Champions League

27th September 2015: Nearly a fifth of the season done

Posted on by TremendArse

When you stop and consider we’re now just shy of having already played 20 percent of this season’s Premier League campaign, not only is it f*cking frightening how fast time flies, it’s not as early in the season as, to me at least, it feels.

So it was perhaps a little overdue that we clicked into gear and oh my did we do that in an attacking sense at the King Power stadium yesterday.

Alexis Sanchez finally appears to have overcome his lack of a proper pre-season and Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud have found their shooting boots, looking increasingly like the perfect duo to share the striker’s role this season (at least until Danny Welbeck returns at Christmas and we sign Robert Lewandowski in a shock January transfer that is). Pace, power, aerial ability, hold-up play and now clinical finishing – between them, we suddenly seem to have plenty of talent at the tip of our attack to cater for any opposition.

At the other end of the pitch, Petr Cech, after a nightmare performance on the opening day against West Ham, is playing much more like the imposing, world class, shot repelling Galactico Goalie we all thought we were getting when he signed in the summer. Speaking to Arsenal Player after yesterday’s game, Arsene Wenger called the win our best performance of the season ‘going forward’ and hailed his goalscorers on the day. He said:

Certainly it was the most convincing [display of the season] going forward, yes. It was a tricky game because Leicester hadn’t lost, and I was a bit concerned because we did not want to lose ground on the other teams – so it was a big win for us. I am pleased with [the strikers’] games. Giroud is sharp in training and in the matches as well, I think he played well at Tottenham. Walcott is improving game after game, he holds the ball better up front, his movement is great and both of them scored, which is what you want. I believe [Alexis] wasn’t back to his best after the Copa America, it took him a while to get his competitive edge and now he has played well again and he is back to his level.

The top of the table is tight, and after Man City’s start to the season suggested they may run away with it, consecutive defeats leaves the title race wide open. Leaders United are up next at the Emirates where a win would leave us level on points with them, Chelsea continue their flirtation with the relegation zone, Liverpool’s hopes of a first championship in decades is reliant on multiple implosions elsewhere and realistically nobody else has a hope in hell of being crowned champions, no matter how impressive their start (sorry West Ham).

All that said however, as results all over the league have already shown this season, there will be few easy games, if any, between now and May and attacking performances like yesterday’s need to become the norm rather than the exception if we’re to win it.

Per Mertesacker played his first Premier League game in a month at Leicester following illness and admitted the team had some defensive worries during the match but thinks we deserved our win overall. Speaking to Arsenal Player, he said:

We tried our best and in the second half we had more possession. We expected it to be tense before the game and we tried to match them physically and we did that, especially in the second half. We struggled defensively but I’d say we got back to our striking force and more than four goals is something very special. At times we lacked defensive stability but that is normal at Leicester. It was good for me to get some game time. I still lack a bit of fitness but it was good today. I say we deserved that especially after the second half.

Meanwhile, Theo Walcott called his own performance yesterday his best since returning from a long-term knee injury and also praised team-mate Sanchez, tipping the Chilean to continue contributing goals on a regular basis now he has broken his duck for the season:

It will be up there since the knee injury and, before that, the Tottenham game. I have always said I want to play up front. When I get the opportunity I can improve and learn the position a little more. The manager has had faith in me and I just want to repay him. He (Sanchez) is a top-quality player and even when he is not scoring goals he works so hard for us. He tracks back and does a lot for the team. I am sure he going to flourish now with many, many more important goals.

It’s Olympiakos up next in the Champions League on Tuesday night of course and the need for a win has been heightened after losing to Dinamo Zagreb so it will be interesting to see whether, and to what degree, the boss shuffles his pack. With the United game not until Sunday, my early guess would be that he’ll pick an unchanged line-up during the week (Flamini aside) before we entertain United late on Sunday afternoon.

See you next week.

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.

27th August 2015: Familiar foes in Champions League

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. The draw for the group stages of the Champions League was made earlier today and we were pitted against Bayern Munich, Olympiacos and Dinamo Zagreb in Group F, which, looking at Manchester City’s group, I’m not going to complain about too much. Or at all in fact.

Typically, Chelsea and Man United were put in groups their under 9s would top, but ours looks pretty straight forward too, Bayern aside of course. I mean, not to sound complacent or cocky, but if we can’t at least secure second spot in this group then I’d give the entire squad a free transfer because they’d deserve it frankly.

But far from such a shocking scenario occurring, the early-season optimist in me sees no reason why we can’t actually top the group, handing Pep Guardiola’s Bayern a beating or two along the way. I mean, in our four recent meetings with the German champions, we’ve won one and drawn the other of two away games, while our two losses at home had mitigating circumstances.

When they beat us 3-1 at Emirates stadium in February 2013, our team was very different to the one we have now, and by different, I mean much worse. A year later, Wojciech Szczęsny was sent off early on, handing the visitors a numerical advantage for most of the match.

So I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion at all that Bayern will top the group, no matter how likely Owen Hargreaves thinks it is. Time will tell I guess and of course there’s also the possibility that finishing second can provide a more favourable draw in the next round so there’s always that to consider too.

The only side that truly worries me in Europe is Barcelona, with their three footballing freaks up front and an already perfectly balanced midfield now strengthened by this summer’s capture of Arda Turan. Other than the Catalans though, bring them on I say. Surely it has to be our year some season soon, so why not this?

Speaking of the current European champions, Theo Walcott has been talking to the official Arsenal magazine about his memories of facing Lionel Messi and co in the Champions League quarter finals in 2010, and recalled a pretty amusing anecdote about his visit to Camp Nou, saying:

That [home leg] was a great night and a great performance. I also remember something which happened before the return leg in Spain. I was doing the press conference at the Nou Camp the night before the game and I saw Lionel Messi at the top of the stairs. I was chatting to him, then the boss came up to me afterwards and joked, ‘Theo, why didn’t you push him down the stairs?!’. That has never left me, I thought it was brilliant, really funny from the boss. I think he scored four goals the next day as well. It’s things like that that are great memories, because people don’t see that side of it. That home game against Barcelona was definitely something special though.

Yeah, so, on second thoughts, I’m not sure Theo should find Messi scoring four against us funny but I think he was talking just about the stairs bit in fairness. But moving away from the draw in Monaco and onto a former Monaco manager, Arsene Wenger held his pre-match press conference today as we prepare to travel to Newcastle for Saturday’s Premier League clash.

I’ll talk more about team news in tomorrow’s blog, as well as the usual answers Arsene provided regarding transfers etc, but I do have his thoughts on our pairing with Spurs in the third round of the Capital One Cup. He said:

It’s an interesting draw and we have had some fierce competition with Tottenham over the years, even in the League Cup. It will be interesting but for us it’s an opportunity to go through and we will take the competition seriously.

Interesting. Anyway, I’m afraid it’s just a short post today because I have stuff to do. And by stuff I mean sleep. Early start in the morning, you know how it is.

Laters.

26th August 2015: Draws galore

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back. The draw for the third round of the League Cup was made last night and we got Tottenham away. Nothing much to add really, other than Sky Sports will be showing it live and I’m looking forward to Jeff Reine-Adelaide taking the tournament by storm.

Incidentally, the draw for the group stages of the Champions League is made tomorrow afternoon and looking at this piece on the official site, I’ll take PSV Eindhoven, Olympique Lyonnais and Malmo please. More likely though, is that we’ll get PSG, Sevilla and Wolfsburg, giving our new signings Edinson Cavani, Grzegorz Krychowiak and Kevin de Bruyne the opportunity to return to their former stomping grounds.

In seriousness though, it feels a bit odd seeing the likes of Real Madrid, winners of the competition as recently as 2014, in Pot 2, whilst Pot 1 is populated by teams such as Benfica, Zenit and PSV, but then I guess it is called the Champions League for a reason, so having domestic title winners in the top pot makes sense.

The changes in regulation for how seeds are selected also provides potential for some really big games in the group stages, which perhaps the competition as a whole could do with given the mundane manner of many group stage fixtures in previous years.

And speaking of draws, following ours with Liverpool on Monday night, Mesut Ozil has been speaking to Arsenal Player about his desire to add more goals to his game. Yet the German also pointed out that his signature skillset remains picking out a pass and ensuring he does the right thing for the team is paramount. He said:

I want to score more goals than in the last two seasons and that’s my aim for this season. What’s important firstly is that we are successful as a team. That’s most crucial for us and as I said, for me it’s not just goals and assists that mean everything, what’s more important is that we’re successful as a team. My aim is to help the team and I’ll do all I can to achieve that. In truth I’m more the sort of player who doesn’t really go for goal, I tend to look for my team-mates and think, ‘Can I play this pass?’. I think now and then I need to become a bit more selfish – then I’d definitely score more goals. But I’m a player who thinks for the team first and not for my own needs and that’s why I will carry on to play the way I always do. I think that’s one of my distinguishing characteristics.

Whilst it’s great to hear Mesut making noises about upping his goals output, I hope more of his colleagues are doing the same because Francis Coquelin aside, the other five members of any front six we choose should be regularly contributing to our tally. Particularly while our 70 goal-a-season, universe-class striker remains elusive in the transfer market.

One such player is Santi Cazorla and the perma-grinning, string-puller has also been talking to Arsenal Player about how he loves his role in the middle of the park as he gets lots of touches of the ball and that makes him as happy as Wayne Rooney at Wimpy. The Spaniard said:

I’m always ready to play in any position on the field. Luckily I’ve played in many different places, such as both wings, behind the striker or as a midfielder. Therefore, I am no stranger to this new position. As soon as the manager informed me about my role change, I told him I was ready for it. To be honest I’ve found myself very comfortable in this new position since the very first day. I’m a player who needs to touch the ball as much as possible and for any possible purpose on the pitch, from giving an assist to a short pass. The more I touch the ball, the more confident I get and that’s why I need to have contact with the ball. If I don’t touch it for a period of time I feel uneasy. Thanks to playing in this new position, I’m touching the ball a lot and that makes me happy. I’m loving my new position on the pitch.

And I’m loving you in your new position too Santi, most of the time anyway. I mean, I understand there are certain games where, as Arsene Wenger himself said recently, he prefers the more athletic, physical qualities of Aaron Ramsey alongside Coquelin, but for me, those games are the bigger ones where we may not dominate the ball as much and instead adopt a more counter-attacking style.

For the rest, and certainly at home, I much prefer the ball re-cycling and game-controlling qualities Cazorla offers from the middle. But I’ve said that before. More than once. So I’ll stop now.

See you on Thursday.