Welbeck

23rd February 2016: Memories of battles with Barcelona + pondering team selection

Posted on by TremendArse

As we count down the hours to tonight’s glamorous game against the reigning European champions Barcelona, I’m engulfed by a mixture of emotions – part excitement, part sh*ting myself.

I guess I’ve always felt this way before facing them, ever since our first-ever meeting with the Catalans back in 1999, when I watched the game on TV at a friend’s house and saw Patrick Vieira try to do keepy-uppies on his own goal-line, only to succeed in gifting a goal to Luis Enrique, now Barcelona’s manager of course.

Kanu memorably equalized late on after (maybe before?) Gilles Grimandi was sent off to secure what felt at the time like a shock draw. A shock because that Barcelona team had two of the very best players in the world in their ranks at the time in Rivaldo and Luis Figo and I was anticipating a bit of a battering, despite us being reigning domestic Double holders.

So when they raced into a two-goal lead inside 15 minutes through a Rivaldo penalty and one from Enrique again in the reverse fixture at Wembley three weeks later, I wasn’t left wondering how we could manage a draw at their place only to unravel so quickly in London, I was expecting it. Dennis Bergkamp’s brilliant goal just before the interval gave us hope but second-half strikes by Figo and Phillip Cocu put them 4-1 up before Marc Overmars scored our second five minutes from time.

We then met them in the Champions League Final in 2006 and again I was expecting defeat because we had Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole just back from injury, Cesc Fabregas was still a teen and I was struggling to see how we’d contain the likes of Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto’o, even if we had our own world-beater in Thierry Henry in his prime and coming off the back of a hat-trick in his last game – Highbury stadium’s farewell fixture against Wigan.

Unless your’re too young, we all remember how that heart-breaking game panned out. We started the match looking like a team intent on blowing Barcelona away inside the first ten minutes with Henry testing Victor Valdes with a stinging long-range strike and nearly scoring again from close range before poor Jens Lehamnn was sent off.

Robert Pires was sadly sacrificed for Manuel Almunia but against the odds, we produced a heroic performance with ten men, taking the lead through Campbell’s header before it all went wrong in the last fifteen minutes and they scored twice to deny us our first-ever European Cup.

Then came the four most recent games and without going over the details, I was surprised to see us secure a draw and a win at home just as I had been back in 1999 at Camp Nou. But what I’ve reminded myself through this little trip down memory lane is that we have in it us to upset Barcelona.

Their players change, ours do too, but as always in football, in the end it comes down to the performance of both sets of players on the day, plus any unforeseen circumstances, like Jens’ dismissal. I feel like I’ve been overly defeatist in my expectation for tonight’s game, as many have, so it’s time to think positive with just a few hours remaining until kickoff.

In terms of how we’ll line-up, I guess the big call is who plays on the right. Our starting eleven against Hull at the weekend indicates it’ll be Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain but I do wonder if we’ll see something unexpected from Arsene, because he has previous for springing a selection surprise in a big European game, such as Yaya Sanogo against Bayern Munich in the recent past.

Although he’s just back from injury and has only had ten minutes against Leicester and 70 or so against Hull of competitive football in ten months, perhaps there’s a slim chance Danny Welbeck might start, either wide right or more radically, behind Olivier Giroud with Mesut Ozil shifted to the right. Now before anyone starts, let me explain.

When Real Madrid came to Old Trafford a few years ago, Sir Alex Ferguson tried to neuter Xabi Alonso’s tempo-setting passing by assigning Welbz to shadow him, rush him and harass him into ineffectiveness.

It worked too, until Nani was sent off very harshly for a raised foot and Real started to dominate. Anyway, the prospect of us doing similar tonight with Welbeck on Sergio Busquets crossed my mind, particularly seeing as the former United man looks remarkably match-fit and sharp for a player who’s been injured for so long and who’s pace and athleticism would prove a potent weapon in turning defence into attack very swiftly.

It’s left-field and unlikely but hey, it’s the best I could come up with in terms of predicting an Arsene curve-ball. Of course there are several other candidates who could conceivably start like Theo Walcott, Mohamed Elneny and Joel Campbell for instance but I think the best indicator for our team tonight was probably the team-sheet against Hull. Not long left to find out now.

See you tomorrow.

COME ON ARSENAL …

15th February 2016: Wenger on Welbeck + Danny’s delight at dream return

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Welcome to a brand new week on TremendArse. I don’t know about you, but for me Mondays have rarely felt as good as this one after Danny Welbeck’s glorious late goal gave us victory over Leicester yesterday.

No start of the semana blues for me. No siree. Any ill-feeling at the prospect of five straight days of work before the next weekend arrives were washed away by the memory of that beautiful last minute winner and the scenes of unrestrained celebration by fans and players in unison that followed it.

The fact it was Danny who scored just made the moment more special. Not only had we come from a goal down to win a game against the league leaders with virtually the last act of the match, closing the gap between the sides to just two points in the process and preventing them from moving eight clear of us, a player who was making his first appearance for 10 months after battling a serious knee complaint was the man to win it.

Yet the irony is Welbeck wasn’t expected to be involved at all, let alone emerge the heroic match-winner, following Arsene Wenger’s press conference on Friday when he suggested next weekend’s FA Cup tie against Hull would mark the striker’s return from long-term injury. After the game, Arsene explained what had changed in the time between him talking to the press and him announcing his match-day 18 on Sunday morning:

In the last two days he (Welbeck) was convincing in training. I planned at the start, when I made my press conference on Friday morning, to play him next week. But in the last two training sessions he was very strong and I decided just in the end to include him in the squad. Yes (it was a great decision to select him), but it was a great decision because Danny Welbeck is a great player, and you never know in our job if somebody else had come on would he have scored or not. But everybody is extremely happy for him, because he has been out for 10 months, that is an eternity for a player. We work very hard, our medical team, our fitness team, to bring him back so strong. Let’s not forget he has not played one minute for us, he has just played 45 minutes in the under-21s.

The player himself described his emotions, thanked the Arsenal medical staff and discussed his goal having made such a stunning immediate impact  on his return to first-team duty when he spoke to Arsenal Player after the game. Welbeck said:

It’s been a long time off the pitch, the longest period of time that I’ve spent off playing matches in my career. It’s difficult, and with a few headlosses along the way. I think you’ve just got to try to stay positive. I had a lot of great help behind the scenes with the medical staff and with James Haycock, who worked with me personally and was great. I think hard work eventually pays off. It was a wonderful feeling to get that winning goal at the end. It was just very important for us to get the three points. With the type of game it was, it was close right until the end and thankfully we got the goal. As soon as I saw Mesut line it up, I just tried to get myself into a nice position, in behind the line of defence. Thankfully it came in my direction and I got the right glance on it. I don’t even know what I was doing [afterwards], the facials were going crazy! I’ve seen a couple [of pictures] and it was just euphoria after and I jumped in the crowd.

It’s been a while since the players and indeed the our fans have celebrated a goal quite so wildly and it was really pleasing to see further evidence of just how united our squad are in the pursuit of prizes this season.

I mean, Theo Walcott, Danny Welbeck and Olivier Giroud are, in effect, direct rivals for one starting place when everybody’s fit but as they showed yesterday, there’s not even a hint of Cristiano-esque jealousy at a team-mate scoring an important goal, or thinly veiled Debuchy-type resentment at another player usurping them for a starting spot. Just pure, collective delight at the team taking a step closer to their end-goal of winning a league title.

Arsene’s often ridiculed for over-using the word ‘spirit’ when praising his side but there genuinely seems to be a squad-wide unity fueling our title challenge this season and it’s very encouraging. They’re all pulling in the same direction – with a bit of luck and a few more moments like Welbeck’s in the 94th minute yesterday, that direction will lead to our first Premier League crown in 12 years.

Until tomorrow.

14th February 2016: Subs Walcott and Welbeck shoot down Foxes

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Arsenal’s substitutes stole the show at Emirates stadium earlier today, as Theo Walcott and Danny Welbeck stepped off the bench to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 win against 10-man league leaders Leicester City.

After Jamie Vardy had channeled his inner Wayne Rooney by cheating to win a penalty against the Gunners, before taking it himself and finding the net on the stroke of half-time, the visitors had Danny Simpson sent off early in the second half for two bookable offences and conceded an equaliser with 20 minutes to play.

Olivier Giroud, who was ferociously industrious all game, provided a second headed assist in as many weeks by cleverly nodding the ball into the path of Walcott inside the crowded Leicester penalty area. And Theo, who looked really determined and had proven a livewire on the right flank from the moment he entered the action on the hour mark, remained cool and composed as he met the awkwardly bouncing ball with a side-footed first-time finish.

It was the type of chance you often see players spurn by mis-timing the connection but Walcott utilised the same nerves of steel and text-book finishing technique he produced at Wembley last May when he gave us the lead in the FA Cup Final. After that, and as it had been from the 54th minute when Simpson saw red, it was one-way traffic as Leicester defended deep and in numbers whilst Arsenal racked their brains and ramped up the pressure in search of a winner.

By the time the fourth official held up his board to signal four minutes of added time at the end of the match, Welbeck had been sent on in place of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to make his first appearance since last April.

The stage was set for the former Manchester United man with seconds to go when Leicester gave away a freekick on our right. Mesut Ozil puffed out his cheeks, collected his thoughts, uttered a little prayer and proceeded to drift a divine ball into the box which Welbeck glanced into the corner to win the match and reduce the gap to the top of the table to just two points for the Gunners.

As Welbeck wheeled away to celebrate in and amongst the fans in the corner, almost all of his team-mates sprinted to join him as the stadium erupted in the kind of feverish manner only a last-gasp winner in a big match can evoke. It was fairytale stuff for Welbz after his near year-long battle with a knee problem as he marked his return in the best possible way.

In truth, the contest had been fairly even in the opening period so the fact Ozil was blatantly fouled in the build-up to Leicester’s penalty award compounded our sense of injustice when Vardy conned the referee by running into Nacho Monreal’s leg to ‘win’ his side a spot-kick, resulting in the visitors carrying a lead into the interval.

The game undeniably swung in our favour once they had a man dismissed but having been on the wrong end of awful refereeing in the first 45, it was about time we got the rub of the green from dubious officiating. Although both of Simpson’s cards were deserved by the letter of the law, it still felt a bit harsh on the Foxes. But f*ck ’em – obviously.

To be honest, I’m still too pumped up by our victory to be writing this coherently but I want to share a few thoughts on individual performances today. I’ll only highlight positive ones though (so no mention of Aaron Ramsey or Alexis Sanchez) and where better to start than Arsene Wenger, who threw on Theo and Danny to turn a match in a manner very reminiscent of when he would often introduce Sylvain Wiltord and Kanu from the bench way back when.

Petr Cech was flawless again, with one save and gather from a Vardy header in the first-half showcasing ridiculously swift reactions. Giroud was tireless up front and played very well, capping his performance with another assist. And Calum Chambers, a half-time sub for Laurent Koscielny after the Frenchman sustained a dead leg, barely put a foot wrong at the back.

Elsewhere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was threatening on the right before playing some nice passes after moving into the middle following Walcott’s introduction, and despite being successfully shackled by N’Golo Kante and Danny Drinkwater for long periods of the game, Ozil kept going, grew into the match and grabbed another high-quality assist to help us win it at the death

Despite the euphoria of the game’s finale and the importance of the result against a direct rival, there were still some worrying aspects about our play in my opinion but there’s no way I’m dampening the joy of today’s win by discussing them now. That can wait until tomorrow at least because for the time being it’s time to enjoy the Arsenal love-in on this fine, fine Valentine’s Day.

Back tomorrow.

11th February 2016: Welbeck return in sight + United States tour announced

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Evening all. Arsene Wenger today provided an update on team news via the official site and revealed Danny Welbeck could be ready to make his long-awaited return from a knee injury against Hull in the FA Cup a week on Saturday.

In further good news for our challenge for silverware this season, the boss also confirmed that Santi Cazorla and Jack Wilshere are back running, and their respective comebacks are now just a matter of weeks away. He said:

It is a similar squad available to last week, we are still early in the week but we should have everyone available. Of course Rosicky [is out], and Wilshere is not ready. But everyone else should be available. He (Welbeck) is doing well, it is a bit early for him maybe but he is now back to full power in training. It is a big possibility [he could be involved against Hull next week]. We gave him one or two days recovery after the under-21 game, but now he is back in full training. He has worked very hard and he is fit. They (Wilshere and Cazorla) are back running, they are on a fitness programme now so it means it is not a question of months anymore, it is a question of weeks for them to be back.

It’s good to know we’re getting there. The last three long-termers – if you exclude poor Tomas Rosicky – have comebacks in sight and even if being fit for full training and match-fitness are two different things, we can at least look forward to having three potentially first-choice players available for selection again in the not-too-distant future.

I’ve harped on about Cazorla’s importance to our side and how his absence has deprived our football of fluency often enough on this blog, but Welbeck, who is closest to a comeback, could prove a big player for us in the run-in.

Although he’s capable of playing on the flanks to great effect, it’s the prospect of him leading the line with Mesut Ozil in behind and Alexis Sanchez from the left that intrigues and excites.

Add either Aaron Ramsey, Joel Campbell or Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to the right and we have a front four with just about everything. Pace, skill, strength, creativity, endeavour and hopefully, lots of goals.

Meanwhile, Arsenal have announced their second tour of the USA in three summers. Having played Thierry Henry’s New York Red Bulls in 2014, Arsene will again take his squad across the Atlantic as part of their pre-season preparations for next season.

An announcement on the official site read:

Arsenal Football Club can announce that it will be playing two pre-season matches in the United States this summer. The first game will see Arsène Wenger’s side take on the 2016 MLS AT&T All-Stars at Avaya Stadium in San Jose on Thursday, July 28 at 9pm (ET). MLS All-Star teams have previously featured former Arsenal players Thierry Henry and Freddie Ljungberg and, this season, supporters could see the likes of Kaka, Didier Drogba, Sebastian Giovinco and Bradley Wright-Phillips in the MLS All-Star squad. The Gunners will then go on to play Chivas de Guadalajara at the StubHub Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, July 31 (kick-off time to be announced at a later date).

Whilst the boss had this to say on the upcoming trip:

Pre-season is a critically important time for us and we are delighted to be going to San Jose and Los Angeles to participate in the 2016 MLS All-Star game and to play Chivas. We have tremendous support across America and enjoyed our visit to New York in the summer of 2014 when we played the New York Red Bulls at Red Bull Arena. We look forward to giving our US fans the chance to see the team play live.

The club also confirmed these two fixtures would be our only ones outside of Europe during the close season.

Long-distance tours are obviously not ideal in term of preparation for a new campaign but they are now firmly part of the summer schedule for most clubs so at least we won’t be the only ones having to overcome jet-lag and time-zone readjustments.

On the plus side some of our growing number of fans in the States will be able to watch their team live and of course, the main reason for the trip, is to promote the Arsenal brand and earn some extra dough to perhaps put towards a Paul Pogba or a Paulo Dybala …

Back tomorrow after Arsene’s held his pre-Leicester presser.

Laters.

5th February 2016: Wenger on Rosicky and Welbeck

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Hello and welcome back. Arsene Wenger held his pre-match press conference this morning and has revealed the latest team news ahead of Sunday’s trip to Bournemouth.

There was no update on Jack Wilshere or Santi Cazorla, who we already know won’t be back until March, but sadly, the boss did confirm Tomas Rosicky will be side-lined for another sustained period after suffering ‘a bad muscular injury’ against Burnley last weekend. He said:

It’s too early. The only thing we know is that it’s a bad muscular injury that will keep him (Rosicky) out for a long time. The good news is that he will apparently not need surgery as it is a partial rupture of his tendon but how long it takes, [whether] it is two months or three months, we don’t know. We are all shocked and he is the most shocked and we have to patient and hope that it is not his last game.

While an understandably emotional Rosicky himself spoke with Arsenal Player to express his shock at his latest injury set-back, praise the Arsenal fans for their support and defiantly vow that he won’t give up and will work hard to regain full fitness:

It (the reception from Arsenal fans) was unbelievable, something I didn’t expect. Since the moment I started to warm up on the sidelines it was exceptional. Honestly, I had tears in my eyes after such a long time being out. I started to warm up and the reception was unbelievable and I will never forget it. Obviously it is the worse thing (getting injured again) and the feeling I cannot give the fans anything back at the moment is frustrating. I was out for a long time so obviously the relationship with the fans after 10 years was always great and they always knew I played my heart out and they always appreciated me and I appreciated them. As I said it is heartbreaking I can’t give them anything back after the reception they prepared for me, but in life things will be thrown at you and you have to deal with it. You are defined by how you deal with these things and I will deal with it again and I will be back again.

It really is depressing and considering the the frequency and severity of the injuries he’s sustained over his Arsenal career, he joins Abou Diaby as somebody who had all the talent in the world but whose body simply would not let him showcase it to the world for any decent period of time.

I remember being very excited when Arsenal announced his signing back in 2006 as Robert Pires’ replacement after the Frenchman moved to Villarreal, because I’d seen him score a superb solo goal against us for Sparta Prague some years earlier at Highbury and had followed his progress closely as he moved to Germany with Borussia Dortmund and proved himself one of the Bundesliga’s best performers.

Then not long after he arrived at Arsenal, he produced that long-range stunner away to Hamburg, I think, in the Champions League and playing from the left of a midfield four also including Cesc Fabregas, Mathieu Flamini and Alexander Hleb, formed one of the best ‘footballing’ midfields I’ve ever seen at the club, which peaked during the 2007-2008 season when by my reckoning, we were the Premier League’s best team and would have won it but for, you guessed it, injuries.

With his contract up this coming summer, I think it’s safe to say we’ve seen the last of Tomas in an Arsenal shirt and a parting of the ways between club and player seems inevitable, just as with Diaby last summer. Hopefully he can get himself fit and enjoy at least a season or two at another club, perhaps back at Sparta, somewhere I think he’s spoken of wanting to return to in the past.

On a more positive note on the injury front, Danny Welbeck played for the under 21s earlier today as they beat Brighton, and speaking this morning before that game, Arsene revealed the striker ‘looks promising in training’:

He is playing today with the under-21s, for one half at least. I believe that he needs to play two or three games before thinking about coming back into the first team. We can organise games internally without being official games and I think in the next three weeks he should be available. He has not played for 10 months so we need to be patient with him. He has good basic fitness but after it is competitive decision-making and he needs to get used to that again. We are a bit relieved because with such an injury, you never know how a player will come back. But he looks promising in training.

With Theo Walcott struggling for form and the team struggling for goals at the moment, Welbeck’s return obviously cannot come soon enough. With a bit of luck – and a couple more behind-closed-doors matches – the former Man United man will be back in time to give us a boost for what will hopefully still be a chase for both the the Premier League and Champions League crowns, rather than simply securing a top four finish.

For now though, we go with who we have available and that means either Theo or Olivier Giroud up front. Speaking of selection dilemmas, I’ll be back playing Arsenal Manager and trying to predict Sunday’s team in my Bournemouth preview post tomorrow.

Until then.

1st February 2016: It’s dead on Deadline Day

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Welcome to a brand new month on TremendArse. It’s Transfer Deadline Day today of course and as I write this at around 5.30pm, there have been no moves confirmed either in or out of the club as yet.

That’s not overly surprising, given we were always very unlikely to bring anybody in after signing Mohamed Elneny earlier in the window, but I was expecting Mathieu Debuchy and Serge Gnabry to have left in loan moves by now. There’s still time obviously, with the window closing at 11pm this evening, so we’ll see what happens.

But so far today, the biggest news has come away from Arsenal and indeed player trading, with Manchester City confirming Pep Guardiola will replace Manuel Pellegrini as their manager from the start of next season. Which is just brilliant – the Premier League’s wealthiest club has now secured the world’s best manager – outside of London Colney, that is. So the intrigue and excitement goes up a notch or two ahead of next season, even more so if some members of the press get granted their wish and a certain Portuguese manager takes over the reigns at Manchester United. 

Back to the current campaign though and as we prepare to welcome Southampton to Emirates stadium tomorrow evening, Arsene Wenger held his pre-match press conference this morning and was inevitably asked whether we’d be active in the market today. Here’s what he said:

At the moment it’s 99% no, but if Messi knocks on my door at ten to six I won’t tell him to go back to Barcelona!

Arsene also provided an injury update, including the latest on Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere and Tomas Rosicky, saying:

The team news is that we have all the players that played on Saturday available again. The only problem we have is that we lost Rosicky through injury. We have to assess one or two. Overall the situation looks quite good for everybody else. He (Rosicky) has a thigh problem – a muscular tendon problem, but we don’t know how bad it is. It happened three or four minutes after he came on and we have to assess him today. He’s not available for a while. We will know much more tonight. He (Wilshere) is looking good. I had a short chat with Roy Hodgson about him and reassured him that he is progressing well. I’m cautious but I will say four weeks [until he is back]. Danny has not played since April 2015 and will have to go through a game or two with the under-21s, where we can monitor him and leave him free to play at his level of commitment. That looks to be very soon, maybe this week.

So a mixed bag. Jack’s ‘looking good’ and Danny will be back playing football for the under 21s shortly but Rosicky’s now out for another sustained period of time. At this stage, as sad as it sounds, you have to wonder whether the Czech has played his last game in Arsenal colours.

Finally for today, the boss had a few words to offer on Mohamed Elneny, after the Egyptian midfielder made his debut against Burnley last weekend:

His first performance was very good in many aspects. He had plenty of passes, he made 84 passes and 98 per cent were completed. His movement was good, he had a high work-rate. He has to adapt to the toughness of the challenges and certainly gain a little bit in confidence to be more incisive in his passing, but overall for a first performance it was encouraging.

A quick check shows no  confirmation of Debuchy or Gnabry going anywhere, so if they do depart, I’l take at look at that tomorrow, when I’ll be back with a preview of the Saints game.

Until then.

28th January 2016: Squad takes three steps closer to full strength

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Welcome back. With the winter transfer window coming to a close in a few days’ time, it’s looking increasingly likely that Mohamed Elneny will be the only addition to our first-term squad this month.

But when you consider today’s update from Arsene Wenger on our injury list, which confirmed that Francis Coquelin, Danny Welbeck and Tomas Rosicky are all back in full training, it’s difficult to highlight an area in which we’re lacking in options, even if you could argue we can be improved in terms of quality.

That said, with Jack Wilshere and Santi Cazorla still on the treatment table, I suppose our best two ‘passers’ from the middle of the park are unavailable, if you assume that Elneny will be more of a defensive option and Mikel Arteta is no longer up to the task. So if pushed, I’d say that’s the one potentially problem-position we need to find a solution for in the short-term, until Jack and Santi are ready to return.

Who knows, perhaps Elneny will show he can step in and circulate the ball like Cazorla, or Aaron Ramsey can alter my perception that passing is his weakest attribute by playing it around like Andrea Pirlo in his pomp. However we look to cover for Cazorla’s absence though, I think our results in January suggest we need to try something other than the Mathieu Flamini-Ramsey combination in there.

Anyway, here’s what Arsene said about team news ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup tie against Burnley at Emirates stadium when he spoke to the official site:

Mertesacker is out because of the red card, and everybody else is available, apart from Jack Wilshere and Santi Cazorla. After that it is just a question of selection and decision-making, that is the key. Jack and Santi are progressing well but they are at least a few weeks away. But these two apart, it is just about competitiveness and match fitness. Danny Welbeck is not completely ready but he is not far. He needs a game or two because he’s been out since last April. The Stoke [under-21] game is too soon because he only had one session with the team, and that is too short. Francis is available to play now because he has passed two weeks of full training. Tomas is also available for selection.

I’m sure we’ll get more clues as to which players might start against Burnley when the boss holds his press conference tomorrow morning, but we’ll no doubt be rotating the squad quite a bit, especially when you consider we host Southampton in the league on Tuesday.

Elsewhere Per Mertesacker, who as the boss mentions above will be suspended this weekend after falling victim to Diego Costa, er, falling over thin air, has been speaking to the Arsenal Weekly podcast about leadership, energy, managing the loss of players to injury, the squad’s development, mental strength aaaaaaaaaaaand team spirit – i.e the usual. He said:

There’s always a balance between having good leaders and a good team, but everyone needs to lead. Everyone needs to lead, to talk and give energy to the squad. It’s a balance and you don’t want to do too much or exaggerate at times, you just have to get the team going at times. In general we have a good balance in the team and a good squad. We’ve still got players coming back from injury but we’ve never complained about it, that is the main reason for our success. Players have stepped up, brought their energy and we’ve got the results as well. We won¹t look back on players being injured as a negative because other players have stepped up, especially this season. We’ve kept the same squad and we have obviously made some great additions over the past two years. In general, the team spirit has grown a lot. We are competing at the top and that’s something that was not always the case when I joined. The team is much stronger and mentally stronger as well. There are a few steps to go, the season is always long and to get consistency is never easy. There are challenges ahead of us but they make us even stronger, and I must say that the team spirit in the squad is huge at the minute.

Hands up who instantly pictured William Gallas lecturing his Arsenal team-mates in a pre-game huddle some years back when they read “you don’t want to do too much or exaggerate at times”?

Well I did, and it just reminded me that even if Gallas was arguably a better centre-half than Mertesacker, he didn’t have half the personality the German does. Sometimes, that can be more valuable to a team than ability.

Back on Friday.

4th January 2016: Giroud has confidence in team-mates

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With the January transfer window open for business and Arsenal inevitably being linked with new names everyday, Olivier Giroud has suggested our squad is strong enough to win the title as it stands.

Speaking after the win over Newcastle on Saturday, and reportedly in response to Alan Shearer’s opinion that we need a new central defender, defensive midfielder and striker, Giroud said:

Tell me where (Arsenal need strengthening)! Just tell me where! I will explain the opposite judgement. We have very good players as well on the bench, young players waiting to come in. They are very talented. I am not worried about it. Danny Welbeck will come back in a month and a half. Theo Walcott can play up front, Joel Campbell is doing well with his national team up front. If I am less good or get injured, we still have a solution.

Whilst it’s great to hear the big striker being so complimentary about his team-mates, I think if the opportunity to buy a Luis Suarez, a Robert Lewandowski or a Gonzalo Higuain presented itself, we’d be all over it.

Perhaps it was the Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang-to-Arsenal rumours doing the rounds on Saturday that played a part in Giroud being so adamant that we’re sufficiently-stocked up front, seeing as he’d likely lose his place in the starting line-up to such a big-money arrival, but I’m not sure I agree with Oli to be honest.

It was nice of him to provide a time-frame for Danny Welbeck’s return, but as he says, that’s six weeks away and given how long he’ll have been out, it’s unlikely we’ll see the best of him until next season. Theo Walcott has shown he can play upfront this season but Joel Campbell is unproven in that position for us, even if he does play there for his country.

All of which means if Giroud or Walcott pick up an injury, we’re a little bit f*cked up front. So if we can snare an Aubamayang mid-season, we should definitely be looking to do it in my opinion. Giroud also admitted Arsenal would be signing a new player – “an Egyptian one” – referring of course to Mohamed Elneny’s imminent arrival from Basel.

And our number 12 then spoke about the experience in this Arsenal squad, including his own of winning a league title in France, and suggested we have the right blend age-wise. He said:

To be a champion, I know [what it takes] because I was a champion with Montpellier. You need a bit of luck and sometimes you cannot play a fantastic game [but you need to win] and even more so because Manchester City are doing well. If I can advise the young players I will do it. We have a couple of experienced players like Mathieu Flamini, Petr Cech and people like that. We have a good mixture of experienced players and young players and the older ones bring confidence to the youngest and lead them. That is what I try to do sometimes – always encourage and in a nice way show them the best solution. It is very important in a group to say things to carry on with what we have. We are really pleased with the [Newcastle] win and it shows we have that mental strength and character.

Nothing to disagree with in that at all and again, it’s great to hear that the older pros in our squad are seemingly relishing the role of guiding along their younger team-mates.

Something so many of our squads have lacked since we moved to Emirates stadium is the right level of maturity and it’s widely considered the single biggest factor in our relative lack of success in that time. We’ve always had the talent, just not the ‘know-how’. Our performances so far this season, most of them anyway, suggest we’ve finally found the right mix. But we still have to prove it …

And on that note, I’ll leave it there.

See you on Tuesday.

20th December 2015: Welbeck set-back + Wenger praises Cech ‘aura’

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. Another day, another surprising Premier League score-line as Liverpool lost 3-0 at Watford to leave themselves languishing in ninth place in the table.

With 24 points from 17 games, they’re comfortably closer to Swansea’s 15 points in the relegation zone, than they are to Leicester City on 38 at the top of the tree, with just shy of half the season played. Amazing.

Anyway, onto Arsenal matters and worryingly, Arsene Wenger has revealed, rather vaguely, that Danny Welbeck has suffered another setback on his road to recovery from a knee injury sustained in April. The last official update was that the striker would be ready to return around Christmas, but the boss now says:

Unfortunately he was injured at the end of April and we are now at the end of December and he is still not available because of a bone bruising. That deteriorated and it is a big blow to us. Especially now we cannot rotate.

Having initially been expected to return in early September, the club announced the striker needed surgery to correct the problem a few days after the summer transfer window closed at the end of August. That obviously caused fans and pundits to wonder why the club hadn’t made more of an effort to bring in a new striker over the summer, and the boss was even forced to deny lying about the expected time-frame for Welbeck’s recovery.

To be honest, this latest update doesn’t come as a complete surprise to me. Firstly, because I did think it was odd Arsene hadn’t mentioned Welbeck when discussing the return dates for other long-termers like Jack Wilshere and Tomas Rosicky recently, but also because Football Insider reported as long ago as the end of October that Welbeck’s injury was not responding to treatment and he could even remain side-lined for the rest of the season!

Whatever your views on FI as a source, they’ve been proven accurate with their reporting of Welbeck’s injury and have been the first to reveal it from what I can see. In fact, they repeated their story from October just a few days ago, again, ahead of everybody else.

Hopefully, they’ll be proven wrong in terms of Welbeck’s season being over, but whoever FI’s source is, they seem as clueless about when he might be back as anybody else, which is a big concern as it suggests the medical staff at the club are stumped and can’t figure out how to remedy his issue.

The news must surely mean we’ll be looking for a striker as well as a new midfielder in the January window, because to risk the rest of season on the hope Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud remain fit and firing would be stupid. Time will tell but I wouldn’t mind Alexandre Pato if the Duck is definitely over his own injury concerns, which blighted the early portion of his career. Let’s wait and see …

Elsewhere, Arsene has been showering Petr Cech with praise, lauding the goalkeeper’s ‘aura and charisma’, saying:

He has brought his experience, his calmness and his leadership as well. He has been good and highly focused. I don’t want to be detrimental to David Ospina because he was exceptional last year, but Petr Cech has done it all, so he is someone who gives you an aura, a charisma that is always important in the big games for the players. I met him before I signed him and we had a long discussion about the game and the job and his position, and I was deeply impressed by his knowledge, by his professionalism, by his detailed knowledge. So since I have not been surprised, because I got the whole package in one go. You always look around you in the dressing room before a big game and you think, ‘Are we strong enough?’ And these kind of faces help you to believe it. Also in the big games, the number of shots on target shrinks. But then the one save can be the difference in the end result. There is no history of teams winning things without having a great goalkeeper. I’m now 30 years in the job and as I said the other day you learn over the years that the goalkeeper is the most underrated position in football – and maybe the most vital one for winning things. For example when Spain won the 2010 World Cup, in every game [Iker] Casillas saved a one-on-one when it was 0-0 or 1-0, or saved a decisive ball. Even in the final against Arjen Robben – and instead of being 1-0 down you are 0-0. And that at the end of the day makes the difference.

Regular readers of this blog will no doubt have  gleaned that I think Arsene’s a truly amazing manager and we’re beyond lucky to call him our own. That said, nobody’s perfect and I wish he’d have felt the same way about the importance of having a ‘great goalkeeper’ when he was subjecting us to the Manuel Almunia years …

Still, at least he’s finally cottoned onto the merits of having a top class keeper, so if he’s still in charge when Cech eventually calls it a day, I’m expecting us to go out and get the best goalie money can buy, and not try to develop unproven talent in the hope they’ll turn into great shot-stoppers over time.

Back tomorrow with a preview ahead of the big game against Manchester City.

Until then.

15th December 2015: Welbeck worry, Cazorla on comeback and Ox on versatility

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. Some worrying news to begin with today after reports this morning suggested Danny Welbeck has suffered a setback in his rehabilitation from knee surgery, and may now be out until February, having previously been expected to return shortly after the new year.

There’s no official word from the club as yet and we won’t know for sure until Arsene Wenger speaks to the official site on Thursday, or at his pre-Manchester City press conference on Friday, but either way, it’s bad news if accurate, particularly for a squad as stretched as ours is at the moment.

Meanwhile, another long-term absentee, Santi Cazorla, has been discussing his own knee injury, revealing he had no idea how serious it was initially. The Spaniard also said he hopes to be back in March, but the club think it may be longer:

I am trying to take it well. These are the things that happen in football and I am trying to recover as soon as possible. I have to be ready mentally to work and hopefully I can shorten the recovery time as much as possible. I do not want to set a time but I want to play in three months. I do not want to extend it more if it is possible. Arsenal have told me it will be between three and four months, which may be closer to four. I have already said that I will work hard, I want to make everything I can to play in March but we will see how it goes. We are not going to force it if is going to be bad. But my priority is to play in March. The club have told me to be calm and that when I return we will be in the finals (laughs). I hope so. The important thing is that the team do well and I recover as soon as possible.

Aaron Ramsey has obviously taken over the central midfield mantle in Cazorla’s absence, but Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has been telling the Arsenal Weekly podcast that he too can play in the middle if asked. He said:

Versatility is an extra string to a player’s bow. In the long run it’s probably better to tie yourself down to one position and really become established in one area to be as good as you can in that position. However, you look at the likes of Philipp Lahm who is one of the best right backs in the world, but he can also go into midfield and play as if he’s one of the best midfielders in the world. Throughout your career you will always be asked to play slightly different positions here and there, and obviously the needs of the team comes first so if you need to fill in at a different position, you’ll be expected to do that. It’s important for any player to be versatile enough to be able to play in different positions. I’m quite lucky because I enjoy playing on the wing and in midfield as well. I’ve become more used to playing on the wing because I’ve played there more than I have in the middle. Growing up, I played more centrally which is why whenever I do get asked to play there, I’m more than happy to do that. There are times in the game as well when, because of the way the team plays, I might be on the wing but for a 10-minute period I might end up playing in midfield and I feel at home doing that. Sometimes it’s nicer to play in midfield because you get more of the ball whereas when you’re out wide you rely on people to get you the ball, but then when you are on the wing you have then license to attack a bit more and run at people which is a strong part of my game. I’m happy to play in both positions.

That certainly sounds as though the Ox wouldn’t mind playing through the middle but personally my thoughts on whether he’s best positioned more centrally or out wide are mixed. He’s been guilty of giving the ball away too often when deployed in the middle in the past and I think that’s a big reason Arsene Wenger is perhaps reluctant to pay him there more often.

That said, some of the Ox’s best performances in an Arsenal shirt have come when he’s played centrally. I’m thinking AC Milan and Crystal Palace at home and I think, if memory serves, Galatasaray away in last season’s Champions League.

A bit like with Ramsey, I think he can certainly be a good player in the middle, provided we have the right player(s) partnering him. For now though, given his, lets say, below-par form when he has played so far this season, the Ox just needs to work hard in training, find some confidence in his game, and force his way into the starting selection, wherever the boss decides to position him.

Until tomorrow.