PremierLeague

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.

29th August 2015: One-nil to The Arsenal in snoozefest

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back. It was a case of points over performance for Arsenal today, as a deflected second-half strike by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain secured us three precious points at Newcastle, from what was a pretty forgettable game.

After saying yesterday that I didn’t think Arsene Wenger would drop Olivier Giroud or play both the Ox and Theo Walcott together from the start, of course the boss did just that. Walcott replaced Giroud at the tip of our attack and the Ox came in for an injured Mesut Ozil to play on the right, with Ramsey shifting across to take his place behind the striker. Less surprisingly, Laurent Koscielny had recovered from his back injury and replaced Calum Chambers in what was the third and final change from Monday night.

Right from the off it became apparent the hosts would defend deep and in numbers and struggled to get near the ball as we bossed possession without looking too dangerous in the opening exchanges. Theo Walcott made a couple of decent runs but it was a foray from fullback that drew the first major talking point as Hector Bellerin was fouled inside the penalty area by Florian Thauvin.

It was as clear a penalty as Jose Mourinho is a pr*ck, yet somehow the referee played on. I think to be fair to the official, he didn’t spot the contact but then again, he should have been better positioned to ensure he could. Yet we did take a sort of lead soon afterwards – in terms of the number of players on the pitch

Just after the quarter-hour mark, Newscastle’s new signing Aleksandar Mitrovic mistook Francis Coquelin’s shin for the ball, came in with a stampy ‘challenge’ and received a straight red card from the referee. Cue mass hysteria from a noisy home support but the the decision stood and off sauntered their new ‘star’ striker.

Now with a numerical advantage, we controlled proceedings even more but still couldn’t find a breakthrough as Walcott went AWOL from the game, Ramsey ran around a lot but did nothing of any note, the Ox played like he couldn’t be arsed/had never played football before, and a slow, dry pitch sucked any zip from our passing. Oh, and about 24 Newcastle players got booked as they tried to hack down anyone in sight.

The second half began with more of the same as any remote glimpse of our goal Newcastle had was easily blocked out by our defence, where Gabriel again impressively played with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of focus. Petr Cech was so inactive, he must have been tempted to ring a pal for a catch-up.

Then finally, our possession and patience paid dividends on 52 minutes when the Ox produced his only piece of play reminiscent of a footballer and drove the ball towards the far corner following two blocked attempts at goal by team-mates. It was actually going wide but the poor man’s Carles Puyol – Fabricio Coloccini – deflected the ball into his own net.

After that, Giroud came on for Where’s Walcott and sliced an effort so wide the ball ended up in Sunderland, and Mikel Arteta entered the ‘action’ for the Ox as the game drifted to a tame conclusion. As you may have guessed by the tone of this post, I didn’t really enjoy the match that much. I’ve seen better, let’s just say. Yet the points more than make up for my lack of entertainment and I’m sure we’ll find our finishing boots and jogo bonito, rat-a-tat rhythm soon after the international break.

Afterwards, Arsene gave his thoughts on the game:

Patience and nerves (were key). I believe that we needed to not rush our game, to wait for our chances and to take one of them. I must say that Newcastle decided from the start to make the game quite physical and we had to keep our nerves and not become a little bit aggressive as well. I thought we did that well. Afterwards it was a strange game. You play away from home, 11 against 10, and you know that they will play 15 yards deeper, you play 10 against nine in the final third, the crowd is behind their team which puts pressure on the referee, and then it’s very difficult. We didn’t find the space. They defended well and they’ve shown why they didn’t concede at Manchester United as well. We are happy to have the three points and to win 1-0.

The boss also touched on Walcott’s performance, suggesting Mitrovic’s dismissal led to Newcastle defending deeper which in turn denied the England international the space Arsene had envisaged him getting:

I expected more space for Theo Walcott. At the start it looked quite promising but after 15 minutes it was a different problem for us. There was no space behind their defenders, the service through their lines was very difficult and they defended very well.

Which is very diplomatic of the boss and obviously has an element of truth but for me, Theo’s problem wasn’t a lack of space, it’s a lack of balls. He’s simply far too timid anywhere he plays on the pitch, and against the uncompromising, oafish centre backs that populate the Premier League, he becomes not so much a passenger in proceedings as a sleepy spectator. He may as well get his video camera out like it’s Germany 2006.

I’m sorry if this sounds harsh but it’s frustrating to see a player who I rate very highly – more so than most – being held back by a lack of fire in his belly and a complete lack of confidence. I think Theo’s finishing, pace, movement is all top notch and he has a better footballing brain and first touch than people give him credit for.

But he needs to ‘man up’ for want of a better phrase. Whether he ever will, I’m starting to doubt but if I could offer him any words of advice as a mere fan from afar, it would be play with more mental freedom Theo, take more risks, back your ability and don’t be afraid to make mistakes because everybody does. As the old adage advises: get stuck in!

Back Sunday.

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.

25th August 2015: Shambolic at the back, misfiring in attack

Posted on by TremendArse

So that’s three games in, five points dropped and we’re yet to register a goal at home this season. It could be worse I suppose, given our defensive ‘display’ in the first half against Liverpool last night, but Arsene Wenger solemnly summed up our faltering start to the season in his post match press conference when he said:

We have started very averagely, I must concede, because we have four points after two home games.

But statistics aside, what’s far more worrying than our déjà vu-inducing, early-season points deficit for me, is the fact we’re simply not playing very well, both individually and hence, collectively. As a team, we look a little weary which is ridiculous really, considering the campaign’s as young as it is.

We should be fresh and focused and firing on all cylinders after a perfect pre-season and the capture of Petr Cech, but instead, we seem completely devoid of any spark. Our passing, bar a spell at Selhurst Park, has been woeful by our standards so far this campaign.

And Alexis Sanchez just isn’t fit. I think it’s safe to suggest Arsene will privately be regretting his decision to reintroduce the Chilean back into the fold so soon after his delayed summer break following the Copa America.

The fact that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, arguably our best performer in the opening day defeat to West Ham, enjoyed such a stellar pre-season, culminating in him scoring a stunning winner in the Community Shield against Chelsea, has been dropped to make way for an off-the-pace Sanchez, makes the boss’ selections look even more misguided.

Anyway, for all our issues going forward, the clear worry when the teams were announced yesterday was the centre of our defence, where both Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker were absent through injury and illness respectively.

That meant a first competitive combination of Calum Chambers and Gabriel at the heart of our defence and the former endured an absolute nightmare first 45, repeatedly giving the ball away and being caught out of position time and again. One close up shot of the ex-Southampton man’s face by the Sky cameras perfectly captured his dismay as he struggled to put a foot right.

At half-time, I wondered if leaving Chambers on would do more harm to his confidence than taking him off and tweeted that perhaps we should consider replacing him with Mathieu Debuchy, or move Nacho Monreal to the middle and bring on Gibbs at left back, because both of those players played centrally with success at stages last season. And afterwards Arsene revealed he’d considered a change at the break, but was pleased with the Englishman’s improved display in the second half:

He responded well. It was important for him. You sit there and you wonder how far he can go without losing competitive confidence. In the second half he did well. He’s a good footballer and he will come out of that stronger, with the belief that when he had difficult moments he can come out of it stronger.

Yet despite Liverpool being on top for most of the first half, we did manage to score a perfectly legitimate goal through Aaron Ramsey, only to see it ruled out by a flag for offside. Sanchez also placed a header over the bar when he seemed certain to score in the opening period, which admittedly, had begun with Philippe Coutinho rattling the woodwork for the visitors.

The second half was a very different affair, as we dominated the ball and Liverpool sat back to contain and counter. But for all our possession, we struggled to find the net despite creating chances. Most notably, Oxlade-Chamberlain produced a great cross from the right towards a well-positioned Theo Walcott in the middle, only to see Martin Skrtel stretch out a leg and divert the ball narrowly wide of his own net.

And I emphasise ‘well positioned’, because although Theo doesn’t offer anything in the way of hold-up play, he does have intelligent movement in the box, something the man he replaced last night, Olivier Giroud, sorely lacks the vast majority of the time. The Frenchman has many good attributes to his game and I’m a fan but generally speaking, he’s a step or two behind his team-mates in his thinking, and that means more often than not, he’s in the wrong place at the right time to capitalize on service.

That said, I’d have kept him on through the middle and replaced Sanchez with Walcott and brought on the Ox for Cazorla, who despite playing the pass of the game for Ramsey’s disallowed goal, struggled to find his form. In contrast, I thought Ramsey worked well in both directions from our right flank and could have moved in alongside Coquelin.

And it was telling I felt, that their left-back Joe Gomez had such a good night down that side because Ramsey rarely stayed out wide when attacking. The Ox would have kept Gomez far more occupied and neutered the fullback’s attacking forays.

But I suppose that’s hindsight for you and we now need to focus on what’s in front of us, which is St James’ Park and Newcastle at lunchtime on Saturday. Who we pick to start in the front six will be interesting as always, because I think we may just need a freshening up from last night’s lineup.

Yet I don’t think we as fans, or more importantly Arsene as manager, truly know what our first choice selection looks like, because we have various players who can play multiple roles in our formation. It’s all a bit confused but the manager will have to work out the right mix to get us going, and quick, or we’ll find ourselves out of this title race sooner than we were the last.

Till tomorrow.

24th August: Liverpool preview + Wenger on stationing Santi

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back. As I touched on the other day, a win over Liverpool this evening is almost a must if we want to mount a serious title challenge this season, despite it being so early in the campaign.

After losing at home to West Ham on the opening day of the season, we have our first opportunity to get back to winning ways at Emirates Stadium, although if it keeps raining in London like it has these last few hours, both sets of players will need to be able to swim as well as they play football. It’s incessant.

Anyway, the weather should make for a slick surface and who doesn’t like a slick surface? Rain was always my favourite condition to play football in as a kid and it just feels like more goals are scored when it’s wet. In fact, someone should definitely look into the link between it p*ssing it down and the number of goals scored in a game…

But back to the actual fixture itself and promisingly, if form guides are your thing, we’ve won our last three meetings with Liverpool at Emirates Stadium, dating back to November 2013, when goals by Santi Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey secured a two nil win in the Premier League.

We then beat them 2-1 in the FA Cup in February 2014, thanks to strikes by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Lukas Podolski, before Steven Gerrard grabbed a consolation for the visitors from the penalty spot. And of course, the last time we entertained Brendan Rodgers’ men, we were three up by half time and ran out 4-1 winners.

So the omens are good but with Liverpool boasting a swathe of new players, I think they’re currently impossible to evaluate as a team. Christian Benteke will no doubt be hoping to inflict more damage on our defence than he managed whilst playing for Aston Villa in May’s FA Cup Final, and Roberto Firmino remains an unknown as a Premier League performer.

As far we’re concerned, I’d be surprised if Arsene Wenger makes any changes to the team that played well and beat Crystal Palace in our last game, particularly as Jack Wilshere, Tomas Rosicky and Danny Welbeck remain side-lined through injury.

And the boss took time in his press conference on Friday to discuss his midfield options and explained the thinking behind playing Cazorla on the left of midfield on the opening day, with Ramsey stationed centrally:

It is tricky, because he (Cazorla) is an important player in the build-up of our game. He is naturally a guy who brings fluidity, and gets you out of tight situations. My thinking [putting him out wide] was more about physical power in the centre of the park, to win the ball back and be capable of winning challenges. Santi is a more technical player. And also to get him higher up, next to Ozil, to play through the lines, find those two, and combine in the final third. It worked sometimes, and sometimes not. The first goal in these games is vital. But anyway, against West Ham, I changed in the second half and brought Cazorla back to central midfield.

Whilst I completely understand the boss’ predicament and his reasoning for playing Ramsey centrally, especially seeing as though it worked pretty well against Chelsea in the Community Shield a few weeks ago, by my reckoning, we’re at our best with Cazorla in the middle, so hopefully he will be again tonight.

And Arsene also discussed our first two games of the season in a bit more detail, saying that we need to reproduce the type of performance we managed at Selhurst Park against Liverpool:

[We must] play at the level we played at Crystal Palace, with good pace. I think Liverpool will be a different game than West Ham. Against West Ham, we conceded a set-piece and after that another goal, just before half time. After that it was difficult. But if you look well, and you have to analyse the game well, against West Ham we didn’t give chances away. You play this game 20 times, you win it 19 because they had very, very, very few chances. Their goals came from our mistakes. That’s why we had to look at ourselves.

Hopefully that introspection will prove fruitful tonight and we won’t see Petr Cech coming for a ball and missing miserably, or Laurent Koscielny standing off an opponent who’s about to shoot at goal and simply hoping the effort’s not on target.

Because if we can remain solid in defence, I’d be very confident of Alexis Sanchez and co. doing the necessary at the other end of the pitch to grab us the win.

COME ON ARSENAL.

Til Tuesday.

23rd August 2015: Wenger should act like Frank Lucas

Posted on by TremendArse

Sunday salutations. So today wasn’t nearly as good as yesterday, both weather-wise and as far as our rivals dropping points is concerned.

It rained all morning, then, despite John Terry compounding last week’s embarrassing half-time removal by getting himself sent-off at the Hawthorns this afternoon, West Brom being awful at football meant they couldn’t capitalize on their numerical advantage for most of the second half and lost 3-2.

To make matters worse, over at Goodison park, Man City continued their perfect start to the new season by beating Everton 2-0. Even without Kevin de Bruyne, the best performer in the Bundesliga last term according to most observers, who’s strongly rumoured to be signing for City before the close of the transfer window, they’ll be difficult to keep up with, if the first three games are anything to go by. Their starting eleven is already pretty scary and they boast depth no other squad in England can come close to matching.

Unless of course we decide to sign a defensive midfielder like the highly-rated Krychowiak from Sevilla and a long-sought, deadly, world class striker. Then, I think, with everyone fit our squad would look almost as frightening as City’s, and more games would be won in the tunnel before kick-off through postural intimidation, like in the good, old Vieira era. One steely stare from Cavani would make opponents instantly sh*t themselves and the game would be mentally won before it had begun.

In seriousness though, we do need an upgrade at centre forward if we use, say, Sergio Aguero as the benchmark. Yet finding another player of similar striking pedigree, let alone one who is available for purchase, is clearly a very difficult task – something Arsene Wenger again highlighted at his pre-match press conference on Friday:

There’s a shortage in the world (of number nines). It confirms what I just said, that there’s a difference between financial power nowadays and the availability of top-class players. It is simple. For any deal, when you want to buy something you go to see the owner and if he doesn’t want to sell, he doesn’t want to sell. You cannot buy. In our job it is exactly like that. When the players are not free you cannot buy them because it’s the club who decides, the person who owns the contract who decides. In Europe you have maybe 15 clubs with a huge financial resource.

We’ve all been over the usual candidates countless times, the likes of Cavani, Higuain, Benzema etc, but the alternative, if none of the ready-made ones are attainable, is to try to unearth the next top striker. Leading up to the winter window late last year, Paulo Dybala was linked with a move to Arsenal from Palermo and is tipped by many to be the next great Argentine striker.

Of course there’s no way of knowing for certain if we were definitely interested, but I think it was the Palermo owner who revealed our interest in the player, which is as close to confirmation as you could ask for in these matters. And although Dybala’s since opted to remain in Italy and joined Juventus, his consideration as an addition does suggest Arsene has been searching for an Ajax Suarez or a Palermo Cavani.

With changes to work permit rules taking effect this summer, which I believe basically mean any player costing ten million pounds or more is automatically eligible to play in England, perhaps Arsene should act like Denzil Washington in American Gangster and go straight to the source.

Why not cut out the traditional launch pads for south Americans in Europe, like Porto and Palermo, and buy the most promising, available, young forward playing in undeniably the most prolific footballing continent when it comes to producing great strikers?

Don’t ask me which players exactly, because that’s not my job for one, and coverage of the Latin American leagues is still pretty limited in the UK. But I’d wager there’s at least a few soon-to-be world class strikers rising up the ranks at places like River Plate, Peñarol and São Paulo and if we don’t have scouts in place who can identify them, then we should get some, because it would be a whole lot easier than scouring a European market, where demand currently far exceeds supply.

By the way, if anyone from the club is reading, I’m ready and available to be stationed in Gremio to look out for the next Ronaldinho. Just saying.

See you next week.

22nd August 2015: Ozil remembers Liverpool lashing as Rodgers reveals masterplan

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back. It’s been a great start to the weekend today and not just because the weather’s had a fleeting heating. No, the glorious Saturday sunshine in London was accompanied by dropped points by United in Manchester, and by Tottenham in Leicester.

With Man City and Chelsea both facing tricky away trips tomorrow afternoon and Arsenal hosting Liverpool on Monday night, we now have the increased possibility, however slight still, of emerging from round three of the Premier League as the only title contender to take maximum points. Come on Serge Gnabry…

But back to current members of the Arsenal first team squad and Mesut Ozil has been speaking to the official site about last season’s league fixture against Liverpool at Emirates Stadium, when his sumptous free kick, along with a rasping drive by Alexis Sanchez and a beautifully-taken opener by Hector Bellerin, saw us steamroller the visitors and effectively secure the three points before half-time. He said:

During the warm-up I kept focusing on that corner and took five shots after the other. The practise went well and that’s why I thought during the game that it had gone well in the warm-up so I would surprise the goalkeeper. That’s how I scored the goal, and I was really pleased with it. It was a nice feeling. When you assist goals or score them yourself, it does you good but what’s most important is that we have success as a team and that was the case against Liverpool last season. We were really convincing, the whole team was very focused and played really well. I remember that we delivered a really convincing display. In the first half we decided the game because we had a high level of concentration and wanted to utilise our potential. We want to do that again this time. We’re at home and we know exactly how we can beat Liverpool. That’s what we want to do on Monday.

So Mesut certainly sounds confident of repeating the beating we gave Brendan Rodgers’ men back in early April this year, and the Liverpool boss is equally bullish on his own side’s chances of victory. He said yesterday:

If you assess games against Arsenal we have always had dominance of the ball, especially at home. If you assess the last 10 games Arsenal have lost at home, it was about dangerous possession for the teams who won. They (the other teams) only averaged four shots on target with 43% possession. That tells you you don’t need to dominate the ball but you can dominate the space. That is important in the away games. Tactically we’ll arrive in a good mind about how we can win it. There are certain games you look at the approach to get you the result and that is something we have been working on this week.

Now unless he’s signed Frank Lampard over the summer – the only player in football who truly ‘dominates space’ through sheer stomach size – and the one over in New York is some kind of imposter, I’m not sure how he’s going to execute his plan, because the likes of the slender Philippe Coutinho couldn’t dominate a phone box, spatially speaking.

Anyway, it’ll be intriguing to watch the Liverpool boss pit his considerable wits against Arsene Wenger, especially now he’s taken the unusual step of divulging his tactical master plan prior to the match. Then again, his revelation could be a dastardly decoy. He might actually set his team up to go toe to toe with us possession-wise and unleash the deadly Danny Ings’ to wreak havoc in our penalty area. Who can really know until the action unfolds on Monday night?

Right, it’s too hot to continue typing, even as we near midnight in London. Plus my laptop is in danger of over-heating like Jose Mourinho when his medical staff do the job they’re paid to. So I’ll leave it there.

See you on Sunday.