Tag Archives: Lukas Podolski

Standing at the crossroads – which route will Arsenal take?

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Here we are friends. Here we are standing at the final crossroads. The fork in front of us leads us to two separate destinations. One is a preferred route, full of lush green Champions League football, revenue for the clubs already bulging coffers, prestige of at least achieving what we all hoped would be the bare minimum this season, and finally the opportunity to celebrate St Totteringham’s day once again.

The second road is Europa League football. Once upon a time it would have been a similarly enjoyable path to tread, but the gardener has spent most of his time worrying about the other route that this one has become neglected, a little bit overgrown and slightly wiffy, if I’m honest.

Today there is a team from the North East of our land that stand between taking the first and the second road. They are the gatekeepers of our path and to dispatch them effectively will allow us to tread the route we want to tread.

I am getting nervous just typing this match preview, I can tell you that. I am nervous because I know that despite nothing other than pride to play for, Newcastle will be up for this game. They may have secured another year of Premier League football last week, but Alan Pardew will not throw on another group of kids to finish the season. He’ll play the strongest team he has. I am also nervous because I see similarities with what happened on the last game of last season against West Brom. The Baggies were in exactly the same position and yet still so nearly came away with a point that would have eventually meant Champions League football was taken away from us. For what it’s worth, I am appealing directly to the Footballing Gods now: if you like symmetry, parallels in life and such, grant us another away win on the last day of the season. And if we Gooners have to go through Hell and back watching a game of intense pressure, then so be it, as long as the final result is favourable enough to see Arsenal in with a shout for Champions League football next season.

Team-wise we will see a Newcastle side that has one or two question marks over it. The absence of both Krul and Elliott in goal, through injury and suspension respectively, will give Steve Harper the opportunity to play in his last game for Newcastle. So rather than expect him to flap at a few balls, let’s expect him to have the game of his life, meaning we’ll have to pepper his goal just to get a few through. In defence there will be no Steven Taylor, but Collocini and Yanga-Mbiwa will still form a decent enough back line to give our front three a tough enough game. Marveux is injured for the Geordies, but other than that they should have a fu strength team to put out. We know the quality of Cisse and Ben Arfa up top so we know we’ll be up against a tough attacking unit and I’m not expecting any favours from the them today.

As for us, our main questions revolve around a replacement for Arteta and whether Giroud will start at the head of the front three. I suspect Arsene will go for the Frenchman above Poldi, so the German may have to settle for an impact place on the bench. In midfield I think Arsene will opt for Wilshire as a ‘once more into the breach’ for Jack before he has his ankle surgery. Whether or not he lasts the full 90 will be another question Le Boss will have to work out. The back five picks itself really, so there’s no need to go over it on who is playing.

In the last two games up at St James’ Park we’ve had a player sent off and found it really hard to break Newcastle down after that. That was the same when we played Sunderland earlier in the year and so I’m hoping we can keep our heads and ensure that the match finishes 11 v 11. If we do, then I would hope that we have enough quality against this Newcastle side. However, Arsene has never beaten Pardew away from home and so we are up against another unwanted record that we have to break, so lets hope that particular hoodoo is extinguished come 6pm tonight. I could talk about the incentive Mike Ashley has offered of a £1million bonus to all non-playing staff if Newcastle win today, but that strikes me as a bit baffling, as the non-football staff have no influence on the game, so it’s hardly a motivator for the players. Anyway….

The players, the staff, the fans – all of us have a role to play today. Let’s be united today and hopefully sing our boys on to victory.

Up the Arsenal!

What were we all worried about?

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Well how about that then folks, eh? As if we weren’t nervous enough, the Jolly Olde Arsenal had to go and leave it a whole half before deciding to kill the game off. Isn’t that just ‘The Arsenal Way’ though? Winning games and finishing off the season early just wouldn’t really be how we do it, would it? No, we have to go and be all like “hey man, last minute points are all the rage. They’re like, totally narly, ‘n stuff”.

And so it came to pass that The Arsenal decided to make their route to (potential) Champions League glory go down to the wire against a quite frankly – and I can say it now the game has ended – poor Wigan side that get exactly what they paid for after only trying for the last ten games or so in the season.

I mean honestly, I don’t want to seem like I’m rubbing salt into the wound here, but you can’t be that poor defensively for most of the season and expect to stay up at the third or forth time of asking. Can you? I couldn’t believe some of the comments I read from neutrals yesterday. How can you say that Wigan are not the third worst team in the league? THEY FINISHED THIRD FROM BOTTOM! I shake my head at the stupidity of some people.

Anyway, that’s enough of talking about opposition, lets talk about The Arsenal. The side that was announced was as we could probably expect given our current form and options with Giroud suspended. The front three of Cazorla, Walcott and Podolski were as good as we could hope for, and the creative influence of Rosicky in midfield was certainly welcome from this observers perspective.

The game started exactly how we would have wanted it to. Similar to the United game, Arsenal bossed the opening exchanges and looked comfortable in possession. I was joined by fellow Suburban Gooner Ben Leeder and all talk pre-game was about how Arsenal would start. Would it be nervy? Would it be swashbuckling? Thankfully it was more of the latter. We zipped the ball around on the sodden Emirate surface with a purpose that showed a belief in our ability. Cazorla looked like his mercurial self and Walcott was clearly up for the game.

But it was the efficient German Lukas Podolski that gave us the perfect tonic for the evening, nodding home a corner whilst essentially unmarked on eleven minutes. Again, I don’t want to seem like I’m kicking a team whilst their down, but the fact that Podolski was inside the box with the easiest of tap in headers, should tell you all you need to know about this Wigan team defensively.

So it was that we continued to dominate the half and create chances on a soaking Tuesday night. Which almost always invariably leads to a goal against the run of play when you’re Arsenal. And it did. Maloney made the most of an opportunity to jump into Arteta to allow ref Mike Dean to award a free-kick, and he dispatched beyond the flailing arms of Szczesny. Personally I thought that the ‘keeper should have done better, but there you go. Half-time, 1-1, the nerves returning to the collective of fans I shared a couple of jars with during the interval.

The second half had a couple of wobbly moments at the beginning, with Szczesny partially making up for his concession of the goal with a tidy save from Kone, but most of the second half was Arsenal and as the time ticked away you could see Wigan had very little left in the tank. The ball from Cazorla to Theo for his goal was sublime, but perhaps it was that fatigue that allowed the Spaniard to find acres of space on the right hand side to put the perfect delivery for Walcott to scramble home. That’s three in three for Theo, and one hopes that he can make it at least four from four on Sunday.

There’s been a lot of talk about Podolski and whether he can play as a central striker, but the fact that he bagged a brace from the central striking position yesterday will have filled many of our hearts with glee. We have undoubtedly missed Giroud’s presence and ability to hold up the ball, but when you have a natural finisher like the German in your team, he’s always going to get you goals. His second of the evening came at a crucial stage in the game for us and effectively sealed our three points for the evening. Ramsey’s strike to make it 4-1 was the icing on the cake, but you could tell the game was over when Lukas bagged his second.

So we are all happy people today. The Fear has subsided for at least another three days and the hopes of Champions League football next season remain firmly within our grasp. On Sunday we’ll have to go again against a Newcastle side that is safe, but has made a habit of frustrating us since they came back into the Premier League three seasons ago, so I don’t think there will be much poultry counting going on in the build up to what will essentially define our season.

What were we all worried about, anyway *runs in corner and hides*?

That’s it from me. You have a good day now. I know I can.

Jeff Goldblum can solve our striking problems

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Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday. The ‘in between’ weekday that doesn’t really know what it wants to be in life. It should be an astronaut. That’d show Tuesday and Thursday about ‘identity’.

As expected yesterday, the FA announced that Olivier’s red card had about as much chance of being rescinded as a fairly refereed game by Howard Webb at Old Trafford has of happening. The ban remains and the club now have to think of how to replace the loan front man with another one of the forwards that we’ve got at the club. At least Giroud has the fact the goal at Norwich has been attributed to him and not an own goal by Sebastian Bassong. Personally, I thought it looked obvious it came off Bassong, so to hear that it’s given to Giroud is a surprise. Perhaps this is one of those ‘everybody wins’ scenarios. Bassong doesn’t want the goal, Giroud does, and the result was secured by an additional goal so there wasn’t really much else to consider. I suspect it might be the last chance our dashing Frenchman has to add to his 17 goal tally, as he doesn’t like rippling the nets away from home and he’ll only have one more attempt at doing that. Of course, I’m trying the old Chris tactic of saying he’ll not score so he smashes in a hat-trick, so you can thank me on the final day of the season if it happens and we get our Champions League prize.

I saw a couple of murmurs on my timeline yesterday about the Goetze to Munich transfer. A few gooners were slightly unhappy that we hadn’t activated his €31.5million clause to be in with a running of getting the player. Yes he’s a fantastic player but let’s be realistic here, his position isn’t exactly number one on our priority list, is it? Just because Arsene had an interest in a player a couple of years ago it doesn’t give us a divine right to then go out and splooge a ridiculous transfer fee and get the player. Even if we’d triggered his release clause and were discussing terms, he’s always going to join a team in his own country, that is the biggest in their league and have already won their domestic league. And they’ll possibly in the Champions League final two years running.

The reality is that we have to make our moves when the hyper-inflated ‘big-name’ players have been cherry-picked from the oil whores or other big teams like Munich or Madrid. They can’t go after everyone on the planet and there are plenty of excellent players that can be purchased for the positions that we require.

I just hope we don’t go after Valdes. He’d cost a premium, he’s the average link in a good Barca team, and I rate Szczesny over him any day of the week. I suspect we’ll see Fabianski offski in the summer, so we’ll need to replace, but I hope it’s with an experienced keeper that can give Wojciech a couple of years of competition before he becomes our stand-out number one.

Anyway, back to the striking dilemma, particularly in reference to this weekend’s action. I think Arsene has a real dilemma on his hands. Gervhino has hit a bit of form lately, but not as a front man; Theo is out of form but can be dangerous if United try to push themselves higher up the pitch and try to press us further forward; and Lukas is the most natural finisher but looked a bit leggy when he came on against Fulham. There is no ready-made replacement that can play the same role as Giroud and hold up the ball well enough to bring other players into play to join the attacks later, so with whoever plays on Sunday, there is going to need to be a change in our composition in order to beat the newly crowned champions (which even hurts to type I might hasten to add). I have to admit that I don’t really know what the best answer is, but with Theo going missing in the last couple of games and Gervhino clearly unable to play up top, I would plump for Poldi in our current formation. We shall wait and see to what Arsene fancies doing come Sunday morning. Perhaps he should try that thing Jeff Goldblum did in his lab with that fly. He could entice Gervhino in by saying there is a lifetime supply of extra-large headbands, Theo in by telling him there’s a new children’s book deal contract on the table, and Lukas can have all he can eat Bockwurst. The. When they’re inside BAM! A hybrid player that is in form, can play off the last man and is the best finisher at the club. I bet Jeff would be an awesome addition to Arsene’s management team. And I bet he’d be cheap. After all, what’s he done since Jurassic Park and Independence Day? He’d be absolutely delighted with the opportunity of a new role in the team and the ability to tinker with DNA once again would be something he’d bite yer hand off for. But only so he could put it in his machine and combine it with the head of a goat. Then you could have a goat’s head running around with a hand as a torso. Crazy old Jeff and his maniacal ways.

Anyway, not a lot else going on at the moment, so I’ll take my leave with the scheming plans of Jeff and Arsene still fresh in your minds.

Fulham: Expect no favours, start strong and be efficient

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On the banks of the River Thames today our brave and mighty red and white centurions will do battle against the local cottagers defending their land from being pillaged for three points. For today my friends, is game day, which means today is a day for you and I to wait patiently then watch patiently as a battle unfolds in front of our very eyes.

nothing like a bit of drama and hyperbole to start you off on a Saturday, eh? What we all hope to be reality is that Fulham put up as much fight as Audley Harrison and the match is over before half time. The likelihood of this eventuality is obviously slim, as Fulham will be reeling from their recent 0-3 defeat in which they probably shouldn’t have been 0-2 behind at half time at all. But such is the ruthless nature of football, and the football karma gods, that they saw it fit to give Chelski safe passage along Fulham Broadway with three points tucked safely under their arms. Why Chelski deserve anything, like, ever, is a mystery to me but they say the gods work in mysterious ways.

I suspect we’re in for a hell of a tough match today. Fulham may have nothing to play for, but they have established themselves as a solid Premier League side over the years and have still managed to bloody our noses when it doesn’t really look like they should be bothered at all. They will want to put on a show for their fans and take a ‘big team’ scalp today. It is on our players to ensure that it does not happen.

We go into the game off the back of a good run of results against some tricky opponents, so the hope is that we extend that good run another week at Craven Cottage. To do that we need to continue to use the blueprint of our success of the last two months: out of the traps early, pressing higher up the field and popping the ball around with pace and purpose. I believe the midfield will be the key in achieving this objective. One of the key features of this good run has seen Ramsey as the man in the engine room charging down and hassling opponents, Arteta as the metronome keeping everything ticking over and providing an outlet for the defence to distribute to as well as an option for the more attacking players should we need to retain pressure, and finally the guile and quick turnover from defence to attack that Rosicky brings with his energy to get the ball forward as quickly as possible. Rosicky has missed the last two games and faces a fitness test, but if he’s fit, he plays in my book. Jack has looked slightly sluggish in midfield against Norwich and Everton, so perhaps he could do with somebody to take the burden off him and have an opportunity to slowly feel his way back into the side.

Up top is where I’ll be most intrigued to see who plays. In the middle of the three there will inevitably be Giroud. He’ll come up against Hangeland and Senderos and his physical presence will most certainly be more of a handful than a Gervhino, Walcott or Podolski. But who to sit alongside him in the left and right positions? Personally, I believe we should see Cazorla on the right and Podolski on the left, dependent on how fatigued Cazorla looked when Arsene was assessing him yesterday. If he looks like he might need a rest (and lets face it, he’s played nearly all the games this season) then I would be inclined to play Walcott or perhaps even The Ox. Walcott will get more space against Fulham at home than he would against a Fulham team away from home and set up to defend, and Theo has the beating of the ageing legs of John Arne Riise. The Norweigan is a player that likes to get forward, so I’d expect there to be gaps to open up for the England international. Alternatively, the talking up of The Ox over the last couple of games could be a sign that Le Boss is ready to unleash him in today’s game. He too should have the pace to beat Riise and a little bit more trickery than Walcott, so I am hoping that one of those two players start on the right – probably with a preference of The Ox.

We know where the threat will come from Fulham, which will be the languid but effective style of Dimitar Berbatov. He has 13 goals this season, of which two were scored against us at The Emirates, so he knows how to swan his way into our defence and ripple the old onion bag. Thankfully (I hope) we have a different Arsenal team that will line up today to the one that drew 3-3 earlier in the season. More defensively aware, with a better idea of defending (although still room for improvement), Gibbs/Monreal will play at left back instead of Vermaelen, plus we have some steadier hands in goal than the bang averageness of Mannone, so I don’t think it’s too much to expect more from our defenders to not capitulate to the tune of three goals this time around.

If we continue to play as we have been playing, then this game should be ours for victory. We have the creative players to get goals against Fulham, we have more to play for than Martin Jol’s side, and we are the form team. But unfortunately none of that will matter if we are not up for it after the first five or ten minutes. If we give Fulham a sniff that we’re not up for it their players and the crowd will smell blood. We want them to smell poo. The poo of their players playing like they’ve fallen into a cesspit of sloppy passing, lack of cohesion and overall rubbishness.

We’ve not actually beaten Fulham for a couple of seasons now, having drawn at home last season and not picking up three points since December 2010 when we won 2-1 at home. So our recent form shows that this will be a tough encounter. But our overall record against Fulham isn’t too bad, so I’m hoping that we re-address the balance in terms of recent history and we give Fulham a good seeing to today.

If you’re off to the game, you know the drill, so sing until your lungs get saw – I know you all will. Up the Arsenal.

Norwich review: Mostly grumpy, ultimately happy

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Football really is quite a conundrum of a sport. If you take just the 95 odd minutes that you tend to watch the actual action take place, you can watch the majority of it and be thoroughly upset, yet still end up elated and happy come full time and for the rest of your weekend.

That was my observation from yesterday. I sat watching the game and for 80 minutes I was fairly grumpy. Yet for ten minutes Arsenal were on song and the result meant the afternoon and evening was spent in a happy mood rather than a vexed one. It’s why the old cliche works I guess – football is a results business. That’s all that really matters.

As expected yesterday, Arsene shuffled his pack ever-so-slightly with the departure of Mertesacker through suspension, Monreal through rotation and Rosicky through injury the only changes from last weeks starting XI. And as the team kicked off I think everyone was happy with the line up and expectant for us to put Norwich to the sword. But that never really happened, did it? The first half was one of little chances, mostly coming from the home side, as you’d expect. Chris Hughton had no intention of coming to The Emirates and having a go at The Arsenal, so he set up his team to be compact, press hard and try to catch us out through set pieces and maybe the odd counter. That’s not a slight on Norwich, I hasten to add; they have limited resources within their side and picking up a point at The Emirates through frustrating the home team was always going to be Plan A.

So the first half passed by with little of anything concrete for us to get too excited about. Giroud had a half-chance header off the top of the bar and Gervhino should have done more on two occasions with a 1-on-1 and a drive into the box, but he was having one of his ‘being Gervhino’ days and so on both occasions the home fans were left rueing his unpredictability and general inability to look like he has any kind of control of his limbs.

The second half didn’t exactly start with an onslaught of biblical proportions either. Norwich were content to sit deep with yellow bodies all over the place, only venturing forward for the occasional corner or set piece. And we weren’t looking like the side that had picked up three wins on the bounce. So it was no surprise when Norwich took the lead. Some Norwich player drove past Gibbs on the left hand side of our penalty box and, with a touch of the Gervhino about him, tripped over his own feet to win a free kick for the away side. Later, Chris Hughton would bemoan the decisions of the officials at the other end, but I’d suggest he take those yellow and green blinkers off and look at his teams’ own bit of fortune that led to a goal. Then perhaps he could climb down from what he believes is some kind of moral high ground and realise that in the grand scheme of things, the officials got just as many results wrong for us as we’ll as agin us.

We all know we can’t defend corners or set pieces, so there was almost a sense of inevitability as the ball was chipped to the back post, for Turner to nod the ball in unchallenged. I’ve given up talking about how we can’t defend with zonal marking. I’m not going through it again.

So once again we’d need to dig deep and produce something that would salvage points from the game. This is the point for which I must praise Arsene Wenger. We all bemoan his lack of tactical awareness or decision making, especially when it comes to changing a game, but yesterday he got it spot on. He didn’t wait until 75 minutes, he simply gave his subs five minutes to warm up after the Norwich goal and sent on Podolski and Walcott for Gervhino and Wilshire. Both players had, it’s fair to say, been pretty poor for us up until that point. Perhaps it was a little bit of rustiness from Jack, but we all know Gervhino has a stinker in his locker, so that came as no real surprise.

The substitutions were just the tonic. Suddenly we looked more of a threat. We popped the ball around with a bit more purpose and just before the penalty Giroud chested a lovely ball down for Podolski to rattle the bar. I’d love to say the feeling was that the goal was coming, but you never know with this Arsenal team, so when Giroud went down after some shirt pulling by some Norwich player, there was palpable relief in the stadium when the linesman raised his flag. This is where the ‘controversy’ started. The Norwich players and management were incensed that the referee didn’t give the challenge but the linesman did from 30 yards away. I have two observations here: 1) how can the linesman be any closer to see the play unless he walks onto the pitch, 2) what is the purpose of ‘referees assistants’ if it isn’t to assist the referee from a different angle if they see infringements? Let’s also bear in mind that I believe this was the same ref that decided to decline a stonewaller for us a couple of weeks ago when Giroud was clattered by Taylor (happy to be corrected there though, as I’m not 100%). Let’s also not forget that it was in fact a clear penalty. So these factors being the case, why did I hear various people in the media crying over the decision? Oh, wait a second I know, because its ‘plucky Norwich’. Balderdash. A foul is a foul and a foul in the box is a penalty. Move on.

If the canaries felt hard done by on the first goal, they can have no complaints on the second. After joining proceedings five minutes earlier, The Ox exchanged a lovely one-two with Giroud and found himself in space beyond the Norwich back line, to stroke the ball into a defenders nightmare of a spot, a yard on the line. With Bunn nowhere to be seen, Giroud and Bassong challenged and the ball hit the back of the net. Fabulous stuff from The Ox who, after some recent impressive performances, I hope gets some starts soon. Perhaps even on Tuesday.

There was still time for an Arsenal implosion though, but thankfully it didn’t come, as Fabianski earned his weekly wage with a good save low down from Howson. And as the game ticked into injury time, Podolski made the points safe with a clinical left footed shot from just inside the box.

Three vital points, a step up into third, plus the chance to get clear daylight from our rivals with a performance and a win against Everton. But lets not get too carried away just yet. If we play like we did yesterday against Everton, they will ask more questions of us, so it’s important that the team is ready and willing to do the business against the blue half of Merseyside.

Until tomorrow people. I out.

Bayern at home: Redemption can be swift

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Football is a wonderfully forgiving world. You can be at rock bottom one day, then within a day or two gone by you have the opportunity to wash away your sins by that sweetest of things: victory. Football is a fast paced world and that can sometimes work to your advantage. Redemption can be a swift and wonderful thing in football. All you have to do is win.

That is certainly the mantra that I would be saying to each and every one of the players that are elected to play tonight. Each player has to know that they must put all of their previous transgressions to one side and focus purely on the opponents for tonight: Bayern Munich.

Arsenal rarely make it easy for themselves and tonight is testimony to that. Instead of finishing top of the group we slipped up to Schalke which meant a more difficult tie earlier on in the competition. Aside from Barcelona, I don’t think you could get more difficult than last year’s finalists, Bayern Munich. They have a plethora of attacking players that can carve open defences at will and probably should be the reigning  Champions of Europe, but for Roberto Di Matteo and his selling of soul to the Devil to win the FA Cup and Champions League last year. Unfortunately for the Italian he paid the price of being at Chelski, but the way that Bayern played in that final against the Chavs should serve as both a stark reminder of their quality, but also of their weaknesses. Look, I’m not suggesting that because Chelski won on penalties, it will be an opportunity for us to do over the Germans. But I think that despite the media savaging that seems to be happening at the moment, we can win tonight and then get a result away from home. I have to believe that. Hope is the last bastion of the desperate man, and after our desperate performances in the cup competitions this year I have to hold on to hope that this Arsenal team will come out swinging tonight.

There’s no doubt that we have the ability to put on a show and prove the doubters wrong. There is no doubt that some of these players have something to prove to, well, just about everybody. but there is a doubt in their own confidence and their own belief right now. I haven’t met too many non-gooners that are giving us much chance over two legs. But we’ve seen the side grind out a result against Sunderland. We’ve seen them come back from the abyss against Liverpool after a shocking first half. So we have to believe that we can see them negate the attacking threat of Gomez, Ribery, Robben, Muller and Schweinsteiger.

I was told yesterday that Bayern have conceded just one goal away from home this year. well, I suspect we’ll have to double that tally if we want to take anything substantial to the Allianz Arena. That is a frightening statistic in its own right, but if it alleviates a little bit more pressure and provides an impetus for the players to play up to the ‘underdogs’ tag even more, then I won’t mind. We will need to see Podolski (rested on Saturday so you never know, he might actually make 90 minutes for us tonight!), Walcott and if playing, Giroud, to be on form tonight. We can ill afford profligacy in front of goal. We will need Jack to be his marauding self and Santi will need his vision and passing range to be at it’s best. I suspect we’ll see a back four of Sagna, Koscienly, Mertescaker and Vermaelen take to the field in defence, and it is my hope that the BFG can show his German international teammates a thing or two at the heart of our defence.

We will need to see an Arsenal that is quick off the blocks and up for this tonight. There are no opportunities in Champions League football for ‘second half Arsenal’ and if the same intensity is shown to Bayern as was shown to Blackburn, it will be a massacre. But here’s the thing; I don’t doubt for a second that the players won’t be infinitely better than the weekend. I think we’ll see a totally different Arsenal team that is pressing, chasing every ball and is giving the home fans something to scream about. Right now, that’s all I care about. Yes, we can assess why they can’t do that in every game should what I am predicting happen tonight, but that is a debate for another day. All we need to care about tonight is making the atmosphere amazing, the players are up for it, and we show the Germans what we’re made of.

A quick word on Arsene before I sign off for the day. I have to say I was a little embarrassed by his outburst in the presser yesterday. I’ve always admired Arsene for the dignity he has shown even in the face of some quite manipulative and spineless journalists. But yesterday had all of the hallmarks of a manager that is feeling the pressure and can potentially see the end in sight. It is a sad state of affairs. But I don’t really want to dwell on that too much right now, I want to make sure everyone with a stake in Arsenal Football Club, is behind the team and roaring them on to success tonight. I’ll leave my thoughts on Arsene for another day.

I’ll be there in all my Arsenal fineries cheering on the lads. If you are, or if you’re watching on TV, just make sure you’re screaming as much as me! Come on Arsenal!

Are we in a better position than last year?

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This may sound like an idea that is draped with hope, faith and blind optimism, but the title of today’s blog is something I’ve been toying with in the deepest darkest recesses of my mind for a while now. So I thought I’d crack open my mind – in a literary sense – and let all the goo ooze out to see what people think.

We’re now at the business end of the season and we sit four points adrift of the spuds with twelve games to go. It’s hardly the easiest run left by us to get to our end goal of fourth spot, but if you look at the excellent piece written by 7amkickoff it shows that the current favourites have a slightly harder run up than we do. So it’s delicately poised. However, what I wanted to debate is less the upcoming games, and more the assumption that we are worse off than last year. It’s something that I’ve heard on the terraces a few times this year and I’ve even thought it myself at times. After all, we have lost a guy that smashed in over 35 goals, so how can we not be, right?

Now, the way I look at it, this blog title question has two clear inferences that you could take from it. The first is that I am implying that I think we have a better team than last year overall. My honest opinion to that is that right now, at this moment in time, we actually do.

Last year we relied on one grey-haired goalscorer. Granted, he was one of the top three or four best players in the globe, but the entire team looked to him to the extent that other players clearly didn’t need to step up to the plate when called upon. Theo Walcott is a classic example. Happy to make assist after assist for the ‘one man band’ up top, Theo settled for high assists instead of the glory of self praise by hitting the onion bag himself. This year he is on course to smash his own scoring tally for the season. He has stepped up and we have profited from the extra responsibility that has sat on his shoulders. And he’s improving every week as his confidence rises. It’s good to see for most of us gooners that have watched him grow or six years and seen the potential that is now starting to be realised, much to the disappointment of Stewart Robson and Chris Waddle. And you could see how he has grown in stature against Sunderland. Yes, he didn’t score, but he was a menace to the Sunderland team throughout.

Both Giroud and Podolski were bought in to spread the TEAM burden of scoring goals, and both have done so. Both have had off days, and both have taken time to settle, but both are now established and are starting to look the part.

The role of the ‘talisman’ has also shifted. Our talisman is now no longer the goalscorer and captain combined. The role of Captain has shifted to Vermaelen, or latterly Arteta, with the role of talisman having been assimilated by the ever-marauding and always awesome Jack Wilshire.

In my mind, we’ve taken the role that the Dutch player who used to play for us (but could never be as good as Dennis) had, and we’ve hung, drawn and quartered it. We’ve allowed the rest of the team to tear at the role like a pack of savage coyotes and pull off their own bloodied strips of it to devour for their own. And as a result we must be better off for it. How can we not? An injury to any of Walcott, Giroud, Podolski, Wilshire, Arteta or Vermaelen and we’re all sad to see it, but we’ve spent time this season without all of those players for one reason or another and we still find ourselves four points from the top four spots.

The second connotation that you could infer from my question at the top of the blog is that i feel that because we are closer to the chasing pack than last year, we are better off. This is a ‘yes and no’ from me in this instance. Factually we are better off. We have less of a mountain to climb than last year to reach the top four peaks, but we still have quite a way to go in my opinion. The Spuds team that fell apart last year did so because of the Redknapp effect. AVB may be a lot of things, but I think he’ll be focused enough to ensure that a fall apart like that doesn’t happen to them this season. So in effect, we have to rely on ourselves in order to secure top four, and not the whim of a twitchy old man who has his eyes on a different prize. So I see this years mountain as just as steep as last years.

If we’re going to look at facts, you also can’t discount that we are worse off points wise than we were last season. It’s been rammed down our throats by the British media since Spetember/October time. Arsene doth protest that we’ve played harder games away from home to date, but the fact remains that we haven’t done it at home when we really should have. It is when you look at some of the results against lower league opponents that you start to raise your eyebrows at any assumption that we are better off than last year. How can we be when we’re losing at home to Swansea and drawing against the likes of Fulham and Sunderland at The Emirates? It becomes very difficult to justify progress when you look at the gradual decline of points gained at this stage of the season over a five or six year period.

I’m not one for throwing facts after facts at you – regular readers will know that by now – I just like to go by my gut. I know that our dwindling points tally of this season hardly fills fans with excitement that the club are executing its mantra of ‘forward’ to great success, but I do feel that there has been some baby steps made to the overall TEAM in comparison to last year. Don’t get me wrong, there is a LOT of work that is needed to turn the squad into the competitive outfit that we need it to be in order to sit at the top of the tree again, but I am clinging on to hope that we’ve seen the worst and the club will now start to build on some of the momentum we’ve had recently to propel us into the top four, then further build on the squad through player acquisition in the summer.

Feel free to share your thoughts.

Catch you laters.

Stoke: difficult to smash a team that don’t want to play

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It’s easy to look at the result yesterday and think that Arsenal, given the recent goalscoring exploits, should have put more past a Stoke side that has been hit and miss all season. But the reality of the situation is that the way the visitors set up yesterday afternoon was inevitably going to mean that the game was going to end up as a scrappy, cagey affair.

We knew exactly what we were going to get from tracksuit and baseball caps team and they did not fail to disappoint for one second. With long diagonal balls pumped up to Crouch and Walters for what felt like forever at times, it was up to the back four to deal with the rain of long-ballishnesss that was delivered by the tribe of orcs in maroon and blue. And to the credit of Mertesacker and Koscienly, they did indeed deal with the aerial threat all day long.

Either side of the two centre backs we got a more steadfast display from Sagna on the right and a competent and effective display from new signing Nacho Monreal on the left. He looks good. He did the simple things well, coped well in the air and immediately endeared himself to the Arsenal faithful by (fairly) competing with Walters in an aerial tussle for which the Irish international game out with a bloodied face. It was good to see that he can mix it with what is most certainly the most physical team in the league.

In the lead up to the game I asked for two halves like our second half displays of late, but in truth we never really looked like there was the urgency than the last few second bales that we’ve had in January. Perhaps that was a good thing; it meant that we weren’t chasing to get back into a game we never should have been behind in. The first half was, in truth, a pretty turgid affair. We controlled possession and gave a few half chances to Stoke, but The Ox was the man that should have put us in front. First he was thwarted by the legs of Begovic from a corner, then he was stopped from opening the scoring by a wonderful save from the Stoke keeper. We can say a lot of things about some of the players in that team, but there’s no doubt that he is top draw. He’ll be snapped up in the summer I’m sure.

As for the rest of the Stoke players, well, lets just say I have little care for there antics. I hear words such as ‘warriors’ and ‘tough’ to describe the orcs, but the reality of what I saw yesterday was nothing of the sort. Glenn Whelan was cynical in bringing down Cazorla, Ryan Shawcross was a reckless in his tackle on Koscienly, but the most cowardly and scum-baggishness of all was Andy Wilkinson. I’ve thought this for many years, but never bothered to say it, but he is everything that is wrong with Stoke. He fouls, he commits dirty off-the-ball actions (knocking Theo in the face which I’m quite sure was intentional) and time wastes at everything he does. The only pleasing thing about seeing him play was that Theo gave him a torrid time all afternoon. I thought Walcott had a relatively good game and, end product aside, he was very effective in getting beyond his man. I’ve started to notice little things about him recently. His touch has vastly improved and he seems to be able to get the ball to stick to his feet a lot quicker. I’m not sure if he’s worked on his balance in training or whether he’s just eating an extra Shredded Wheat for breakfast, but whatever it is, it seems to be working.

The second half was much like the first. Stoke showed little interest in doing anything other than keeping their goal well marshalled, and we found it very difficult to break down. Arsenal have been like that for some time now in truth. If we don’t get an early goal against these types of teams then they become more resolute and even harder to break down. So when the goal came courtesy of a Lukas Podolski deflected free kick off Cameron, it was most welcome indeed. Contentious it seemed to be, because the fans inside the stadium were not afforded the luxury of the replay, but it was rightly given and we saw out the game to collect a vital three points. Vital on a day that Everton drew and Chelski lost. These are the sorts of weekends where you simply have to pick up points and I’m glad we did. All eyes now turn to the spuds to see if the Baggies can do us a little flavour.

There will be those that say Arsenal were unconvincing. There will be those that say performances like that will not get us into the top four. But you can’t score a bajillion goals every time you play. And you certainly can’t carve open chances against teams that certainly don’t want to even play. I remember Manchester United playing quite poorly against West Brom in December, yet they still came away with the points and the result was consigned to history. And that’s all that matters really. Three points.

I could go on about a few players like Jack Wilshire, who is so consistently brilliant that I’m running out of things so say about him, so I think I’ll leave it at that for one day.

Until tomorrow.

Seaside travels, but let’s not get our noses bloodied Arsenal

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Good morning Goonerland! How’s your Saturday shaping up? I guess that really depends on what time you’re reading this blog really, doesn’t it? Read it come eight O’Clock GMT and it could be quite a dated blog, but it could still fill you with happiness if Arsenal are the victors and go marching into the Fifth Round of the FA Cup. Read it after a cup upset and more disappointment at the hands of Brighton, and you’ll probably want to throw whatever device you’re looking at towards a hard surface. I would recommend that you don’t however.

This weekend is FA Cup weekend. It’s the fourth round and thankfully for The Arsenal’s performance against Swansea a couple of weeks back, we have something to play for with a trip to the South Coast to play a Brighton Team that made the black and white French Province of Newcastle look like a team of slack-jawed Gallic nobodies. If there is a lesson to be known from Pardew’s Parisian’s (yes, I know that all of the players aren’t from Paris, but I like a bit of alliteration and it was the only ‘P’ word that I could think of that linked to France) it is that going to the Amex is fraught with danger and the opportunity to pick up a bloody nose. Arsenal will have to be on form and they will have to put in a performance that shows they mean business in what is most likely our best chance of silverware this season. Unless Arsene has done a Roberto Di Matteo style deal with the Devil and charmed our Champions League campaign with never-ending fortune. I suspect he hasn’t.

Brigthon will be up for this today, make no mistake about it. I watched the game against Newcastle and whilst the “Geordies” were poor, you have to say that Brighton were quite good. The two stand out players on the day were the defensive midfielder Bridcutt and the man who scored the first goal Lopez and I suspect both will start today. They also had some bald bloke in defence who spent the entire game being a general irritant and tugging shirts of Newcastle players inside the box whilst getting away with it, but I can’t remember his name and if you read this blog regularly you’ll know I am to research what Eddie The Eagle was to the Winter Olympics. Anyway, that’s what I suspect we’ll get from Brighton today, a ‘in your face’ and ‘they don’t like it up ‘em’ performance. So it will be important that we react to this and play our way and don’t let the Brighton players to dictate the possession or the play.

I’m not sure what Arsene has in mind for his starting eleven, but with Liverpool on Wednesday having just played West Ham in midweek, I suspect he’ll be looking for a little bit of rotation in the team. I hope it is not a lot of rotation and the side has a look of familiarity to it. I remember watching us get knocked out to Stoke a few years ago with a reserve side that screamed “the FA Cup is an inconvenience to us” from the players and the manager. Back then we had other fish to fry. Right now we only have one battered cod in the fridge to consume. I think we’ll see the back four shuffled slightly, with a change for Jenkinson (he deserves one at least) at right back and Vermaelen injured. It will give Koscienly another chance for game time to get back into the form that we know he’s capable of and exhibited last season. I’m not sure whether we’ll see Jack continue in the midfield, as Diaby is back and I think Le Boss might want to give him a little rest, perhaps having him on the bench. I suspect Ramsey will be given another shot in midfield. At least I hope he does. He had a really solid performance on Wednesday and my hope is that he can build on that and gain more confidence with back-to-back starts. He did the simple things well and showed great determination and constant running throughout against West Ham, so I hope we see the same from him if he’s favoured by Le Boss. I do wonder if Santi will be given a rest though, as he has played a lot of games and with the return of Tomas Rosicky to the squad after a calf injury. His last outing was in the Champions League I think and I thought he was the best player in the team at the time, so I’m not too worried if ‘Little Mozart’ comes in.

Attacking-wise is where I can’t really see much rotation at all, which is entirely Arsene’s own fault. With Chamakh at West Ham and Arshavin about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike, we have only four real options to choose from in the front three positions. I think The Ox will get a run out, but I don’t know who we’ll see up top or on the right/left. I suspect that Giroud will play at the top of the trio, after his goals in midweek plus his absence from the team at the beginning of January. Whether that means Podolski or Theo are rested I don’t know. But it does go back to that old chestnut of squad depth. I’ll not go into the details, why’s and wherefore’s over our lack of purchasing whilst seemingly delighted to send player after player out on loan, weakening the whole squad with every departure, but it does make you think that something needs to be done and soon. Another argument for another day – probably later on in the week sometime.

The form of both teams looks very similar. Brighton have lost one in six whilst drawing two, where we have lost two in six whilst drawing two. Both teams played in midweek so the argument over fatigue for Arsenal’s players really doesn’t wash I’m afraid. We need to be showing the gulf in class on the pitch at 3pm, not just on paper or on respective bank balances of both sets of players.

Sing up for The Arsenal.

Goals in our strikers, but not consistency

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Happy Friday to you all. Hope it finds you in good form.

Form. That most illusive of things that every football team strives for, yet very few achieve on a consistent basis throughout the season. Arsenal have never really hit the form that we’d all hope from the team this season, stuttering every few weeks, so it makes it all the harder to work out where this team is at. If you are a stat person, you’ll see the goals we’ve scored and some of the games where we’ve racked up goals and think that as an attacking threat we are quite potent. After all, we have Lukas Podolski on eleven goals for the season, Olivier Giroud on eleven, Theo on 16 and even Santi has bashed in eight this season. When you consider I haven’t even included to mention Gervhino (five) it appears as though we have quite a potent attacking threat.

When the full time whistle went on Wednesday I’m sure most gooners were over the moon with the performance – I know I was – yet doubt still remains as to whether our attacking options are strong enough. It’s where the heart of the frustration lies for us Arsenal fans and all gravitates towards that ‘f’ word ‘Form’. Much like the team themselves, our strikers have gone from sublime to benign in less than a week on a number of occasions recently. Not just this week gone by, but consider how we tore apart Newcastle, only to be blunted by a steady but hardly spectacular Southampton.

Our strikers need to move away from the Theo Walcott style ‘consistency in patches’ from last season and just to a simple ‘consistent’ in all matches. On Sunday just gone we had a problem with our striking options beyond Giroud. Before he left for the African Cup of Nations Gervhino was out of form, and Podolski has blown hot or cold quite a lot this season. That’s why I still advocate an additional top-notch striker to come in to the club. As good as Giroud was on Wednesday, we can’t lose sight of the fact that he was pretty absent on Sunday, so my hope is that Arsene isn’t sticking with his cards he already has in his hands. He needs to pick up an ace to make sure he gets his full house.

What could have happened on Sunday if we’d have had another option to throw up top? Even an option that could play alongside Giroud? Surely it must be something Le Boss is considering?

Anyway, we’ll know within the next week, as the transfer window slams shut and we’re left to wonder why we haven’t signed anybody (a realism I’m slowly coming to terms with – albeit disappointedly), or how our new players will perform with their new team mates.

There didn’t seem to be any team news on the official site yesterday, so I suspect Le Boss will be having his press conference at some stage today. More on the team to face Brighton tomorrow, plus his inevitable reaction to being asked about players, and the stock responses of ‘we’ll let you know when we’ve signed somebody’ and ‘we were never in for him’.

That’s it from me today peeps. Speak tomorrow.