Wenger

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

Posted on by TremendArse

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.

13th February 2016: Premier League Preview – Arsenal prepare for Fox hunt

Posted on by TremendArse

Saturday greetings. Today’s Premier League fixtures felt very much like the aperitif before tomorrow’s top-four feast, when Manchester City host Tottenham and we welcome league leaders Leicester to Emirates stadium.

I mean, it was still as hilarious to see Manchester United lose at Sunderland as it is annoying watching Chelsea take an early three-goal lead against hapless Newcastle as I write this, but these games, along with the rest today, are already pretty much insignificant in terms of the title race. All rather mid-table meek, or pre-crucial survival stuff.

You can be sure there’ll be no love lost in either fixture on Valentine’s Day however, as each of the four clubs strive to cement their title credentials at the expense of one of their direct rivals for the crown. We play first of course, kicking off at noon and hoping to reduce the gap to the top of the table to just two points, having seen ourselves fall eight adrift of the summit this time last week.

Defeat, even with 12 games still to play after tomorrow, doesn’t bear thinking about but for all of Leicester’s surreal success so far this season, in my opinion we’re by far the better team both on paper and the pitch, providing we play to our potential.

Yet as Claudio Ranieri’s men showed last weekend by containing and countering to win convincingly at City, they are a far more intelligent outfit right now than even earlier this season, when they often conceded first before coming storming back, but of course also reversed that trend in late September, when they struck first against us at their place only to eventually lose 5-2.

Their Italian manager has clearly seen his ideas and instructions seep into his side gradually over the course of the season and they now resemble a top side from their boss’ home country – defensively organised and hard to break down in a compact shape, but rapidly efficient in breaking forward and unerringly cut-throat when they get there.

It’s an evolution in Leicester’s playing style Arsene Wenger revealed he’s very aware of having studied the statistics, but as well as trying to stifle Leicester’s game-plan, the boss maintains Arsenal must play to their own strengths and that means dominating possession. He said:

I told my defence after the game [in September], ‘I’m not happy with your performance’ because they created goal chances. We created many as well. It could have been, 5-2 or 8-4. I was already impressed by their offensive potential. But it was a very open game. I watched our game again because I wanted to watch how this team moved since then. There is an evolution in their game. They are more cautious at the moment. They play a lot in their final third and come out very quickly. Look at the number of direct balls from their half to the opponents’ half. They are higher than anyone else because they have Vardy on his way straight away when they win the ball – they do it very well. They suck you in and go very quickly in the opponents’ half. At the time they were a bit more all going. Today they are a bit more ‘let’s sit here and use our strengths’ in a very efficient way, which is what they did remarkably well against Manchester City. We will try of course to stop their counter-attacking. But at home you have to express your strengths and our strength is to have the ball. We have to try to express our strengths and as well try to stop them from hitting us on the break.

In terms of how we’ll line up, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my guess would be that we’ll see one change from last weekend’s starting line-up against Bournemouth, with Francis Coquelin replacing Mathieu Flamini as our defensive midfielder.

That of course means Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain would retain his place on the right of our attack and after he returned to form with a well-taken goal against the Cherries, I think it would be the right call by the boss.

And speaking of the Ox, Arsene says his recent good form – emphasised by a goal and an assist in his last two starts – has hopefully provided the boost in confidence the England man needed to kick-start his season:

He got an assist, then he scored and that sometimes opens a light. I’m convinced that in every career, you have moments where you think ‘I can do that’ and transform your potential into reality. I’m convinced that that will give him appetite to score more, to give more assists and to go more in the final third, where he can be deadly. You cannot imagine when you look at Alex that he will not score goals. He has power, pace, technique, finishing. I believe that only he maybe did not believe enough that he can score. That will convince him and hopefully it’s the start of many more.

I have to say the Ox’s struggles for form this season have baffled me at times. In pre-season, he was our stand-out player as far as I was concerned, and I thought it was a sign he would make his mark on this campaign like never before.

Clearly it hasn’t turned out that way and he’s actually found himself falling further down the pecking order with the emergence of Joel Campbell as a bone fide first-teamer, rather than bulldozing his way up it like I, and I’m sure many others, expected.

But if I’m right about him retaining his place against the Foxes, the Ox has a chance to shine in a huge game tomorrow, perhaps even be a match-winner, and prove that he deserves to start week in week out.

I’m really up for this one. It’s a six-pointer no question, probably pivotal in terms of our title hopes and also has a bit of an ‘us versus the rest of the country’ vibe to it. Leicester are the nation’s darlings right now – it’s up to us to ruin the romance of their surprise rise on Valentine’s Day, and reignite our own charge for the title.

Back post-match.

COME on Arsenal …

12th February 2016: Wenger on Leciester

Posted on by TremendArse

Happy Friday folks. Arsene Wenger held his pre-Leicester press conference this morning and aside from reiterating the latest injury news he gave to the official site yesterday, the boss insisted Sunday’s top-of-the-table clash against the Foxes is one Arsenal are very much looking forward to.

Arsene also spoke about the importance of building momentum following last weekend’s win at Bournemouth, the significance of this fixture in terms of the title race, and the inevitable anxiety that accompanies being league leaders. Here’s what he said:

What is important is to find the momentum back and that means that you win a few games. After, let’s not count too much on the weakness of Leicester because they have not shown too many. We want to find a consistency in our results until the end of the season, because we have big game after big game now. What I believe is that you do not have to be a super mathematician to analyse that it is a very important game, maybe not a decisive one for the Premier League but it is not far away from that. The pressure is on us as well, of course. I don’t deny that but I take that in a very positive way and as an opportunity to show how strong we are. I think the biggest pressure in our job is to play games without pressure. This is the kind of game we want – the kind of game we relish. When you play at Arsenal Football Club, that’s what you want. [Leicester] are still in a position where they think they have nothing to lose. But once you are top of the league, you can also think about losing what you have. That is where the nerves come in a little bit. I do not know how they will respond to that.

The boss went on to lavish priase on Claudio Ranieri’s side, pointing out that even the most sceptical of football followers are now convinced of Leicester’s title credentials and also discussed the first meeting between the two sides this season, our 5-2 win at their place back at the end of September. He said:

It is very romantic and I understand the whole country [being behind them]. That is human. I think as well that [the story] is good for football, and it goes against the usual practice in our game, which is spend and buy big stars. It is important to know that with quality work, quality scouting and quality management you can have great results. Leicester today are in a strong position and they have certainly silenced all the doubters since the start of the season because at Christmas people were saying they would not be there and now we are at Easter and they are still there. In the last week they showed they have solid potential to win the league, with two positive results against Liverpool and Manchester City away. Everybody now thinks they are on the same level as everybody else to win it and they have a mathematical advantage of five points. They are certainly more convinced of their quality now,” he said. “When we played them last, they were top of the table so that has not changed but their belief has been strengthened. The first game we played against them at Leicester was a very open game and it is true that their strength is to be very quick in transition from defence to offence. But we have to nullify their pace and attacking potential – we want to dominate the game, have the ball and be dangerous.

Although we’ll typically look to take the initiative in terms of possession as Arsene suggests above, it’s also pretty obvious that Leicester won’t mind us having most of the ball one iota. In fact they’d prefer it.

Their game-plan this season, on a very basic level, revolves around containing and then countering using the pace, poise and pizzazz of players like Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. So it was interesting that Arsene hinted he’ll continue with the pacier Gabriel at the back alongside Laurent Koscielny, when discussing why Per Mertesacker didn’t start our last game:

It’s difficult for me to go into any individual assessment. I think he has played many games. Sometimes I use a different formula. Per Mertesacker is a great leader, a very respected one in our dressing room, but I have three entire backs and I adapt a little bit to their level of form, to the number of games they’ve played and to the opponents we play against. What are their strengths and where can they hurt us?

Given Arsene’s meritocratic selection policy which is heavily weighted in his players’ last performance, I’d say it’s very likely we’ll see just one change from the Bournemouth game and that will be Francis Coquelin returning in place of Mathieu Flamini to partner Aaron Ramsey in the middle of the park.

Some may expect Joel Campbell to regain his place on the right at the expense of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain but after scoring a sumptuous goal last week and producing arguably his best performance of the season, my money’s on the Ox retaining his starting spot.

Back with a preview tomorrow.

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

Posted on by TremendArse

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.

8th February 2016: Arsenal look to Leicester

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back. Although there’s still nearly a week to go before we welcome league leaders Leicester City to Emirates stadium on Sunday, Arsene Wenger, Aaron Ramsey and Hector Bellerin had a few words to offer on the Foxes when they spoke to the media after yesterday’s win at Bournemouth.

First up it’s the boss, who insisted Claudio Ranieri’s side will go into the game as favourites, but is backing home advantage and the support of the Arsenal fans to help his side come out on top. He said:

[Beating Bournemouth] is very good for the future as we now have a very big game at home against Leicester who are now the favourites for the Premier League,” Wenger told Arsenal Player. [A win] can maybe prepare you in a better condition for the next game. We have a week to prepare for that and I have to think about it. Leicester is a strong side but we are also a strong side. At home with our fans and support, we can do it.

Next to laud Leicester is Ramsey, who’s hoping Arsenal can take the momentum gained from beating Bournemouth into the game against the Premier League’s surprise leaders:

What they (Leicester) have done this season is quite remarkable but we will need to be right on it to get there points. Hopefully the momentum we have we can take into that game and come away with a big victory there as well.

And finally we have our Cockney Catalan, Bellerin, who though admitting the Leicester game is important in the sense that both teams are involved in the title race, also pointed out that every game is crucial in our quest to rack up as many points as possible. He said:

I think for us, every single game is crucial. We need to think game by game, it does not matter [who you play] and you need to get the three points. Obviously it is going to be one of the most important ones but you need to keep playing like that in every game.

It may be a cliche but Sunday’s fixture really is a six-pointer. Win and we reduce the gap to just two, but lose and Leicester restore the eight-point advantage over us they were no doubt celebrating last Saturday night.

I’ve been saying all season Leicester’s form wouldn’t last but as we all know, it has. Not only that, they’re playing like a title-winning team. I watched them win at Manchester City last weekend and it wasn’t just the individual brilliance of players like Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante that stood out, it was how impressive they looked structurally and tactically as a team. They didn’t sneak a win against the country’s most expensively-assembled squad, they bullied them, out-played them and rendered them almost riposte-less.

If we talk in terms of spines, then Leicester’s shows no signs of any cracks. Kasper Schmeichel is doing a great job of impersonating his father at his best in goal, Robert Huth, whilst far from the most cultured of centre-halves, looks like the two-time Premier League winner he is, and his partner at the back, Wes Morgan, for me is Sol Campbell-esque in the way he reads danger and defends generally.

Then there’s Kante in midfield, who combines the relentless chasing and harrying of Lassana Diarra, with the front-foot effervescence of Blaise Matuidi, providing the Foxes with an answer for our very own Francis Coqulein in defensive midfield. And of course in Mahrez and Jamie Vardy, they have two of the very best attackers in the league this season.

But despite the indisputable quality of many of their players, Leicester’s team is playing far better than it should be on paper given it’s constituent parts, and that’s down to Ranieri, who I think hasn’t enjoyed nearly the level of praise he deserves.

I mean, just imagine Harry Redknapp or even Jose Mourinho – the press pet that he is – taking an unfashionable club with relatively modest resources and who narrowly avoided relegation last year with largely the same set of players, to the top of the Premier League as we near mid-February.

They’d be knighting Harry or plastering Jose’s face over every front and back cover they could find with a headline like: ‘The most special Specialist in Success that ever lived’.

So I’d just like to take this opportunity to say I think Claudio comes across as a genuinely lovely man, he’ clearly a very experienced and talented manager and I think his Tinkerman tag should now be replaced by something more befitting of his astonishing achievement so far this season.

All that said, it goes without saying I hope we put six past them on Sunday and that they finish runners-up to Arsenal come the end of the campaign.

Back tomorrow.

6th February 2016: Premier League Preview – Arsenal to face familiar A-foe-be

Posted on by TremendArse

Good evening. Arsenal face south-coast opposition for the second time inside a week when we travel to Bournemouth tomorrow afternoon, looking to secure our first Premier League win in five fixtures.

With Leicester City’s dream season continuing unabated as they beat Manchester City 3-1 at Etihad stadium earlier today to remain clear at the top of the table, we’re now eight points behind the Foxes, so the pressure on us to get back to winning ways in the Premier League has obviously been amplified.

But beat Bournemouth tomorrow and we have an opportunity to close that gap to just two points as early as next weekend, when we host Claudio Ranieri’s league leaders on Valentine’s Day and attempt to take some of the romance out of their surreal success story so far this season, along with the three points.

Standing in our way first though are the Cherries, who themselves have exceeded most people’s pre-season expectations and currently sit relatively comfortably in 15th place in the standings, five points above the relegation zone and with a game in hand over the teams below them.

One of their most in-form players at the moment is striker Benik Afobe, who of course came through the Arsenal youth ranks having joined our academy at just six years of age, before we eventually let him leave for Wolverhampton Wanderers in a reported £2 million transfer in January last year.

I remember Arsene Wenger describing Afobe as a ‘deadly finisher’, or something along those lines when he was still an Arsenal player, and after struggling for goals in several loan spells earlier in his career, he managed 19 from 30 appearances in a temporary spell at then League One side MK Dons in the first half of last season, leading to his switch to Wolves, where he continued his prolific form a division higher scoring 23 times in 48 appearances.

So it was unsurprising to see him back at a Premier League club so soon and he’s already managed three goals from his first four top-flight games for his new side since arriving last month, to suggest he’s more than capable of finding the net consistently at the highest level of the English game.

Some have recently criticized Arsene, saying he boobed big-time in letting Afobe leave without giving him a chance in the Arsenal first-team but I think that’s harsh and probably stems from being a little under-informed, given Afobe’s progress at the club was severely hampered by injury.

Also, as has been shown countless times in the past, timing, in terms of competition for places, often plays a big role in whether a young player gets a prolonged first-team chance at Arsenal or has to leave in search of regular football elsewhere. That’s something Arsene touched on when discussing his former player at yesterday’s press conference, when he said:

He (Afobe) was very young, he had big competition in front of him with Robin van Persie, and players like that, so I gave him authorisation to go somewhere and play, which he did. You educate people to influence their lives and give them success, that is what we do. When they do not manage to play for us, if they do it somewhere else we are of course very happy for them. Benik has done extremely well, even beyond the expectations of many people and that’s great, that’s down to him and congratulations to him. I think the best way to stop (him) being dangerous is for us to have the ball and dominate the game and being aware that Benik is quick, strong and has good movement in the box. We are used to facing these kind of strikers in the Premier League because in every single club there are top-quality strikers. That’s the same with Bournemouth.

I must admit I haven’t seen Afobe play much other than the odd highlight clip so can’t really comment on his best attributes with too much authority, but his goalscoring record speaks for itself and we’ll obviously need to keep him on a tight leash given his form. Especially when you throw the ‘ex factor’ into the equation, which will no doubt spur him on to try that little bit harder against the club that let him leave.

As far as our line-up  is concerned, I do wonder if Arsene might make a change or two seeing as we’ve failed to score in our last three league games. It may be a match to give Theo Walcott a return to the striker’s role for instance, with Olivier Giroud dropping to the bench. I mean, Theo’s clearly been out of form playing on the flanks in recent weeks but then Giroud’s hardly been banging them in for fun. A rest for the big Frenchman, and at the same time, a show of faith with a return to his favoured position for Walcott, could prove beneficial for both players in the long-run.

At the back I think we’ll see Per Mertesacker return at the expense of Gabriel to partner Laurent Koscielny after the German missed the FA Cup clash with Burnley through suspension and watched the Southampton game from the bench. Francis Coquelin starting alongside Aaron Ramsey in central midfield in place of Mathieu Flamini, is another very likely change in my opinion providing the former is now deemed completely match-fit.

The rest of the line-up should be largely unchanged from the Southampton game though, with Petr Cech in goal, our two Spanish fullbacks, Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez all starting. But a bit like up front, I’ve a feeling Arsene might want to freshen up the right hand side of the attack, where we could see Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain come in for Joel Campbell for instance.

I wrote earlier this week that I don’t really like Ramsey in central midfield because of his unreliable distribution but given he’s hardly ever played in a two with Coquelin, the boss may want to give that combination a chance to prove it can work before trying something else, such as bringing in Mohamed Elneny or even handing Alex Iwobi a Premier League starting berth as a central midfielder.

By my recollection, Coquelin and Ramsey have only ever played as a partnership for 45 minutes this season – the first half of our opening-day defeat by West Ham – so even if many, myself included, aren’t convinced it can be effective, hopefully the doubters can be shown up as not knowing nearly as much as we think we do, and that duo will gel to form the midfield platform on which we go on to win things this season.

How I’d love to be proven wrong as Coquelin stealthily covers Ramsey’s goal-getting forward raids, Mesut picks up the Cazorla-less circulation slack and we function fluently as a team all the way to the Treble …

Whichever line-up Arsene opts for however, the objective is very simple: we need to win because a manageable gap could very quickly morph into an insurmountable one if we’re not careful.

Back post-match.

COYG!

5th February 2016: Wenger on Rosicky and Welbeck

Posted on by TremendArse

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

Posted on by TremendArse

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.

31st January 2016: Arsenal handed home FA Cup tie against Hull

Posted on by TremendArse

Sunday salutations. The draw for the fifth round of the FA Cup was made a little earlier and we’ve been handed another home tie, after being paired with Hull City for the third year running.

After beating them in the final in 2014, we faced them in last year’s third round and emerged 2-0 victors at Emirates stadium thanks to goals by Per Mertesacker and Alexis Sanchez, so perhaps Steve Bruce’s men can prove our lucky charm as we aim to make it a hat-trick of consecutive Cup wins.

Two of our young stars, Chuba Akpom and Isaac Hayden, are of course on-loan from Arsenal at the Tigers, so it will be interesting to see if we grant Hull permission to play them against us. Personally, I’d say hell no, because you know, I want them to have fewer personnel options against us and rule out a Lomana LuaLua scenario, where a player scores against his parent club. But that’s just me – Arsene Wenger may well feel very differently. We’ll see.

Speaking of the boss, he’s been praising Alex Iwobi, after the teenager put in another very impressive display as a central midfielder against Burnley yesterday. Arsene said:

I think he has shown everybody that he is a good player again. I personally find him very interesting because of his decision making, his awareness is very interesting. He is a boy who, two years ago, not many would have said he [will make it]. You see he develops very well because he’s very clever. I like his game, I like the timing of his decision making and the quality of his decision making. He always turns where you want him to turn and he plays the ball where you want him to play the ball. He’s very interesting. He can play on the left, he can play on the right, he can play behind the striker and he can even play as a No 9, because he scores goals in training.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been as impressed with Iwobi as the boss and every other Arsenal fan. Where I think he has an edge on the likes of Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, especially the former, is that he’s more reliable in keeping possession and making the right pass at the right time, as the boss highlights above. He’s similar to Joel Campbell in that sense and also works as hard as the Costa Rican going both ways.

I think it was telling then, that the Ox was positioned on the right and Iwobi preferred in the middle against Burnley, because despite being a fan myself of the former Southampton man playing centrally in the past, the truth is he gives the ball away far too frequently when he has played there. So if Chamberlain would prefer to carve out an Arsenal career in the middle, that’s something he’ll have to improve significantly in my opinion, as will Aaron Ramsey if I’m honest.

As for Walcott, I think it’s pretty clear that he can be lethal up front, but looks pretty useless out wide more often than not. All of which is to say that if Iwobi can continue playing well when given an opportunity centrally, with Santi Cazorla and Jack Wilshere out injured, he has a great opportunity between now and the end of the season to prove himself as a genuine starting candidate in the middle moving forward.

Right, that was a very brief one today but it’s Sunday, the Milan derby kicks off soon and it won’t watch itself.

See you on Transfer Deadline Day.

29th January 2016: Next up, it’s the Clarets in the Cup

Posted on by TremendArse

Happy Friday folks. So FA Cup fourth-round weekend is upon us and we’ll be looking to take a step closer to winning the competition for the third season running when we host Burnley at Emirates stadium tomorrow afternoon.

But despite residing a league lower in the Championship, Arsene Wenger has pointed out that Sean Dyche’s team has Premier League-class players, and cited our loss to Sheffield Wednesday in the Capital One Cup earlier this season in suggesting Arsenal won’t be underestimating the Clarets. Speaking at his pre-match press conference this morning, the boss said:

I saw them on Monday night beat Derby 4-1 and I realised when I watched them that all their players played in the Premier League, we played against most of them. They have Gray up front who is very efficient, they have other players like Barton, Arfield, Boyd – they have all played in the Premier League. They have Vokes up front with Gray, they have good players. We know that we have learnt in the Premier League that the teams who have come up from the Championship, it is not like 10 years ago – they compete at the right level. We have learnt something this season, we went to Sheffield Wednesday in the League Cup and got quite a severe defeat. We have to show we have learnt from that. We have to be humble enough to accept that and to think it’s not because we turn up at the Emirates and play against Burnley that we will win the game. We have to earn the right to go through this round and qualify. If you don’t do that, we’ll have a bad surprise.

Joey Barton in particular, is a player we’ll have to guard against in my opinion. Not because he’s a good footballer or anything you understand. I mean, he may have been decent earlier in his career, but at 33, he’s clearly past his prime.

No, we’ll have to watch him because as a player, he’s a nasty, spiteful, mouthy bast*rd in the Diego Costa mould, who’s very good at drawing retaliation and getting opponents sent off (I’m thinking Abou Diaby at St James’ Park in the 4-4 draw in 2011), if he isn’t being dismissed himself for something, that is.

Of course, it’s still a game we’re strong favourites to win, even if we’ll be rotating our squad. And speaking of how we might line-up, Arsene revealed today that David Ospina will replace Petr Cech in goal but stopped short of confirming that Mohamed Elneny would be handed a full debut, or whether Francis Coquelin would come straight back into the starting selection following his injury layoff. He said:

I will make some changes, not many. We spoke about Elneny, maybe I will give him a chance to play. Coquelin I have to think about. I will play with a team that is a Premier League team. Coquelin gives us defensive stability in midfield so he will compete with the players we have in this area. Before he was injured he had a very good spell in the team and the results were good, including his defensive records. He is now in a position where he can compete again for his position. It is a possibility [that Elneny will start]. He is naturally a box-to-box player who is a bit more defensive-minded than your usual box-to-box midfielder, so he can play in several positions in front of the defence or go box to box. He has good technique, good vision, he is very mobile and agile.

You would imagine we’ll be a little cautious with Coquelin, given his importance as our number one defensive midfielder, so I’m guessing the Frenchman will start on the bench with Elneny starting as our defensive shield in front of the defence. Tomorrow’s team is more difficult to predict than it has been for a while now due to players returning from injury, but I’ll have a go anyway because, well, it’s quite fun:

Ospina; 

Chambers, Gabriel, Koscielny, Gibbs;

Elneny;

Campbell, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Iwobi, Sanchez;

Giroud

Per Mertesacker is of course suspended after his red card against Chelsea and he’ll surely be replaced by Gabriel. With Mathieu Debuchy’s future at the club still very uncertain ahead of the transfer deadline on Monday, I doubt he’ll be involved, so I’ve gone with Calum Chambers at right back, to give Hector Bellerin a rest.

Kieran Gibbs for Nacho Monreal at left-back is a given I reckon, and I’ve picked the same two attacking midfielders centrally, in the Ox and Alex Iwobi, who started there in the third round against Sunderland. I suppose Rosicky might start but given how long he’s been out injured, I’m guessing we’ll ease him back to competitive football with some minutes as a substitute.

As for who plays upfront, Olivier Giroud was sacrificed early against Chelsea after we went down to ten men and against physical Championship opponents, I’d be inclined to start him, rather than say give Theo Walcott the striker’s role.

Finally, on the the flanks I’ve gone with Campbell and Sanchez because the former would provide more defensive support for Chambers behind him than others, and Sanchez’s cameo last weekend, whilst impressive, suggested to me at least that he could do with some game time to regain match-sharpness.

Right, I’m done playing Arsenal Manager for now. Let’s see who the boss picks and how they preform come 3pm tomorrow.

Back post-match.