Happy Sunday one and all! It’s FA Cup day, we’ve landed a bit of a duff kick off, but what can you do? Aston Villa come to town in what should be a fairly simple contest. My pal who is a Villa fan is pretty certain we’ll beat them, they don’t really have huge amounts of quality, but in the form we’re in at the moment… I wouldn’t rule anything out. They’ve taken points off Chelsea at the Bridge and they’ve started to look half decent lately.
Last time we played them, I missed the game, but it was only a late 87th minute goal that saved our bacon.
The injury news is looking favourable. Late fitness tests for Thierry and Arteta should see them in the squad along with Bacary Sagna and Coquelin. The return of a proper right back is the best bit of news we’ve had in a while. Having someone mobile in a position we’ve really struggled with couldn’t come soon enough. It’s just a shame all those players couldn’t have been back for the United game last week.
I’m expecting a strong line up not least to get some defensive confidence back in the team. We need to start getting back to winning ways fast. This is a great mini spring-board opportunity and hopefully it’ll be a chance to shake off our second extended hangover of the season.
Something I did wonder about is how the effect of Jack being out for the season will affect the rest of the players. I’m sure it must boost the team to see one of their star performers working their way back into contention… not least for the relief of having some quality in the midfield with the added hope that he adds to our chances of a top four. We obviously won’t be able to judge the impact, but it’s an interesting point to note regardless.
Wenger has been on the defensive about young players and the problems he’s been having. Firstly, he spoke about how hard it is to rest a player like Jack Wilshere when he’s one of the best players in the team.
“You can convince him he does not play when he is not good enough. But if he is not injured and is one of the better players in the team, it is hard to explain to everybody that you don’t play him because he might maybe have a future stress fracture.“
Now, you can take the situation we were in one of two ways. You could frame the argument by saying he was too good to drop, or you could frame it the other way and say that the squad wasn’t good enough to drop him. The latter was the issue as far as I could see. Jack gives it his all, 100% effort all the time, but I don’t think anyone could say he wasn’t visibly tired at times last year. You might not be able to pin an exact injury that might occur in the future, but you could certainly predict that if you over played a kid, the chances are he might break at some point. In fact, we made that point many times during last season…
Sure enough… that’s what happened. Just like it did to Vermaelen after we ran him into the ground in his first season
The other issue Wenger was talking about was the one to take off Chamberlain…
“People forget that to start him [Oxlade-Chamberlain] against Manchester United, a player with no experience, it takes guts to do it at the start.
“He came on at Manchester United when we lost 8-2 and nobody spoke about it. But to start him in a game of that magnitude [last Sunday] and then for him to have done well is very positive for us.”
This is another comment that you could take a number of ways. Sure, it takes guts to play an 18 year old in a game like the United one. However, what was the other option? Andrey Arshavin who we’ve given chance after chance all season? Did Wenger really have an option? Not only that, we’re not talking about playing an unknown… we put £12million down on him. He’s should be top talent for that cost and he shouldn’t have been be a major risk if we’d done our home work. Which, it turns out we had done.
Wenger once again bragged about young players wanting to play for us because they get a chance. Well, that and the bundle of money we throw their way. I’m not sure young players wanting to use Arsenal as a stepping stone is something to be shouting about. I’d prefer it if young players came to us because they admired how amazing our first team is. The idea that we buy them up and put them in regardless of how well they play seems to have got us in all sorts of bother over the years. Realistically, are they coming to us because of the chance, or because they see gaps all over our first team squad?
We need to strike a much better balance going forward. That said, Chamberlain is the type of talent you don’t mind us throwing in at the deepend. Powerful, creative and… as Wenger put it… fearless.
The decision to take him off was bizarre at the time and it still is. He played Jack in 50 odd games last year, so why he thought he needed to rest Chamberlain after 70 minutes is beyond me. Alex Fynn said in the podcast he thinks it’s linked to Jack Wilshere’s injury… I’m not sure I agree. Maybe if he’d played 20 on the bounce.
If Wenger is considering a move, word on the street is that Real Madrid and Jose Mourinho may part company at the end of the season. Jose has done a pretty good job getting his team in front of Barca in the league, but the football isn’t as expansive as the Madrid fans would like to see and Jose has done some pretty crazy things over the past couple of years… the craziest being that he keeps losing to the greatest team ever in the El Classico’s. If Madrid came knocking in the summer, would Wenger say no? Or would he thing… you know what… I’m pretty good at working with world class players… this could be my last chance for a move like that?
Who knows… but he’s put it out there. His family are looking to move back to France, this might be a nice, warm stop off along the way. One thing you can be sure of, even if Jose does want a Premier League club, it probably won’t be us should Wenger leave. I have my doubts whether United would have him as well… he can be brand damaging to a degree.
Anyway, it’s time to forget that and look forward to an afternoon of exciting football. Today not only needs to be a win, it needs to be a confidence boosting win where we play nice football and hopefully craft a few goals. It would also be nice to bag a clean sheet. I expect the crowd to be on good form and I’d imagine we’ll all be kissing Arsene’s backside after booing him last week.
P.S. Remember to listen to the podcast I put together with Alex Fynn, it seems to have had a good response so far which means I’ll have to get some more in the pipeline! More detail about Wenger’s future and what his family want to do are contained inside…
If you’d like a copy of the book associated with the podcast, see below. Well worth a read.
look at this nutter
https://twitter.com/#!/shaynefogarty
kin hell, nasty piece of shite.
Is he imitating a monkey or is he yawning while trying to find the pockets of the wrong jacket.
I sometimes miss the pockets of my suit jacket, I’ve also got a jacket with pockets pretty high up.
incesc – Is that your real name ?!
who knows hey, there seems to be a lot of witness’s arounnd him though
haha no
my real name is ann walton kroenke
Thomas says:
January 29, 2012 at 17:56
fuck me the akb:ers must be jizzing now
bunch of cunts
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Its this kind of thing that I find odd on here. Arsenal ‘fans’ openly pissed off that we won a game!
I don’t think Downing’s better than Walcott either, just weird how Downing can go for 20 million not produce anything and be seen as more of a natural winger, while Walcott’s seen as complete shite.
Btw, was thinking today, we’re always told that Arsene can’t spot a centre back, and yet in Vermaelen and Koscielny we’ve got 2 of the best CBs in the premiership imo. Worth pointing out that in both cases NO ONE else was after them. So our scouts must be a little bit better than they are given credit for at times…
Is there no controls over what you tweet ? Is that a sort of anti-pc, ‘I’m Frankie Boyle, I’ll say what I like, and you have to think I’m funny’ type account ?!
He’s asking John Cofie for a re-tweet.
Vermaelen was Wenger’s choice not the scouts. Saw him playing as a LB and thought he could make a CB out of him.
just reported the cunt.
albo – We’d probably have to analyse whether Koscielny was at fault for Dunne’s goal though, I don’t think it was his marker, but he’s probably going to get blamed for it.
incesc says:
January 29, 2012 at 22:57
haha no
my real name is ann walton kroenke
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Then you can fuck of and go to hell !!! Take Wenger with you
well he did buy campbell which was great and gallas was a good buy, but then wehave also had silvestre, cygan, stepanovs, djourou, senderos and squilacci
Frimpong must’ve tweeted him, heh, he went from loving him to abusing him.
albo says:
January 29, 2012 at 22:59
Its this kind of thing that I find odd on here. Arsenal ‘fans’ openly pissed off that we won a game!
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Some people might just think it would be like a trophy if we went out of the cup..
Seriusly, some may think it would be better to just loose straight loses til Wenger was gone.. Just a thought and maybe an explanation 4 u
Toure was quality.
Wenger revealed that injury-plagued midfielder Abou Diaby will return to the club on Tuesday after a spell in rehab!
He’s a junkie; D
The problem are not the individuals really. Its the way we defend at times. And Song for all his perfectly weighted passes in the final third he is not that consistent at protecting the back four. A few eye catching tackles he makes but he certainly seems to have a motivation issue or something. In the CL games this season…….we actually had a very pragmatic and tighter shape and Song’s positioning seemed much better and intelligent.Same for some of the big games except for last ManUre game. And we do have some players constantly losing the ball much more.
The solution might be a better no.2. I remember reading how Carlos Queroz(spelling!) helped shape the UTD defense when he was there. He certainly knows defending looking at the WC game between Spain-Portugal. So if Wenger doesn’t go he must freshen up the backroom. With right decisions we can obviously progress. We might not have Man City/Chelsea money but I honestly think if we use our resources we can atleast compete.
Thank Dein for getting Campbell. Kompany and Vidic have stood out for me in recent seasons there are some other underrated ones at other clubs sure but fans will rate their own highly.
I think even our own CB’s are good individually yet they make glaring mistakes sometimes but what is that down to?
Liverpool seem to after a Striker before the deadline, Barrios announcement is due tommorow for a English club.
Keyser – it certainly wasn’t just his fault. But even if he was at fault this time, he’s been immense this season in general. One hell of a player for me
Here hoping its us OPG.
Also, just watched the interviews – if Wenger had used the kind of crappy excuses that Macleish came out with he’d be murdered by the press. Claiming it came off Walcott’s arm, when it was thumped into him at point black range etc etc
mcleish’s interview was embarrassing but at least he wasnt showing utter contempt for his own fans like wenger did last week.
See you say utter contempt..
Oxlade today did one thing that was impressive, he tracked Ireland/ Hutton 40-50 yards down the toucline and put in a decent tackle, he hasn’t done that before, I don’t even know if he did it again, but for once he didn’t leave his fullback as isloated as he did against United or Olympiakos and seemed to be far more aware of his positioning this time around.
There was a point where Vermaelen had ambled forward and slid in by Villa’s corner flag to try and stop a clearance, the camera cut to the Ox and he was deep in midfield holding Vermaelen’s position.
Wenger can’t come out and say ‘well, he’s young, a bit shit really defensively anyway’.
Also I’d rather we took him before he did over-exert himself, he’s got the pace to be someone like Walcott, if we’re slowly building his fitness up so that he can be explosive as he has been over 90 rather than tiring after 60, I’m all for it.
*took him off
Right we got ut of jail.
Lets see how we perform in the freezing Reebok. I’ll be taking my ‘Song’ gloves !
Koscielny won’t really get the credit he deserves if we don’t start winning games again and I’m worried he must be close to injury the effort he puts in covering for our weaknesses, it’s easy to blame the defence and while we made a decent comeback It says quite a bit that we did it with two penalties and a deflected goal, especially when one of those penalties was won by our marauding centre back.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jan/29/robin-van-persie-elbow-aston-villa
I hope he doesn’t get too famous. Looks like the perfect replacement for Puyol at Barca. Absolute top class at 1vs1 situations.The amount of times he wins tackles is unreal. Would love to look at his tackle success rate. Awesome determination. Add to that his awesome recovery speed and quality on the ball. Has a good leap and upper body strength too. Our second best player this season.
Keyser – yeah, though in fairness, all 3 goals came from very decent attacking moves. They may have been scrappy in some sense, but all actually had excellent football in the buildup.
For me the biggest positive of the whole 90 minutes was seeing Arteta and (especially) Sagna get back on the pitch. We’ve all said it plenty of times before – if we can keep our first choice 14 or 15 players fit then we could still nick 4th (and maybe even land the FA Cup), and today felt like a good step along the road of getting some of these key players back…
Goon – agreed. Both his and TV’s quality on the ball is a joy to behold at times. Neither of them really look like CB’s when they’ve got the ball at their feet. Comfortable dribbling and picking passes. Quality players.
It feels strange as an Arsenal fan to be saying I’m actually very happy with our CB roster and our 1st choice goalkeeper!
I think we should start Rosicky and give Ramsey some rest. We lost our dominance in midfield as soon as he was off. Ramsey can get some rest meanwhile and cool down a bit. He seems to have the Gerrard problem of running around senselessly all the time. He could do with a rest to freshen up mentally and physically to start performing better.
Albo- Yes, I like the partnership of TV-Kos and Mertesacker has his problems but has good games too…….but I think we still need an dominant in the air type CB for the Villa,Stokes or Liverpool type games.
As for Gk…..I guess we need another highly experienced keeper who is a top class pro to help and back Szczesny. Someone like Harper or Schwarzer. He needs to better his distribution and dealing with long range shots or free kicks.
We lifted the intensity for 20 minutes, with the pace of Walcott, Ox, Ramsey, and even Rosicky just running around at full pelt Villa cracked, I don’t think there was real method to it bar that we did what were doing in the first half at a far higher pace.
That’s the difference now and why I’m pretty pessimistic, with or without injuries over the years with Fabregas, from about 07′ on there was some sort of structure.
Right now we’re trying to improvise at times with a team that’s barely played together, it’s why I think soo highly of Koscielny he’s probably the only one that’s simply adapted to whatever situation he’s found himself in. Doesn’t matter who’s next to him or even if he’s at right back he’s simply done what he can.
Keyser- So true about Kos. He is a gem. He is the new Baresi not Phil Jones:P. Jones is the new John O’shea
.
I struggle with our defence coming in for so much praise when we just shipped another two goals (should have been 4).
Are people watching a different team to me?
As for comparing Kos to Baresi – you go too far lol, completely OTT. WTF?? Honestly.
Baresi – one of the best defenders of all time.
Kos – good up and coming defender.
haha just a bit of fun.
bdw, you must be really happy with the OX
. I get were you come from. must be a proud moment to see a player who you could relate to do so well for the team you love. I personally love Jack to bits because he is our own even though I am not English. Proud to see such a top quality player playing for England who came through the Arsenal ranks. Hope you find more of the same feeling.
*where
Joppa Road – It’s not the defence as a whole, watch Koscielny on his own, up against Aguero, Rooney, Torres, Bent whoever, firstly how many times he’s left 1on1 vs them and then how many times they beat him.
We’ve had 10 different full backs, and played Koscielny with several centre-backs and last year our defence went through 4 different goalies. Koscielny’s hasn’t had an easy time here, but a year on he looks stronger and his fitness must be up there with anyone.
I’d blame the defence for the set-piece goal, but we seemed to have improved on that this year, but for the main part I’d say out midfield and our attack have been pretty poor, bar Van Persie, and we’ve seen that in the past to.
You know what Goon, I was thinking that if Arsenal do get quite a few players back from injury the standard in the EPL is such that it is quite concievable that Arsenal will go on a good run. There is no team that is particularly brilliant in the EPL. The Champions League results bare this out.
I don’t think Wenger has to reach previous heights to get Arsenal competitive again. It’s a really interesting phase of the season.
I know I don’t want Wenger to sign anyone. He should use what he has and besides he doesn’t want to buy does he?
Keyser, I think a hell of a lot of work needs doing on our defensive approach – simply it’s not good enough as a unit even if the individual parts seem good on paper.
What did you think of Walcott’s celebration? Personally I think he should be getting his head down and proving the doubters wrong. I have been one of his biggest defenders on here but even I don’t like what I have seen recently.
It’s the same problem as we’ve had in years gone by, injuries hit and we’ve replaced almost our whole defence from a few years ago, the pace and intensity of the Premiership is such now that unless you get absolute quality from an early age in defence players change quite frequently.
How do you maintain shape and discipline as a defence if you’re constantly changing players, Coquelin’s barely played, he’s said he prefers midfield, and while hes done well he’s going to make mistakes, as is Miquel, look at Vermaelen at left back he’s good defensively but rarely joins in going forward.
These sort of things affect the team and halt any progress, again our attack isn’t helping out as much as it should be.
For the first 20-25 minutes of the second half we pressed from the front like we were trying last year and we got the ball back easily, except we don’t keep it half aswell as we did last year.
Walcott’s celebration ? He was just happy wasn’t too bothered.
They’ve been playing tabletennis quite a lot I think maybe after or during training and he just did that.
Joppa I don’t think the league is any easier than last season, it’s been very unpredictable at times but so far only the top 3 have been the consistent than last season as it shows.
Finally, a morale boosting, if somewhat lucky, win ..I mean who gives 2 penalties to Arsenal nowadays?
Will discuss further laters.
The moment wenger move to real manager his duty as a manager is over. Ramsy need to be backup not first choice.
new post pls
Credit where credit is due.
Good fight about the team even if the goals were really lucky, Wenger lives to fight another weak.
Hopefully this win gives the team a bit of a boost.
We were extremely lucky yesterday, 2 pens and a fluke is pretty poor.
How many clear cut chances did we create from open play.
Defence is a joke.
Nobody fooled by the result.
you wanted a signing….
Adrian Mrriappa from watford!
60,008 my arse!
there is no way there was a full house there yesterday!
I’m surprised Theo Walcott can even stand up his head’s so big.
Desomnd had a barrow in the market place.
i think we should start playing three -five -two formation.
Taxi for Mr Wenger!!
Please stop that Mourinho nonsense. He is just whore, who always used the best/richest clubs in Europe to feed his ego. 3yrs max at every club he ever managed, usually picked it at the top, left it at the top (minus Porto, OK). Thats not, what AFC needs at the moment