Tag Archives: Olivier Giroud

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!

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.

Guard of honour-schmoner, the big news is Giroud’s appeal

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Yesterday evening Manchester United won the Premier League with a certain nameless player scoring the goals. It means they have picked up their 20th title and it will probably mean a guard of honour for them at The Emirates. I suppose I should congratulate them on a title well deserved.

But in many ways, I’m a petty, petty man. We have a phrase where I come from. Loosely translated, it goes something like this:

‘Fuck Manchester United and Fuck Robin van Persie’.

That’s the first and last time I’ve used his name on this blog since he left the club. Because all he is to us is a blip on the history of Arsenal. I hope he plays next weekend so he can see how he has ripped his legacy into shreds at the club.

Anyway, even that small dilution of this blog away from Arsenal matters isn’t enough to distract me from something much more important than the title, which is the decision of Arsenal to appeal the red card Olivier Giroud received on Saturday. To me it seems a bit fruitless if I’m honest. The FA have a history of shirking any kind of responsibility when it comes to contentious decisions and, if Aguero can’t get suspended for a rake down the legs, then how on earth do our army of lawyers expect to get Giroud out of a three game ban? The referee will surely just say “nah, I saw it alright, still a red” and the FA will simply agree. Unless the team of lawyers we have are promising to show the FA the only known piece of rocking horse poo in existence if they let our Olivier off with a slap wrist?

Perhaps we’ll hear of a Tom Cruise/Jack Nicholson “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH” style fist smash on the table by Dick Law when he fronts up against the disciplinary committee. Or he’ll convince the panel that there is, in fact, no such person as Olivier Giroud. The Kaiser Soze of the footballing world if you will. He’ll then just need to make sure each member of the committee is the conveniently ‘busy’ every time we play between now and the end of the season, but I’m sure old Dicky can do that for us. After all, it’s not like he’s spending any time negotiating transfers at the moment…

With the inevitable ‘denied’ stamp hovering over the FA suspension paperwork, our attentions should be turning to who will take Giroud’s place at centre stage at the top of the pitch. There are a few that have tried this season, but for me the projects of Gervhino and Theo didn’t really work as well as we’d liked them to and so therefore it has to be Podolski. I could go on about his successful role in the team I think he could have, but instead I would encourage you to have a look at GoonerDave66‘s piece on the matter yesterday, as he is much more eloquent and in depth than I could ever be on my forty-five minute time frame I have to write the blog on the Met Line. Suffice to say, I couldn’t agree any more with his comments. It has to be Poldi. Playing Gervhino up against a team like United would not only be heart-breaking, but show us how far we’ve regressed.

I must say though, it will be interesting to see how our opponents line up on Sunday, having just completed their objectives for the season. Will we see some reserves? Will we see them give 100% now that they are playing for nothing? My hope is that we can capitalise on the fact the title is done and dusted and put ourselves on the road to Champions League qualification, but I’ll save some of these thoughts until later on in the week.

There’s not really a lot else going on in the Arsenal world today, as you’d expect. There’s some stuff from Ramsey about defending as a team following the Fulham win, but it’s all pretty obvious if I’m completely honest. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to her they are doing the defensive donkey work to better effect now than we have done all season, but it is stuff we should have been doing all season, so it’s hardly something to get too excited about.

That’s it from me today unfortunately. Back tomorrow with interesting things to talk about hopefully.

‘Wengjuries’ and classic Arsene protection of players

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Happy Friday Arsenalites. It’s a man-flu infused one for me I’m afraid. I’ve been trying to see if the power of positive thinking coupled with outright denial would ‘think’ me well, but it hasn’t really happened, as the sopping hanky in my pocket would testify. Except it clearly can’t because it doesn’t have a mouth, or a tongue, or opposable thumbs.

Leaving mutant pieces of fabric to one side for a moment, we had Arsene’s usual pre-match presser ahead of what will be a real challenge away from home against Fulham tomorrow afternoon. He gave us an update on some injuries and it appears as though Fabianski is out injured now with a textbook bit of ‘wengjury’. That’s a word I just made up to describe the fitness of a player who’s place in the team is not guaranteed, but who would probably have hurt feelings if the world knew he was being replaced, so has been put into this ‘Wengjury’ stasis. I wonder if Physioroom.com would run a table of the Premier League clubs with players in this position? I bet we’d top the charts all year round. Then we wouldn’t have to argue amongst ourselves about whether fourth place is in fact a trophy. People would be happy, there would be dancing in the street and all kinds of frivolities would ensue. The truth is we have no idea how injured Fabianski was, is, or will be. Wenger even said that they are going ‘game-by-game’ on his injury. I do like the crafty old devil sometimes. It’s like a running joke that the world is involved in. I bet a few of the journos even looked around at each other and gave it the old ‘yeah right’. But there’s nothing they can do but report it as an injury. Everyone wins. Except Lukas if he really is injured with a cracked rib. In which case, he must wonder whether he should have been rooming with Diaby so much in his career, because his ‘injuryness’ is obviously wearing off a bit on him. It would be a harsh blow for a player who will have thought his time had finally come.

The rest of the squad will be assessed today says Le Gaffeur, with a few of them carrying knocks and bruises from the assault on The Emirates from the New Blue Stoke from Liverpool on Tuesday. I love the way Arsene described how he was going to review the situation today, saying “There are a number of uncertainties about our squad but I will sort that out on Friday morning”. It’s like Arsene’s gone all ruthless or something, real drill sergeant-like:
“YOU! BOY! HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY?”
“Oh, erm, I’m a little achy boss, if I’m honest”
“Achy? ACHY? No! You are fine. Or you are fined. And Per hasn’t been able to use his abacus for some time now so is itching to take some money.”
“Yes boss.“

Hopefully they’ll all get through any of the bumps and bruises sustained by Wenger’s rigorous drills and we can expect a fully fit squad to choose from come Saturday lunchtime. There will be some big decisions needed to be made. I think the back five could possibly remain unchanged, with the exception of Monreal for Gibbs, who Wenger has talked about potentially playing higher up the field at some stage. I don’t know how high Arsene is thinking, because to my mind he’s not quite right for one of the three midfield positions, which probably only really leaves him a slot in one of the top three attacking positions. Logic would dictate that he would occupy the left wing position, but that would further beg the question on the future of Podolski and/or Gervhino. Personally, I’d be surprised to see it as a permanent thing, as I think Arsene has what he wanted right now in two good left backs fighting for a slot but it does provide us and him with some food for thought.

And finally from me today, some thoughts on The Ox, who Arsene also reserved a bit of praise for as well, saying that he has grown in stature this season and since January he has really improved. I guess The Ox is a classic example of how much hope we put into young players when they show flashes of brilliance and perhaps expect too much too quickly. I know I am guilty of it. The game last season against Milan at home was an eye opener for so many that he can be one of the worlds best, but at times earlier on this season he’s struggled a bit. The reality is that this is what you get with young players – he is still only 19 after all – and so that consistency of performance you see from a 30 year old pro that has been doing it for 12 years is not going to be found in a young lad still finding his way around top-flight professional stadia. The Ox has been looking better and better every time he plays and Arsene’s reluctance to play him every game and perhaps over use him is why he gets the best out of these types of players. We can all say what we want about his transfers, his substitutions and perhaps tactical naivety at times, but it’s hard to argue he doesn’t know what he’s doing when it comes to integrating a young player into the first team when he is ready to play regularly. Which position Alex will eventually play will be an interesting one, but at least we know he’ll be under the stewardship of a manager that will do it when it’s the right time.

That’s yer lot from me. I have a date with a desk and a computer sending online memos from one person to the next. Oh joy of joys.

Everton: Ramsey steals the show, Giroud couldn’t buy a goal

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In the immediate aftermath of a home game, it’s hard to look at any result other than victory and three points for The Arsenal as abject failure, such are the fine margins of football and it’s fickle followers. Oh sure, it may look like I’m giving you my synopsis of last nights game after a night to sleep on the result, but I write this whilst hurtling home on the central line with nought but a tinge of disappointment and a smidgen of resentment.

I resent the teams that have a prolific striker. I resent that they have what we do not. I’m going to try not to give Olivier Giroud too much stick on today’s blog, but after a series of misses and good opportunities yesterday, it’s hard not to do the blogging equivalent of put my hands on my hips, lower my face slightly and give Giroud a shake of the barnet that says “Oh Olivier, you just aren’t that good, are you?”.

The cold light of day should hopefully have me waking up and feeling that this 0-0 draw against Everton wasn’t the worst result in the world, but I’ll let to know at what point of the blog I get to that point, because right now I’m only thinking of the missed chances.

Perhaps I should give some credit to Everton. After all, they are a very difficult team to break down and with players like Distin and Jagielka, they throw their bodies on the line for their team. It’s a shame we couldn’t get the Englishman a couple of seasons ago; such is the impact he has on that team. So whilst I am rueing our own profligacy, I must give ‘props’ to the Everton defence for standing strong.

I cannot however give ‘props’ to a referee that, quite frankly, was useless. If you read my random Arsenal musings regularly you’ll know that I try to avoid bemoaning the referee at all costs because more often than not, you need to look at you’re own team, which I’ll duly get to shortly. But Neil Swarbrick was terrible, in my opinion. On five occasions I saw Marouene Fellaini commit a foul, yet only three were even picked up and no yellow was distributed. But worst of all, the failure of Swarbrick to pick up the obvious second yellow foul by Gibson was the most irksome of all. Irksome because he even recognised it as a foul. If he thought Walcott had dived then he should have played on, but instead he recognised that Gibson had impeded our player, most probably looked at his watch and completely bottled it because we were within the first half an hour of the game. That, my friends, is totally unacceptable and I’m afraid is what we have come to expect from rapidly deteriorating refereeing standards in this country.

Ok, ref rant over, so what about The Arsenal? Well, defensively we came up against a physical presence of Anichebe, a fluffy aerial threat of Fellaini and the tricks and guile of Pienaar and Mirallas and largely kept them quiet for the whole game. We dealt with everything that was put our way and Szczseny was hardly troubled for the duration of the Evening.

In midfield I thought Arteta did well, whilst Jack had another ‘ok’ game, but we have to save the best for last: Aaron Ramsey. He was like the Duracell bunny. Attacking, defending, in the mix, winning the ball, distributing it, driving us forward. In my mind he should be one of the first on the team sheet right now. His game is all about action and yesterday he really was all-action. Superb stuff from a much maligned player who many questioned could make it, yet few will now argue about the potential and start talking about the reality. Once again, Arsene’s faith appears to be paying off.

Unfortunately, as much as I can praise the midfield and defence, the same cannot be said about the attack, particularly given the big fat ’0′ next to our team name. On the left we saw Cazorla who actually played really well, keeping the ball and always finding the man, but I see him as more of the ‘midfield’ success rather than the attacking disappointment. Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott were, unfortunately, average at best. Giroud missed a golden opportunity in the first half plus a miss within the last few minutes of normal time. But what really made me sigh yesterday, what made me turn to my fellow gooners and look around in despair, was what he didn’t do. I’m talking of the moment in the second half whereby Gibbs got in between the defence, looked for the cut back and open goal for the Frenchman, then played the ball off an Everton player and out for a corner. People around me bemoaned Gibbs, but I’m sorry, I’m just not having that. When I watched the replay I saw Giroud standing completely static on the penalty spot. There was no movement, there was no dart to the front or back post, there was just expectancy of the perfect ball laid at his feet. The reason I was sad? I know that a £25million clinical striker would have made that goal his own and given us the three points. Instead, we have a very capable £12million striker that, at times exactly like yesterday when you need a little something special, he’ll be found wanting. He will get goals in this Arsenal team, but I’m not sure he’s got the ability to take us on to the next level we’re after.

I’d love to make comments on Theo’s game, but actually I can’t really, as I didn’t really see anything of note. A couple of runs, but he was largely quiet, which isn’t really a major surprise. But that’s Theo. That’s what you get sometimes. When The Ox came on he looked a little more lively, but the problem we had was that he kept venturing inside and it made the play far too compact, which suited an Everton team that were happy to hold on in the last ten minutes.

So as I round up today’s blog, I’m still no nearer as to working out whether to accept a point or be disappointed. Everton are one of the top six teams in the league. They make it difficult for any team and tonight was never going to be easy. A point may prove to be vital when we hit the end of May, but when you’re looking over your shoulder at your nearest rivals for a top four space, you want the margins to be as stacked in your favour as possible and, after last nights draw, it’s no longer technically back in our hands if the Spuds with their game in hand.

All to much hypothesising for one day, I know, but you tend to do this a lot when you’re an Arsenal fan. They never make it easy for us.

Until tomorrow.

Reading: basking, control and momentum

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Welcome friends! And what a glorious Easter Sunday it is! Well, not in terms of weather, from where I’m looking in the world. But from a footballing perspective, it’s a metaphorical 30 degrees centigrade with a cloud ne’er to be seen across the skies.

Yes folks, we are basking in the post-game light of victory. That warm feeling you have right now, that’s because our boys did the business against a Reading team that never really caused any trouble whatsoever in truth. It was as controlled a performance as you are going to get in the Premier League and Nigel Adkins must be assessing which of his players he’ll be keeping in the Championship next season, because I think it’s highly unlikely we’ll be rocking up at the Madjeski in the Premier League from August onwards this year.

Before the game I felt nervous. Nervous because I have seen games like this become a very large banana skin on a newly polished hardwood floor already this season. I have felt that we should be winning these types of games all this season, yet at times we’ve come away from The Emirates with little comfort in the performance and dropped points or knocked out Of cup competitions. But not yesterday my friends! Yesterday the team were Ronseal – they did exactly what they were supposed to and dispatched Reading with a 4-1 victory.

In truth, it probably could have been more, certainly when you look at the first half chances. It is probably rare that we’ll see a game as one-sided as that one in the first half between now and the end of the season. The only real surprise of the day was that Arsenal weren’t more than the one Gervhino goal up at the interval. We probed, dominated possession and but for a series of last-ditch tackles and some dreadful refereeing decisions (Stuart Taylor must have found it almost funny how he didn’t concede a penalty after scything down Giroud) we could and should have been more up by half time.

I think what helped shape the eventual outcome of the match was how early we scored the first goal – on 11 minutes – and then also how quickly we were up and running in the second half when Cazorla curled in number two on 48. That essentially gave the team the confidence and swagger to continue to probe without getting frustrated by a defence that would sit deep and aim to frustrate. In all fairness, Reading’s defence was never going to put on that type of performance, but the early goals ensured we didn’t get too desperate to force the issue.

So it came to pass that we eventually ran away with a comfortable victory courtesy of a Giroud goal from a swift counter attack led by Gervhino and then a Mikel Arteta penalty. Yes, there was a Reading goal to worry the nerves ever-so slightly, but the truth of the matter (with the benefit of hindsight) is that Reading were never really in this game.

A quick word for Gervhino. Never has there been a more obvious example of the terminology ‘confidence players’. He had a really good game yesterday and was instrumental in our attacking play, both scoring the first and picking up two assists for the second and third goals. He really is an enigma. We’ve seen him at times look like the furthest thing from a professional footballer you could possibly imagine. We’ve seen him pick the ball up, run over his own feet and get closer to the corner flag with his dribbling than his opponent’s goal. Yet he showed yesterday how his unpredictability can still be used to his advantage. So whilst there were other players who were excellent yesterday, like Cazorla, I feel it’s only right to single out the Ivorian for praise given how I and many of us gooners have lambasted him at times this season. I still believe Podolski is a better option wide left, but the fact that he’s had such a good game yesterday fills you with hope that he will provide options for us in the coming weeks.

So it’s another three points and it’s another game that we can add to the ‘building momentum’ bonfire that is nicely simmering away at the moment. I look at our opponents for the Champions League places and, whilst I know the Spuds won against Swansea, I think that as long as one of them or Chelski drop points each weekend, the. It will always give us a chance. We are now two away from them and four from the Spuds with a game in hand. Next week we have a really tough game against West Brom but if we can pick up a win against them we have back-to-back home games that could see us close or maybe even leapfrog those two teams in the league given their respective fixtures in April.

So all-in-all a pretty happy weekend. Now to enjoy your Sunday.

Nervous of swans, but confidence must be carried over

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Howdy gooners, hope this Saturday finds you well. Let’s hope it finds you even ‘weller’ come 5pm GMT. Let us also hope that The arsenal make it considerably less grim than the weather here in Blighty too. It’s greyer than a certain Dutch United players hair, and more miserable looking than Harry Redknapp after a snubbing for an En-ger-land managerial position.

The team travel to the land of Leeks today in the hope of wrestling three points from Swansea on their own turf and I’ve got to be completely honest with you, I am infinitely more nervous and apprehensive about this game and the result than the Bayern games – both home and away. For the away match it is understandable – we didn’t realistically have anything to play for other than pride and the players did a sterling job at recapturing some of that with a victory to what will inevitably be the German Champions in a few weeks. We were never expected to win, the pressure was off and the team managed to react with an outstanding defensive display.

Today however, presents an entirely new and I think more difficult challenge. Bayern knew that the odds were so heavily in their favour that they switched off. Do we truly believe we will see the same from Swansea? I don’t. I think Swansea will be massively up for this game. There is a case to argue that they have won the Carling Cup, are in Europe for next season and are probably a little bit too far away to go for a Champions League spot, so their end of season party has already started and they might not be 100% focused. But I don’t see that as the case. Michael Laudrup is showing himself to be a very adept manager and capable of motivating his team very well. A lot of people wondered (me included) whether or not the work of Brendan Rodgers could be exceeded after a good first season in the Prem, but the Dane has shown that it most certainly can motivate his team – especially at home. I’ve just had a quick check of their home form and you have to go back to 8th December to see the last time they lost at home, which was a 4-3 defeat to Norwich. They’ve also picked up a 1-1 draw against United during that time, so it gives us all an idea of the task that sits before the Arsenal players today.

I’m not sure about who will start for Swansea, but I think we all know where the danger lies, through Michu and his excellent scoring record against us. He’s already got three this season and no doubt will be fancying his chances against a defence that you can most definitely call ‘beleaguered’ this season.

But off the back of the Bayern game, there is renewed hope from this Arsenal supporter that the team has stumbled upon the formula for defensive solidity. We road our luck at times against Bayern, but the whole team was brilliant at the defensive element of our game on Wednesday night and if the same desire, commitment and organisations is shown against the Swans today, then we could get a result. i said on Twitter yesterday to a few fellow gooners that we’re not going to play a team brimming with the quality that Bayern had every week, which is not meant to be a dig to any of our upcoming fixtures, just an admission that we were on the back foot for most of the game and th result was very much a ‘smash and grab’ when you look at all of the stats from midweek. It’s ironic actually, because it’s a similar sort of game to the one at The Emirates which saw Swansea pick up their three points. Defensively they were solid which resulted in a lot of sideways probing and not a lot going forward for Arsenal, whilst offensively they were ruthless, punishing our defensive lapses in concentration with two late Michu goals.

The manager has a decision to make over the defensive side of the team in both goal and at centre back (decisions already made at full back with the rotation of Gibbs and the injury to Sagna), but personally I think the decision has already been made and we’ll see a relatively unchanged team today – Fab and Kos both keeping their places. Podolski is not back from injury so I think we’ll see Cazorla on the left with Walcott on the right and Giroud through the middle. I’m hoping for more from Olivier today. Yes, he got the early goal in midweek that gave us hope and hopefully some more confidence for him, but I still thought he was quite poor against the Germans. His hold up play left a lot to be desired of and he made a few poor decisions in the final third by not finding his teammates when he really should have. But today is a new day, a new game and an opportunity for him to prove his worth. I just hope he doesn’t do that flappy hand thing – it’s really quite annoying and is starting to make him look like the boy who cried ‘wolf’. Every time he goes down and does that I wonder if his leg will be hanging off, yet he’s back on his feet and running around five minutes later, the big Jessie.

The trouble with this Arsenal team this season is that you have no idea how they will react after any type of result. You’d hope that the Munich game would instil confidence and belief that would be a welcome injection with ten games to go, but we’ve seen too many false dawns to believe that we’ll get a guaranteed show-stopping performance today. Me, I’d settle for a nerve jangling, nail-biting, Twitter-refreshing-every-two-seconds, 1-0 victory, but you certainly can’t get any assurances on that result. I said yesterday that I’m not sure whether or not Arsene can motivate the team every game between now and the end of the season and I’m still unsure. I’m hopeful that he and the players themselves can be motivated to forge some sort of winning streak, but the inconsistency of this whole season leads me to believe it is a tall order. AS clichéd as it is, and as clichéd as Arsene sounds when he says it, let’s just take it one game at a time and get today’s game outcome as a positive result and the look to what’s next.

Until tomorrow.

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.

Two second half performances needed today

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Hello people. Game day again! Don’t you just love it when they come thick and fast? No time to dwell, no time to bemoan lack of transfers or a poor previous result, only time to look forward in hope that we see the Arsenal lads out on the turf today do their stuff.

And boy do we want them to do their stuff against today’s opponents. Stoke City have been often cited as a form of ‘anti-Arsenal’, playing a strong physical game coupled with big lumpy balls up to strong, tall and powerful front men. They’ve relied on our inability to solidly defend from set pieces and have certainly seen their fair share of joy against us since they entered the Premier League.

As for us as fans, we’ve made no secret of our dislike for their track suit-wearing oaf of a manager, prowling the touch line and screaming like a banishee every time a decision doesn’t go his sides way. With that baseball cap to top it all off, Tony Pulis looks like a ‘special’ type of manager, as in the type of half-wit that sits in the corner of the annual LMA dinner and no other manager dares to go near him in case they catch something.

As for the Stoke team, we know what we’ll get. Walters will be a willing runner and one of Crouch or Jones will be there to generally cause mischief and provide the knock downs. I was looking on the Sky Sports website last night and it looks as though Stoke have been playing a 3-5-2 formation of late, which I think will be really interesting if they adopt it today, because it will mean they flood the midfield and try to win that battle, but if they try to be too ambitious going forward they could be left vulnerable on the counter attack.

Despite our general hatred for Stoke’s manager and fans, you have to say that they do have a few technically better players than when they first entered the league. N’Zonzi was once linked with us and is a good player with the ball at his feet, whilst Charlie Adam – despite his horrid time at Liverpool – can still pick a pass and definitely has a bit of creativity in him. So whilst I suspect we might see a bit more of a defensive look to the 3-5-2, I think Stoke will shape up to win the midfield battle and profit from careless corners and silly free kicks.

From our side it’s all about possession and conversion. To win the midfield battle the trio of Wilshire, Cazorla and Arteta (who I think will come in, despite Ramsey’s impressive three games in that role so far – a bit unlucky for him really) we will need to be at our best in terms of passing accuracy. To win the war of conversion, we’ll need the front three to be on fire. To be fair to all three of Poldi, Theo and Giroud, they’ve all been scoring of late, so I hope that this rich vein of form that they are all in sees us profit from it this afternoon.

And so we come to the back four. Will we see the new boy Nacho in at left back? Despite the clear lack of faith everyone seems to have with Santos, I do wonder if Arsene will still start him. It would not be on merit I don’t think, but it would be on the fact that he has had one single training session with Monreal, so I think the Brazilian might be give his one and last chance. The thing is as well, we can’t really afford to cut him out completely, because he’ll have to play against Bayern. Monreal is cup tied and Gibbs will be injured, so unless the boss brings back Vermaelen at left back (missing today through injury), Santos is our only real option.

We know that if the players in red and white today play to their full potential then we should have enough to put Stoke to the sword. However, there is a big ‘if’ in there, and far too often this season we have seen this Arsenal team fall short. I am hoping that today is not the same. We have dropped enough points through sloppy starts, so the team has to be down the throats of the Stoke defence from kick off.

Lets have two halves like the second halves we’ve put on all through January.

Come on you reds!

No fear of the passing game, and Giroud’s goals still need support

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Morning gooners, hope you are well.

No blog yesterday from me, as other activities prevented me from spilling my thoughts onto the blog, but I did keep up with as much of the game as possible on Saturday, so I know how we fared against a good Brighton side set up to play the passing game.

It does strike me as a little surprising how many teams set up to try and out-pass Arsenal these days. It also makes me a little bit morose that teams know longer fear us like they used to. Just look at how Swansea hit us with a smash and grab in December. They passed and passed and although they didn’t really trouble our defence until the last five minutes, it was enough to get them the win. From the sounds of the game on Saturday, there were times that Brighton had spells where they out-passed Arsenal, which I’m not sure whether or not it was because of ‘the magic of the FA Cup’ i.e. it’s a knockout competition and they have to throw all at nothing at us, or whether or not we were that poor and gave them far too much respect.

I have to say one thing however, ITV having any kind of football highlights is a travesty in itself, as more time is dedicated to adverts than the matches themselves. I know the BBC punditry and Match of the Day highlights is a bit of a joke sometimes (I’ve seen situations like 1-on-1′s with the keeper ignored, decent penalty shouts glossed over and once they even ignored a shot off the bar!), but ITV’s coverage is an abomination. There were a total of six passages of play in the Brighton game that they showed. Six! Five of those were the goals! It’s pathetic. I understand that they have to have the advertising intermissions – they have to fund themselves, I get that – but why not just extend the length of the programme? ITV know well in advance how many games there are and so should be able to schedule accordingly. But unfortunately we’re lumped with useless and short highlights, which for someone who hasn’t been able to get to a radio all afternoon, is not what you want when you want to see your teams actions during the day. Then, when it comes to dragging out a show of reality celebrity TV that gets people paying 50p per call to vote for their favourite ‘celebrity’, they’ll be all over it like a rash. Then they’ll drag it out for a three hour show. Then they’ll have live interviews with the ‘celebrities’ on ITV 2 after the show. Hurumph!

So it’s a visit of Blackburn to The Emirates in the next round and, whilst it was delightful to see both Spurs and Liverpool knocked out, for me I hope that it doesn’t give both teams that extra focus in the league with which to mount their Champions League assault. For Liverpool it will be interesting to see how they react in their next match, because it’s a trip to The Emirates for the scousers, so it will be interesting to see what sort of Liverpool side plays us on Wednesday night. If they come to the Emirates with the same attitude then we’ll be in for a good evening, but the wounded animal is sometimes even more dangerous when it’s been backed into a corner.

There is some more noise which was going around Twitter yesterday about Jovetic and also Villa this morning, but it’s the same noises we’ve heard before, so I can’t really be arsed to think too hard about it. What I can be arsed to think about is Olivier Giroud, who got another brace to bring his goalscoring tally up to 13 for the season and hopefully give him an all important confidence boost. I say all important because I am now of the opinion Arsene won’t make any signings, so our eggs need to be put firmly into the Giroud, Theo and Poldi baskets. I still maintain the belief that we need another option. It’s not games like West Ham or Brighton away that I’m concerned with the goalscoring ratio, but the bigger matches where Giroud hasn’t been able to impact a game. When we need to try something different to unlock the Chelski’s or Moneychester City’s of the league, that’s where we need an option, and right now I just don’t think we’ve got that. But lets not dwell too much on the negative at the moment. The important thing is that Giroud is scoring goals. We could have paid £50million for a player that gets a handful in a whole season, so for every cloud there’s a silver lining.

More on the Liverpool game as we get to it, but for now, I shall take my leave.

Adieu.