fielded the likes of Armand Traore, Craig Eastmond and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas). But all our defeats have been at the Britannia Stadium and so i’m fully expecting us to make it eight wins out of eight on home turf, when we play them tomorrow.

Arsene Wenger chose his words very carefully when asked what he thought of Stoke at his press conference yesterday and I think the boss deserves a lot of credit for not acting on what must have been an over-whelming urge to call them the ghastly, leg-breaking Wimbledon-wannabees they were for so long under former boss Tony Pulis:

They are a team with a good culture of the Premier League, they know how to behave and they have experience. They have been here a long time in the Premier League and they have improved their technical quality. They have Afellay, Bojan, Shaqiri, Diouf up front and Charlie Adam in midfield. They have a lot of technical players that can give you problems. What we want is to focus on our own performance as we want to take off at home now. We had two good away games with positive results in difficult places and we know at home we can be efficient against anybody.

The Potters’ transformation from their Pulis days is pretty remarkable to be fair, and was facilitated by the ability to attract a swathe of quality players like Bojan Krkić and Xherdan Shaqiri – names you would never have thought remotely likely to sign for them a few years ago. But as we all know, money talks and they’ve certainly had some great conversations in the transfer market under Hughes.

Speaking of which, although suffering a bad slump in his development since his breakthrough at Barcelona, would you take Bojan as a central striker for us right now? Something to ponder if Giroud and Walcott keep missing from three yards, as if they’re allergic to the sound of the ball hitting the back of the net.

But despite their new-found fondness of passing a football along the ground, there have been 18 yellow cards issued in the last five meetings between the two teams and Arsene says that’s down to a ‘special motivation’ on their part and he prefers to focus on his own side’s performance:

They have always had good teams and overall when we go to Stoke they are always specially motivated against us. There is a little bit of history because of what happened and overall it was always very difficult for us. For me there was never bad blood, it was just a game that was always very difficult for us to play. But I always focus on playing football and trying to get my team to play as well as we can.

In terms of our selection for tomorrow, you’d imagine Mesut Ozil will come straight back into the side after missing the win at Newcastle with a slight knee injury. I’m guessing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will be the man to make way, as Aaron Ramsey starts from the right and Ozil resumes the role of number 10. At the back, Per Mertesacker should return to partner Laurent Koscielny at the expense of Gabriel and the only other change to our line-up would perhaps see Olivier Giroud afforded a start instead of Theo Walcott up top.

That said, Theo bagged a brace for England during Cloid, whereas Giroud got booed off the pitch by his own fans so that might play a part in the manager’s thinking. I mean, does he allow Theo to capitalize on any boost in confidence he got from his San Marino-slaying, or let Giroud regain some belief by giving him the nod? Who knows?

Personally, I still think a midfield of Santi Cazorla and Francis Coquelin in the middle, with Sanchez, Ozil and Ramsey lining up left to right in front of them is our best bet. Maybe at times the Ox or Theo would come in for Ramsey but I’d keep the Coquelin-Cazorla combo in the middle for sure. In terms of whether I’d pick Giroud or Walcott to lead the line, that would be based on the specific opponents in question and I haven’t watched any Stoke games so far this season so can’t decide. Let’s see what Arsene goes with.

Back post-match tomorrow.

COYG!

10th September 2015: Wenger reveals Wilshere setback, denies lying over Welbeck injury

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. Arsene Wenger spoke to the press ahead of Saturday’s game against Stoke this morning and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, the questions posed were as predictable as his answers.

After providing an injury update, in which he revealed Jack Wilshere has had a minor setback and is definitely out of contention for this weekend, the boss was asked about the lack of new arrivals before the transfer window shut last week. Here’s what he had to say:

I have made more than 300 transfers and every time it’s a decision to make. Do you buy the player because he strengthens his squad or not? The solutions we had were not convincing at all. In the end you do not buy to give one hope, you want to buy because the players who come in can help your squad to be stronger. Buying and selling is one way to strengthen your team but that’s not the only way.

I’m pretty sure most Arsenal fans who follow Arsene’s press conferences on a regular basis will have guessed his response before it had left his mouth. That’s not a criticism of the boss, more one of the journos who take it turns to ask the same vague questions and don’t, for instance, ask the boss what he thinks of Luiz Adriano as a finisher when he says the market was bare.

But speaking of strikers, and considering the ones we have are either injured or horribly out of form, Arsene discussed his options up front and gave a vote of confidence to under-fire Olivier Giroud:

Of course, I am confident I have enough cover and enough quality. The only good news after the transfer window is that finally we can talk a bit about football. That is what we love and we want to focus now on [how to improve], which is the quality of the work that we do and the quality of our spirit and the quality of our competitiveness which is needed in every single game. He (Giroud) has my full support and I believe that is part of being a striker. There is no striker in the world who has not been questioned. When he missed a chance and is booed, that can happen.

Arsene also responded to claims in certain quarters that he’d purposely misled fans over Danny Welbeck’s knee injury and said that the forward’s fitness was not a consideration when he scoured the market for a player who could improve the squad:

It doesn’t change anything. You either find someone who strengthens your squad or not. Whether we have players injured or no doesn’t change the problem, that’s what I don’t understand from the media. First of all I am surprised that people accused me of lying when I was in the press conference on Friday morning, [at that point] I did not know Welbeck had a bad setback. I did not lie to you, I gave you the information I had.

Glad that’s sorted. The paranoia was becoming a little boring. And so what if he’s compounded a lie with a denial – if I was looking for a new striker and wanted to negotiate the best price possible, I’m hardly going to make it public that one of my current collection is out of action for the foreseeable. At times I think fans need to stop flattering themselves by thinking what Arsene says is always aimed at them.

Anyway, the boss also pointed out that Arsenal have created more chances than any other team in the Premier League this season and said he is confident we will soon relocate our shooting boots:

We have created the chances and that’s what we want to continue to do. I believe that the finishing is a bit cyclical, up and down, and we are the team who has created the most chances since the start of the season, so let’s just continue to focus on the quality of our game. It is about the efficiency and the quality of our game, we can score goals and I am not worried about that. We have Alexis, we have Giroud and we have Walcott. It is a massive opportunity for them of course.

The hope of course, is that they can make the most of that opportunity and if they could start in our next game that would be very welcome indeed. I think both Walcott and Giroud really need to prove themselves as capable of being our long-term, first-choice striker in theses next few months with Welbeck out and the market closed, because if they can’t do it now, the likelihood is they never will.

And as far as Alexis as a striker goes, I don’t see it myself. It didn’t work on the few occasions we tried it last season but more importantly, I think Sanchez is far more Eden Hazard than he is Sergio Aguero, if you know what I mean.

Back tomorrow.

9th September 2015: Mikel’s getting his mojo back

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome to Wednesday on TremendArse. The internationals are all done and dusted and with with a bit of luck, we’ll hear from Arsene Wenger tomorrow as he usually provides the official site with the latest injury news on a Thursday.

Having had a quick look around, I can’t see any obvious injury concerns being reported for those who’ve been away with their countries. And of course, Jack Wilshere is due back any time now, so we’ll have one more option available for us to freshen up a side which has been struggling to spark in to life so far this season.

Whether Jack’s ready for this weekend is doubtful but with Danny Welbeck and Tomas Rosicky our only other long-term absentees, we can at least be thankful of a squad in pretty good health overall.

One man who hasn’t been away and is just glad to be fully fit after an injury-plagued campaign last time around is club captain Mikel Arteta. The Spaniard has been speaking to Arsenal Player and expressing his joy at being back among his colleagues, saying:

I really missed it [when I was out]. I had a really tough period last year after my last game in November and I went through some really difficult moments with my surgery. For me it is the frustration [that is the hardest thing] because there is always pain and you are trying to get back everyday and you spend a lot of time doing rehabilitation. When the players go outside for a training session, you feel wasted. They come back, they travel, they have different times to you and you don’t spend much time with them. Personally I don’t feel productive. I’m here because I want to play games, make this team more successful and be a part of it. When I’m not able to do that I still have to contribute, be positive, be good around the other players, give advice and try to help my team-mates. But it is not the same. But I worked really hard and tried to stay positive, do my best and here I am again now, earning my place in the squad and ready to help the team.

And the former Everton man also explained how he’s used his time on the sidelines to analyse games in greater depth, and said his focus now is on being in the best possible shape to aid the team’s cause when called upon:

I just watch the game and things come to my head naturally – things that I believe we can do better or things we are having trouble with, weaknesses of the other team or if we are having a few problems. You are excited but nervous as you don’t know when you are going to get thrown in. When you get thrown in you want to be ready for it with a good warm-up and ready to make an impact to help the team achieve the win.

Although no longer first-choice when everyone is fit, Arteta is clearly a great influence around the squad. He speaks well, by all accounts in a model professional and as he’s shown in cameos this season, can add another layer of protection for the defence when we need to close games out.

What I would point out, is that we also have Mathieu Flamini for that role and I don’t think we need both in all honesty. Arteta is clearly the more cultured in possession of the two but I really think at least one of them should have made way for a younger, better model this summer.

That’s not to say both can’t do a job because I think they can. But sentimentality can be costly and if I’m being blunt, shouldn’t be influential in top level sport decision-making. It’s sport after all, and regardless of how much you’ve done for a club or how long you’ve been there, if there’s somebody out there better and available, I’m afraid that’s tough luck.

Luckily for the likes of Arteta and Flamini, they have a boss who isn’t as ruthless and cold as many others but then perhaps that is one of Arsene’s great weaknesses. It can be a fine line between belief in your players, and blindness to their limitations.

It goes without saying that I hope they both prove me wrong over the course of this campaign, and we don’t rue the refusal, or failure, to bring in another defensively-minded central midfielder before the deadline passed last week.

Til Thursday.

8th September 2015: Our original Gallic super-striker says Giroud’s ‘not so bad’

Posted on by TremendArse

Like him or loathe him, in his relatively short spell at the club, Nicolas Anelka was a great player for Arsenal. After arriving from PSG in February 1997, the then 17 year old went on to score 28 goals from 90 appearances, including our second in the 1998 FA Cup Final.

He undeniably played a huge role in our Double success in his first full season, and finished the 98-99 campaign as our leading scorer with 17 Premier League goals, being named young PFA Young Player of the Year in recognition of his efforts.

Of course, his tender years, a dodgy attitude and reportedly bad advice from his brothers put paid to any chance of a longer career in north London, and in August 1999, Anelka was sold to Real Madrid for a record fee which famously paid for both our new training ground at London Colney, as well as a certain Mr Thierry Henry. To say Anelka worked out well for us, despite rancour over his forced departure, would be a tad of an understatement.

Anyway, Anelka has hinted in the past that he regrets leaving Arsenal, expressed his admiration for Arsene Wenger and generally sounded very complimentary about the Gunners. Now player-manager of Indian Super League side Mumbai City, the nomadic Frenchman has been speaking about compatriot Olivier Giroud and drawing a comparison with his own time with the Gunners. He said:

Arsene did the same with me – when Ian Wright was there, he didn’t buy anyone and I had to do the job up front. He believed in me and in the end I played regularly and played well. He made the same choice with Giroud. Arsene believes in his team, that’s why he hasn’t spent money. He believes in Giroud because he thinks he will score a lot of goals, which he already has done. When you look at the statistics he’s not so bad. Arsenal won something last season, won something the season before, so why not again? But people have to wait and see and then speak at the end of the season. If they don’t win anything, then you can say something. However, people have to trust Arsene. He knows what he is doing.

Anelka also aired his belief that Arsene is largely responsible for making Arsenal a bigger club than when he took over, highlighted the increased competition to win the title compared to when he donned the red and white, and praised the strength of our current squad, suggesting it is far more talented than people often give it credit for:

Before Arsene, Arsenal were good but they became a bigger club with Arsene Wenger. The way they play football is amazing. In the end, we have to trust him. Of course, you can always say when you don’t win that it wasn’t good enough because the fans want to take the title. But it has become much harder now because you have Man City with big money, Chelsea with big money, Man United, Liverpool. When I was there it was maybe only United who were very strong. Now you have five teams who can fight for the title. You can always say they need to buy someone up front, but previously they have bought Mesut Ozil, who’s a good player, Alexis Sanchez is a good player. They can score goals and give good assists. People just want big names in attack, but Giroud is good enough to score goals. And behind him there are big players who can supply him so he can score a lot of goals. Arsenal have a strong squad – people don’t see it, but they do.

Much as I agree with a lot of what Anelka says here, I think most people do accept that this is a very good Arsenal squad right now, but are frustrated at what was a very quiet transfer window compared to other clubs, and perhaps take issue with the club’s line that there were no available players, anywhere in the world, who could have improved our squad.

As far as strikers go, although better finishers than Giroud changed clubs this summer, it’s likely Arsene didn’t feel they were enough of an upgrade on his current lot to be worth pursuing. The counter argument of course, is that even if you only find incremental improvement in the market, you should do it, particularly when you reportedly have the disposable income to take a punt or two.

But there’s not much we can do about it now and as we approach a return to club football, It’s time for Giroud to put his nightmarish international break behind him, show Arsene was right to go with what he has and repay the trust put in him to lead the line this season.

See you Weds.