Happy days are here again

Sunday’s match against Manchester City was a great relief to Arsenal fans, who have of late become accustomed to seeing the Gunners lose all too frequently to top flight sides. The 2 -0 winning margin was even sweeter.

Manager Arsene Wenger maintains that his faith in the side paid off. I so despise that word, faith. They just put in a great performance, and they have demonstrated that they are capable of beating the best. Sunday’s feat gives me confidence that they will once again capture their familiar place in the top four; perhaps even do better than the fourth place finish of last season.

Go Gunners!

In Wenger we trust… no more

I know it’s a cheap shot blaming just Arsene Wenger for Arsenal’s woes. There’s probably more to their decline than just him.

However, as the coach he is responsible for their on-field competence. The board and other sinister behind-the-scenes goings-on can’t be held responsible for their shoddy defence and inability to put the ball in the back of the net.

Calling their defence shoddy is actually a kindness. It is in reality non-existent. The 2-1 defeat to Tottenham is a glaring example. Their situational awareness in front of their own goal is unbelievably pathetic. But that’s not all – their situational awareness in the opposition goal area is just as bad.

I’m sick to death of hearing about how the team has heart, and mental fortitude… when they manage to scrape the odd win. If they had real heart, they would be winning more games, not by the skin of their teeth, but by impressive margins. Sadly the impressive margins come far too seldom; the shattering losses far too often.

This team is on its way to becoming just another mid-team side. The fans, so used to the high quality and standards will not tolerate this slide for long. It’s time for Wenger to acquire players with real heart, with real mental and physical toughness. These nancy boys who are just interested in picking up a paycheck will simply not do.

The alternative off course is for the Arsenal Football Club to withdraw from the EPL and concentrate on being a training academy. Because that’s what they do best at present. The fans want to see winners, not profitable stars-in-the-making.

In defence of Arsenal

There is none! It’s that simple.

The defensive is a shambles. It’s like watching a bunch of headless chickens running around, stumbling into each other and falling over. And oh, how painful it is to hold one’s head in horror, watching the comedy of errors at the back, week after week.

The regular injuries to the players at the back point to a clear lack of training and focus in that area. Either that, or Wenger has spent a lot of money on clearly incompetent players.

Even Vermaelen, who everyone hailed as the saviour for Arsenal in defense, makes far too many mistakes. Perhaps that’s in large part due to the hopeless team-mates he has at the back. And even though Szczesny is constantly improving in goal, he is still far from the sort of confident take-charge person that is required in this position.

And let’s not even waste time discussing Johan Djourou. He does not belong in any position in any football team, let alone in the Arsenal defense.

Arsenal’s defense does not strike fear into any advancing opposition. In fact, every team in the league must surely be licking their lips in glee, knowing that scoring against the current Arsenal team, is liking taking candy from kids.

And it was never like that.

What’s changed? Has the pursuit of profits taken precedence over the brilliant football that Arsenal are were legendary for?

And will the fans stick around in the future to find out?

Young Guns On A Learning Curve

Arsenal’s young guns played exceptionally well last night in the Carling Cup quarter-final against a  Manchester City packed with international stars.

And yet they didn’t win. All it took was one break-away goal by City in the closing minutes, to seal victory.

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The young gunners were full of spirit and played with real passion, out-classing their more illustrious, mega-expensive opponents for most of the game. But the lesson they need to still learn is that fine, even exceptional performance does not win games – goals win games.

And taking your chances when opportunity presents itself is something this talented bunch of youngsters needs to get to grips with. That little bit of extra effort that does not materialize at the end of a superb passing movement, kills the sequence and frustrates the fans. Also, to be honed is the skill of making that split-second decision when to lay the ball off, or go for the shot.

But these skills and the extra effort will come; let’s hope sooner rather than later.

For now, it just gives me great pleasure to watch the making of greatness. Go Gunners!

Wenger is a stubborn ol’ goat

Photograph by Olaf Nordwich

Yeah, I was happy the Gunners won against Olympiacos last night. Why wouldn’t I be?

But that defense troubles me greatly. It is not porous; it is non-existent!

It would seem that Wenger pays no attention to it whatsoever. He persists in concentrating on the forwards and forward play. How else do you explain that the defense are clueless about the critical role they should be playing in the team?

Why hasn’t a specialist defensive coach been brought in yet? Does Arsenal need to develop into more than the laughing-stock of the Premier League at the moment, having leaked more goals than all the teams, except one?

But it does not stop there. It’s fine to leak goals at one end, but you need to make up for it at the other. Football is after all about scoring goals. Perhaps Wenger needs to remind his forwards that they need to PASS the ball into the net too, not just each other. And I do mean, the opposition’s net, not their own.

I cannot understand why he persists in using Arshavin and Chamakh. These guys are just too lazy for me. It’s quite apparent from watching them play, that they’re content to just show up, and give about 80 to 90%. That’s not good enough at this level; we need players who are willing to give more than their all…and then some.

There seems to be some improvement in their recent showing, but dramatic changes are required to turn things around.

How about it Wenger? How about being a Gunner instead of a goat?

Arsenal put on appropriate show for Kroenke, against Liverpool

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The Arsenal worked very hard at home yesterday…to not put the ball into the net.

All that neat passing and intricate moves to get another non-result. Easy on the eye, they say. But not so easy, when you feel cheated afterwards. The investment of time and die-hard support has not been paying off for half a dozen years. Will it be more?

The game against Liverpool yesterday, once again demonstrated Arsenal’s monstrous naivety in defence. They’re like headless chickens, scampering about in utter panic, looking for their heads. And while we’re talking about heads, will Wenger find his? The mantra “Wenger knows best” and “In Arsene we Trust,” are starting to sound thin.

At least the quality of football on display was appropriate for Stan Kroenke the new majority shareholder to base some much-required decisions on; he now knows that he needs to get rid of some under-performing talent, especially at the back. And perhaps spend some real money next season on supporting Van Persie, Wilshere and Nasri upfront. But will he?

While Kroenke will be left puzzling over how to turn things around, Sir Alex, will have been pleased with what he saw. I’ll bet he left the stadium yesterday knowing that the Premier League title is United’s for sure…

Some invasive surgery needed to fix wounded Arsenal

So we lost the game to Barcelona. The aggregate scoreline of 4-3 suggests a close battle over two legs, but Arsenal did all the hard work in one game only – last night they just showed up to watch Barcelona pass the ball around.

Forget about the abysmal refereeing decision that led to Van Persie being sent off. That’s going to keep happening until FIFA realise that referees are not the reason people pay money to watch football; until FIFA start sanctioning referees for obvious bad decisions.

Let’s talk about the abysmal Arsenal performance on the night. The only players who were prepared to put in some work were Nasri, Van Persie, Wilshere, Almunia and perhaps Koscielny, Clichy and Djourou did enough. Diaby’s performance was atrocious and Rosicky continued his downward spiral towards has-been-dom.

But the worst player on the night, was conspicuous by his desire to please…the Barcelona fans. I have never seen Fabregas this disinterested in making an effort for his team before. In keeping with all the rumours of his intentions to move back to Spain, it was mentioned by a friend that he could be deemed to have started playing his first match for Barcelona last night.

The other player to have disgusted me the most last night was Bendtner. Seems that his lazy-arse approach creeped in again. Having the chance to win the game by scoring what would have been hailed as a wonder-goal, he couldn’t find that extra five percent to stick his leg out and tip the ball goalwards. What a loser! Strikers have that killer instinct in the goal area – Bendtner has just the lazy itch.

We really missed Song in the midfield and the pace of Walcott on the wing. Why are Arsenal’s most inspiring players always injured for the most crucial games.

Its time for Wenger to perform some drastic surgery. It’s time to cut the lazy players loose. I think we all know who they are.

Match officials are ruining the beautiful game

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I’m as disgusted as Arsene Wenger over the two blatantly unfair refereeing decisions against the Arsenal in the game versus Sunderland, yesterday. However, this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, until some sort of technology is introduced into the sport to aid the match officials.

Off-side decisions which are glaringly wrong are being given so often, it’s turning the beautiful game into a farce. The linesmen it seems are competing for attention, as much as the players. The game today is invariably played at a furious pace, and there are some genuine speedster’s in most teams, and Arsenal are masters at the fast flowing game. Their pace unfortunately tends to show up the linesmen’s inability to keep up with the flow of the game.

Surely there is technology already available that can assist the match officials? What about a simple tag in the player’s clothing or boots which transmit a signal that processing software can interpret to show his position on the field at all times relative to opposing players. Such a system could easily be linked to the officials ear-piece to emit a signal when an advancing player strays beyond the last opposing player’s position.

I’m no software or hardware boffin, but this is in no way rocket science. Sure there are problems to be overcome, such as delays to the flow of the game, but match officials blow up such petty transgressions anyways, I’m sure the viewing public can learn to live with it.

It’s time that that dinosaur in charge of FIFA, Septic Bladder gives technology a chance.

It’s certainly better that cheating good teams by making decisions that cost them vital games; because that’s exactly what it is – cheating, albeit from the officials rather than opposing players.

On a brighter note, it seems that the refereeing blunders from yesterday may not cost Arsenal that much after all – Liverpool have done us a monumental favor by downing Manchester United. The title race is on again, but I would have loved to have seen Arsenal on level points terms with United, with a game in hand…

Please Mr. Wenger, don’t you dare…

Dear Mr. Wenger,

I know you’ve been telling us repeatedly that you can’t play the same team all the time. And yes, that’s true; we understand that players need to rest and recuperate and thus you need to rotate them.

But please don’t for the love of the beautiful game, ever start with that lazy-ass Dane Bendtner, ever again.

I know you’ve been telling us repeatedly that your players are starting to have great belief in themselves and their ability to win games. And yes, that’s true. However, Bendtner has great belief that the ball will magically come to him as he strolls lazily around the park.

Please Mr. Wenger, if he doesn’t start making an effort to get to the ball, get rid of that loser as quick as you can. But in the interim, he should be given time off to get into shape; he does not belong on the same field of play as the others.

In you we will trust.

Lenny

Have the Arsenal signed on a few spectators?

It’s becoming all too much to bear.  Another dreadful night of football with the Arsenal not being able to get past Wigan; which they should have done quite comfortably.

Wenger has no excuses this time – he can’t blame the pitch, or the two atrocious refereeing decisions. Arsenal should have won despite this. But they didn’t . And perhaps Wenger needs to admit for once that he screwed up.

His starting lineup showed a great deal of arrogance and disrespect for Wigan. He is not going to win games against the so-called minnows if he insists on picking players who would be visibly more comfortable sitting in the stands watching the game. Even though Arshavin and Bendtner both scored, they were mere spectators for large parts of the game.

The Arsenal are in desperate need of players who are prepared to put in some work; not just wait for the ball to roll up to their feet. Bendtner, Arshavin, Denilson and Chamakh to a certain extent are just far too lazy, and don’t make the extra efforts required to get to the ball in cases where the passes are not 100% accurate.

It’s time Wenger looked at offloading these spectators and employing some honest hard-working no-nonsense footballers, even if they’re supposedly not as talented as this lot. And boy does that defense need some attention. Make-shift is hardly the word to describe the disaster-in-waiting that passes for a defense.

If Wenger thinks he’s going to win any trophies this year with these low levels of commitment on regular display, then he must be the most optimistic professor of football, ever.