Oxlade-Chamberlain

30th September 2015: All-too-familiar failings leave us facing early Euro elimination

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening. We’re now facing the ignominy of failing to qualify from our Champions League group for the first time in 16 years thanks to a 3-2 defeat to Olympiakos last night, with the nature of all three goals conceded best described as pitiful from an Arsenal perspective.

The first arrived after Gabriel and Koscielny attacked the same ball as it was floated into our box and the former eventually raced out to block a shot, deflecting it over the bar. When the resultant corner was swung out to the edge of our penalty area for their player to hit first-time, Mesut Ozil was the only one to read it and react. But then, inexplicably, he pulled out of a possible slide to cut the ball out and appeared too scared to engage in a challenge. An all-too-familiar unwillingness to get physical from our flimsy German schemer.

Meanwhile, as the ball was struck towards our goal, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain half turned away in just the same cowardly, ‘what if the ball hits me in the face?’, manner in which his team-mate had done a split-second earlier, and the ball deflected off his foot before nestling in the corner with David Ospina helpless. An all-too-familiar moment of brainless botching from the Ox.

We then equalised almost instantly as Sanchez cut infield from the left, fed a good run by Theo Walcott and the England man found the net, thanks largely to poor keeping.

But back to our terrible concessions. Olympiakos’ second goal was quite simply a bad mistake by Ospina, as he misjudged his position, palmed a corner over his own goal-line and despite his best attempts to claw the ball away, saw the goal awarded by the first fifth official to ever make a decision of any kind whatsoever. Bad keeping but then, as Arsene said after the game, all keepers make mistakes.

In the emotional aftermath of a disappointing defeat like last night’s, people will obviously point to Petr Cech’s omission for such a vital game and blame the boss, but aside from the fact he was reportedly nursing a small calf injury, Cech has already shown this season that he’s far from faultless and frankly, I disagree with most fans that say Ospina’s a bad keeper. By my reckoning, that was his first major error in an Arsenal shirt and that he’s suddenly being portrayed as the reincarnation of Manuel Almunia is way wide of the mark.

So onto the third and my personal favourite in terms of summing up our players’ infuriatingly, brainless management of games at crucial times over the last countless campaigns. There are too many examples to list and the most recent before last night was after we pulled a goal back against Monaco at home and recklessly left ourselves open at the back whilst chasing an equaliser at 2-1 only to concede a third.

So having restored parity last night when Sanchez headed home to make it 2-2 from a precise Walcott cross, we had plenty of time on the clock to calm down, clear our heads, regain composure, remind ourselves of the score and the fact we didn’t need to rush a winner, yet did need to ensure we didn’t concede a third at all costs.

Instead, we conceded almost straight from the kick-off. Evidently, we were assuming the visitors couldn’t possibly get a third, were disorganised, half-arsed in our defending, with Per Mertesacker’s lack of a challenge as the ball was struck past Ospina encapsulating the criminal complacency.

After that, despite plenty of effort, we failed to grab a third equaliser and now have zero points from our first two games with a double header against Bayern Munich next up in the competition. Perfect.

A wider worry though, is our home form this season. That’s now two defeats, a draw and a win over Stoke, with five conceded and four scored at Emirates stadium. That needs to change and we have the chance to do it on Sunday when he entertain league leaders Man Utd.

As far as I’m concerned, Europe can take a back-seat for the next three weeks because we now need to ensure a likely early European exit is offset by a genuine tilt at the Premier League title. That said, on the evidence of last night, we’re too timid and too stupid as a squad, to end the long wait.

Back tomorrow.

28th September 2015: No rotation required when we host Greek champions

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. Who stayed up to watch the blood supermoon last night / early this morning? No? Me neither. But any talk of lunar events like today’s never fails to make me crave Jaffa Cakes. Timeless advertising from McVities right there.

As an aside, something else I think transcends the fourth dimension, is the irrefutable class of Arsenal football club. Watching Arsene Wenger and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain speak at their press conference earlier today, ahead of our Champions League game against Olympiakos tomorrow night, it was a pleasure to listen to them both speak so honestly and eloquently as representatives of the club, especially when you hear the vulgar, venomous drivel others in the game (naming no names but I’m talking about Jose Mourinho) spew on a weekly basis.

Anyway, the game tomorrow has become a must win if we want to avoid a group stage exit after losing at Dinamo Zagreb. When you consider we still have to play Bayern Munich and Robert ‘five goals in nine minutes’ Lewandowski twice, then taking maximum points against the other teams seems our easiest route to the knock-out stage. Arsene said as much today, agreeing that winning the game was vital, whilst refuting the claim that our loss in Croatia on matchday one was because he made too many changes to his first-choice line-up:

You have to win your home games if you want to qualify from the group stage, it is simple as that. We cannot afford to drop points now against anyone at home. I don’t believe it (defeat in Zagreb) is down to selection at all, I believe that the 20 players I have available can play in every single game. I close my eyes, just take a position and I am confident we have a very strong team. On the day [at Zagreb], basically the same team played at Tottenham and won in the League Cup in a game that was much more physical, so I believe it was just on the night that we didn’t play well.

The latest team news revealed Mathieu Flamini and Mikel Arteta are both out of contention with ‘slight muscular problems’ but should only be unavailable for a matter of days. So it’s just as well then that Francis Coquelin was pictured training today, albeit with his knee strapped, and the boss says he’ll see how the Frenchman responds to two days worth of training but expects him to be ‘alright’ for tomorrow.

In defence, Gabriel is available again after serving a one-game domestic suspension and perhaps the Brazilian will be brought straight back in to give either Per or Laurent a rest before we host Man United on Sunday. That said, Arsene says the game at the weekend will have no bearing on his selection. Instead he’ll look at players who’ve played three times in the last ten days or so as possible reasons to rotate:

The game will not interfere with that at all. It is more the games we played before that could have an influence. Some players had two tough games at Tottenham and at Leicester, where they were a high level physically. I will have to analyse that today and make my decisions.

Arsene also said he hadn’t decided who he’d pick in goal for the game tomorrow but I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t Petr Cech to be honest. With five days between the games, we have plenty of time to recover before we host United, so there’s no need whatsoever not to go full strength against the Greeks.

He was also asked if the increasingly competitive Premier League was having a detrimental effect of English clubs’ performance in Europe and said he thought it was too early to tell:

I believe that the Premier League is very, very tough. Is that an influence or not? I don’t know but it’s a bit early to come to any conclusions. We have to wait a little bit longer. A second year without [English clubs] being successful and you could come to a conclusion of, ‘Yes, there’s something we have to analyse deeply’, but I don’t believe so at the moment. You cannot say [English clubs] are at that level [of the past] now because in the last two years Barcelona and Real Madrid have won the Champions League. We have to say they were the better teams. Are we far away? I don’t think so but we have to show that with our performance.

My own take on the subject is that I think people sometimes overplay the strength of our league. Yes it seems to be producing more favourable results against the bigger sides than previously but to suggest other leagues aren’t as strong is wide of the mark I think. Barcelona were battered by Celta Vigo just last weekend and Sevilla’s success in the Europa League in recent seasons are just two small examples of why other leagues aren’t as weak as we often make out they are.

Til Tuesday.

23rd September 2015: Capital One Cup Preview – Same squad, new team

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back. We play our third away game in a week when we travel the short distance across north London to take on Tottenham in the Capital One Cup tonight, and I’m fully expecting Arsene Wenger to make wholesale changes to our starting line-up.

The importance of a north London derby needs no hyping, regardless of which competition it’s played in and a win would obviously help lift the gloom engulfing the club after back to back defeats. Yet for me, Saturday’s game at Leicester is far bigger and if The Mirror’s probable team has any kind of inside information behind it, Arsene Wenger seems to think likewise.

They’ve suggested we may make eleven changes from the weekend and line-up as follows:

Ospina;

Debuchy, Mertesacker, Chambers, Gibbs;

Arteta, Flamini;

Campbell, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Iwobi;

Giroud

If proved accurate, the selection would provide youngster Alex Iwobi with a chance to show his promising pre-season performances were no flash in the pan, as well put a lot of the creative burden on the Ox in Mesut Ozil’s usual position behind the striker.

I spoke about the Ox’s struggles after both the Newcastle game and the loss against Dinamo Zagreb, and couldn’t put my finger on why he was playing so badly in comparison to his exciting pre-season play. Arsene hinted the issue was a mental block when he spoke to Arsenal Player, saying the Ox must trust his own abilities more:

It is a massive season for Alex. He is at the age now where he is getting picked regularly for the national team. He is picked by me as well for the team. It is a very important season because of the nature he is growing. You feel the evolution has a sense of responsibility. I think Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain must believe more in himself. He must believe more in his talent and that will help him develop as a player. I think sometimes he is too critical of himself. I would like him to play with the freedom and express the desire of his talent.

Looking back, some of the Ox’s best performances have come when he’s been deployed more centrally (I’m thinking AC Milan in the Champions League at Emirates stadium and Crystal Palace at home when he bagged a brace in a league match) and perhaps giving him a more central role tonight will see him more involved in the game, get more touches of the ball and help him rekindle the kind of form he’s shown he’s capable of.

Again, if the team above is the one we go with, only Iwobi really qualifies as an academy player given a chance to shine in a competition we’ve so often used to simultaneously blood numerous young players, in previous years. That’s largely down to most of our best kids being on loan at the moment and the boss further explained why he will opt for experience over youth this evening when he spoke to Arsenal Player:

It will affect it because at the moment the youth-team players, many of whom are ready to play for us, are away on loan. The next players who have the talent are not completely ready to play at that level. With the difficulty of the opponent as well, you do not want to throw them into a game where they look out of place. There are no fringe players [here], there is only a first-team squad. It is an opportunity for Arsenal to win an important game and for the players who play for the club to defend our club and qualify. Apart from that, we played with the team in Zagreb and we didn’t win, so we want to come back now and win our cup games because that’s vital for us.

One man who’s very likely to be rested from the start tonight is Theo Walcott and the England striker has been speaking about the intensity of north London derbies and explaining what makes them so special. He told Arsenal Player:

Local derbies at White Hart Lane are special. They are games that everyone wants to be part of and it’s most important now to get the right result, for the fans especially. At times it doesn’t matter how you play in these matches, you just [need to] get the result. People say the derby is now not as raw as it used to be, but trust me, a lot of the players know how big this is. Because it’s so loud at home and away, you just get a great buzz from it all. Any small error is picked up on straight away and you don’t want that to happen. When you hear the odd fan say stuff in the crowd, it just spurs you on. You just want to prove what they say [is] wrong. When you score, the emotions come out and you can see the emotions, especially in these matches. It means so much and we want to celebrate with the fans. We’re going to be completely on it, we have to be, and hopefully beat them at their place.

Whether it’s Theo or, as is more likely, Oliver Giroud, who leads our attack tonight, they’ll have to adapt pretty quickly to playing in front of a much-changed line-up, but I’m still confident we can click in time to take care of Tottenham. And after two defeats on the bounce and red cards in both those games, keeping our cool in what will undoubtedly be a hostile atmosphere is clearly vitally important.

I can’t wait.

COYG!!

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.

2nd August 2015: A rocket from the Ox gives Arsenal’s season lift-off

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all and what a fine, glorious one it is too. I suppose I ought to start with our one-nil Community Shied win over Chelsea this afternoon, which was secured courtesy of a left-footed rocket of a strike by Alex ‘Cesar Azpilicueta’s my b*tch’ Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Of course, it was ‘only’ the Community Shield and the hard stuff isn’t available until we entertain West Ham on the opening weekend of the Premier League season, but still, I like the buzz today’s result has produced. Oh yes.

A second, successive Community Shield secured for Arsenal

Although the scoreline wasn’t as emphatic as I had suggested it might be earlier this week, the Ox did partly do my prediction proud, with his bullying of Chelsea’s Spanish fullback, who admittedly escaped a nervous breakdown in the end, but not the referees notebook, for a desperate shirt-pull on his fancy-haired tormentor.

And immediately following his attempt to undress the Ox, the floundering fullback was shown mercy by his manager Jose Mourinho and replaced with Kurt Zouma shortly before the 70 minute mark. If Azpilicueta is the league’s best left back, then best of luck to the rest of them when they come up against the ferociously effervescent Ox in today’s form.

I won’t go into a blow by blow account of the action, mainly because Chelsea didn’t land any, but also because you probably saw the game and by the off chance you didn’t, there are plenty of places to find a detailed match report. Instead I’ll start with team selection and the headline news was that Theo Walcott assumed the central striking role ahead of Olivier Giroud and that Jack Wilshere missed out on the occasion entirely as he’d picked up an ankle knock in training yesterday.

Having seen the starting 11, I wondered how we’d line up. Who would play from the left? Would it be Mesut Ozil? Or Oxlade-Chamberlain with Aaron Ramsey playing from the right? Or vice versa? But no, it was the one player I never envisaged being moved from the middle after his blossoming in that position last year and his outstanding displays there so far this pre-season, Santi Cazorla.

As it was, Ramsey joined Francis Coquelin in his preferred central midfield area and Ozil was given his usual licence to roam elegantly across the pitch ahead of them. And in truth, although I could see the logic of using Ramsey’s greater physical presence and stamina against Nemanja Matic and Ramires in the middle of the park, it did, in the early stages of the contest at least, seem as though Santi’s absence from the middle disrupted our rhythm a little.

But as the game wore on, I think Arsene Wenger was completely vindicated in his decision, as the Ramsey-Coquelin combo proved too formidable a pairing for Chelsea to bypass.

The only goal of the game arrived in the 24th minute and the move began with Petr Cech playing it to Per Mertersacker at the back. The German’s pass forward in search of Cazorla looked, for a split-second, like being intercepted by Willian, but Cazorla was sufficiently switched on and slid to poke the ball back to Koscielny. That was a vital piece of play by the Spaniard, not only because it eventually led to our goal, but also because a slower mind there would have seen Chelsea regain possession in a very threatening position.

Anyway, Koscielny then returned the ball to Cazorla and he took two typically deft touches in releasing Ozil with a lobbed pass. Ozil then sauntered to the left byline, took his time and played a precise square pass into Walcott in the middle. Theo adroitly moved it on to the Ox who was in space on the right and he stepped inside Azpilicueta, steadied himself and let rip with his left foot into the far top corner, before jogging off doing the old ‘too hot to handle’, ‘what a goal, if I do say so myself’-style celebration.

There were chances at either end after that, with Ramires – the Brazilian Charlie Adam/Lee Cattermole hybrid – taking a break from trying to maim our midfielders and getting himself forward to head over the bar with the goal gaping, and Eden Hazard blazing over a chance Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi would have taken in their sleep, when one-on-one with Cech in the second period.

For us, both Cazorla and substitute Kieran Gibbs had great chances scuppered by Thibaut Courtois late on and Giroud had a couple of efforts, which looked goal-bound, blocked. Overall, although Chelsea enjoyed the lion’s share of possession, I think we produced the better phases of football and constructed more goal scoring opportunities.

Of course, Mourinho didn’t agree with that analysis and said that ‘the best team lost’ after the game but then Mourinho also thinks Hazard’s the second best player in the world, so…

And speaking of the ‘The Special Ego’, the fact Arsene has managed to finally secure a win over his Chelsea, at the 105th time of asking or whatever it is, means that that particular monkey has been yanked from our backs and buried in the same hole as the ‘x years without a trophy’ nonsense, so often used to belittle our manager’s achievements this past, financially handicapped decade or so.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more thoughts on the game and the post match reaction, including Arsene’s priceless lack of acknowledgement of Mourinho’s presence at the bottom of the Wembley steps.

Till then, Community Shield winners.