Tag Archives: Thomas Vermaelen

Say it out loud: defensive stability at Arsenal

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Ahh Thursday, how are you? It’s been almost a week since I saw you last, hasn’t it? No, you’re right, it’s been exactly a week. A week in which we learned our fate lies in the Champions League (qualifiers at least) and where hope has now sprung from the possibility of a proactive summer that will strengthen the team and put us in a position where we can hopefully look upwards to challenge rather than downwards to who is catching us up.

The subject of transfers will be a hot potato for the next few months and, whilst we would all agree that we need strengthening, one area of the team that surprisingly needs probably the least bit of surgery is our defence. Last year we leaked more goals than Julian Lestrange leaks politically sensitive material. We were subjected to abominations like the 8-2 defeat at Old Trafford and you wouldn’t find too many Gooners that could argue that we had the basis of a sound and solid defensive unit. We looked beleaguered and devoid of any confidence at the back and going into every game you wondered what defensive lapse would occur today.

Fast forward to today and you find (this blogger at least) Arsenal fans that are looking at our defence and praising their stinginess when it comes to opposition strikers. We’ve conceded four goals in our final 11 games of the season and our defensive unit has been resolute in ensuring that we get into that top four spot. Most of those clean sheets came with a one goal victory, so it just goes to show how important the defensive side of the game has been. It’s true that our attacking impetus has perhaps been curbed somewhat since this defensive side of the game has been worked on, but in reality I’m sure you’d all agree that shipping very few goals and hoping we out score opposition is certainly more preferable to trying to play catch up after going behind. Although I appreciate that wasn’t the case at the mod point in the season – the 2-2 draw at home to Liverpool is a case in point.

We’ve got the second best defensive record in The Premier League. I’m going to let that sink in for a minute. Second best. As in, there are most other teams in the league that don’t have as many shutouts as we do. The perpetual knocking of Arsenal defensively over the last few seasons has been blown out of the water by some of our displays towards the latter end of the season, and it bodes well if we can continue that form into next season.

But it’s not just the back four that should be praised for the defensive aspect of our game and the improved work. In the latter part of this season the role that Arteta and Ramsey played in screening the back four has been vital in ensuring our solidity. That ability to track runners into the box and close down space in between defence and midfield has been a key component of how we’ve been able to build from the back.

Second best defence in the league. Just say it to yourself out loud.

At left back we’ve seen the arrival of Spanish international Nacho Monreal and, whilst it had many of us scratching our heads at the time and wondering why we hadn’t signed a striker on deadline day, there can be no doubts that Arsene made a good move in bringing the Spaniard in. Whilst doubts over Gibbs’ ability to play a whole season remain, the arrival of Monreal means that not only do we have genuine competition, we have two internationals vying for it. Both have been used effectively this season and both have helped to significantly contribute to our run in. Gibbs provides a bit more pace going forward, but Monreal has an assuredness about his game that puts us at ease about a million times more than Andre Santos ever could.

In the middle of the defence we’ve found our number one partnership, at the expense of the captain, Thomas Vermaelen. I feel for Thomas. The year of his captaincy has coincided with a dip in form that was probably at its worst during the 2-1 defeat at United when he mis-kicked his clearance straight into the feet of That Dutch Bloke. He was dropped for the Bayern game and the form of Koscienly and Mertesacker has meant he never really had a sniff at regaining his place in the side.

Mertesacker has been the one player that affords me a smug grin. All non-Arsenal companions that I have, have made comments about the BFG last season about Wenger buying another dud. It was the same the season before with Koscienly. But between the two of them, they have ended the season in tremendous form. I can say it now because the game has well and truly ended, but I think back to that last game of the season and if truth be told, for the majority of the game the Newcastle front line had slim pickings to feed from both Kos an Mert. They compliment each other so well. Koscienly has the recovery pace and Mertesacker has the positional sense. Unfortunately for Vermaelen, he’s not the strongest in either position and so he finds only a place on the bench right now. I’m sure he’ll be knocking on the managers door in pre-season, but it’s hard to argue your case when you have rivals for your position that are so miserly when it comes to conceding.

At right back we’ve had an interesting turn of events. At the beginning of the season there were real fears about losing Sagna to a free transfer or at the end of the season. As it stands now, there are some sections of Arsenal fans that I have heard say they wouldn’t be too fussed if he departed to Paris Saint Germain in the summer. Personally, I would like him to remain at the club. His form has not been its usual consistent self, but he has still been a valuable cog in that defensive unit. Perhaps the desire to see Carl Jenkinson become first choice has more to do with how far he has come this season, to the extent where he received an international call up for England, and now has many Arsenal fans hoping he can establish himself as first choice in the team next year. It’s understandable; Jenkinson is an Arsenal fan, he’s one of us, so we naturally want to see players who love the club as much as we do in the team. But he is still somewhat raw and with the experience of Sagna in the side, we have been in the fortuitous position that we can be afforded the luxury of questioning who could fill that right back slot, rather than a few years ago when we looked like we had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for a square peg in a round hole.

Should we be looking to strengthen in the summer defensively? If I’m completely honest I don’t know. I guess it will come down to whether or not Sagna is moved on. I rate Jenko, but I’m not sure whether or not he’s ready to be the number one choice without a player who can challenge him for his place so if the Frenchman is moved on then i would say a definite ‘yes’. Jenko probably needs another 12 months of games and growth before he is ready. That is why I hope Sagna stays on. His experience will be useful, even if we lose him in the summer next year for free, so on that basis, I hope we don’t need to make reinforcements. There are other areas that are more in need of strengthening.

Have a good one Gooners.

My blogging curse hits Tomas

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It’s Friday, it’s Premier League Matchday-Eve, and to that means Le Boss will front up against an army of journos and furry mikes for today’s pre-game presser.

Sometimes I wonder if I should dedicate a section of my blogs each day to praising or ‘bigging-up’ the upcoming opposition, because every time I say something positive about Arsenal, be it injuries or form of players, some sort of karma-curveball is thrown at me. Yesterday I said that apart from Diaby we should be almost at full fitness, with only the question of whether Jack or Theo will come back or not. So of course, when Arsene released some initial information to the official site, we all found out that Tomas Rosicky is a major doubt for the weekend with a knock he picked up during the week. Yes. Tomas Rosicky. The guy that we’ve all been eulogising over. The chap that Arsene has said can have such an impact with the remaining games. Out. Injured. So if I start talking about how Gareth the monkey boy has such amazing recovery from injury to be back so soon, can the football gods hand us a little bit of cosmic karma back please?

I guess we got a little bit of it by watching the Spuds go out on penalties yesterday, so we can’t complain too much, although it will give them the Premier League to focus their attention on between now and the end of the season and we’ve already seen what that clarity has done to our own team. The hope is that whilst they have time to take stock and prepare for the game against Moneychester City, their confidence and also belief is dealt a blow, coupled with the hope that City still believe they have something to play for.

With Tomas, I hope this is a classic Wenger yarn to protect a tired player and keep him ready for the Everton game, I really do. It would be a cruel twist of fate if the poor guy waits patiently for a role in the team, takes his opportunity, only to be thwarted by the brittleness of his own body. So I hope this is a ‘niggle’ rather than any sort of small injury that snowballs into a ‘little setback’.

Of course, what this will mean is that Jack is likely to play I would assume, and in that regard we should be pretty happy that we’ve got a fabulous alternative to the in form Rosicky. Jack and Theo are supposedly 90% there, so I’d expect Wilshire to reassume the position come 3pm. Of course, a good performance from him and Arsene will have quite the selection headache on Tuesday night. Does he recall Rosicky or continue with our charismatic number 10?

I’d hope that there’s going to be an element of squad rotation going on over the next couple of games. We are fortunate that we have some players in form that can slot in to the team and, with Everton playing at the same time as us and with a smaller squad, they probably won’t be able to rotate as much as I hope we can. If Arsene plays his cards right, and gets the right level of rotation, we could find a number of players fresher than our opponents on Tuesday and therefore more susceptible to defeat. I know I’m coming across as slightly presumptuous, especially as we have a really tough game against Norwich on Saturday, but this is a crucial period for us now. A sequence of wins over the next three weeks could almost secure a top four spot I feel, so managing the squad will be of paramount importance. We need to be able to capitalise on an advantages we can gain. Having players fresher than the opponents at this stage of the season has to be one of those we should grab hold of.

We really don’t want to be slipping up against Norwich like we did last season. There simply HAS to be the concentration and commitment to victory that we’ve seen over the last few weeks. Le Boss has been doing his part with players like Vermaelen, talking about how well he took being dropped and what a great man he is. Classic Arsene. Before a big game, inflate the confidence of an individual that perhaps has had some stuffing knocked out of him, in the hope that he rewards the loyalty with a great performance. And with Mertesacker out for one match, this is Vermaelen’s chance to stake a claim, so I hope he tries to grab it with both hands. If he does, then I’d suspect it will mean we’ve picked up three points against Norwich. I hope so, anyway. Mike Dean isn’t reffing tomorrow, is he?

Anyway, a fuller pre-match preview to come tomorrow, so until then I shall take my leave.

Siege mentality needed to get fourth

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It’s Friday, it’s my last day at work before I skidaddle off to Singapore and Thailand for a bit of RnR for two weeks, and today is the day that Le Boss gets himself ready to face the baying media. The last time he was in this situation it all ended slightly with an unsavoury and un-Arsene like rounding on a journo. So I’m not sure whether the assembled coyotes will want to tear at the fresh wounds that were opened up from Bayern or simply sit back and let Arsene off for a week. I’d be surprised if it was the latter.

We already got our first snippet of information yesterday, as the official site announced that Arsene had confirmed the absence of Sagna for this weekend as well as Gibbs. Thankfully, the acquisition of Monreal is working so far and he’ll slot comfortably into left back, plus with the amount of games Jenkinson has played this season he’s become more acclimatised to first team football so I doubt there will be many of us that will be too nervous. Certainly not as nervous as a sight of Squillaci trotting out onto the field of play come Saturday 3pm. I thought Jenkinson did well against Sunderland when he played last and, two silly fouls aside, again looked the part. We know what we’re going to get with him and so I hope he puts on another stellar display against the Villains.

I find Jenkinson’s build quite interesting for a full back. He looks like a big unit that should be more adept at a central defensive position, but his ability to get down the by-line and get very good balls into the box is something that we should certainly be utilising more often than we do. It’s for his crossing ability that I hope Arsene opts for Giroud at the weekend. The Frenchman offers more of a physical presence than Walcott and is most certainly better in the air. But more on the match itself tomorrow methinks.

Right now, the biggest topic of debate is the future of Arsene, or lack of if you read some of the reports in the press. I’ve already said my piece about Arsene, and if you read my random thoughts around Arsenal regularly, you’ll know that I am a bit sad because I am coming to terms with the increasing likelihood that there could be a parting of ways. But Arsenal is Arsenal and whatever happens I’ll support the team and those representing it until the end. That is the case for this Saturday and every game that they play. And as fans I think that is the only way to be. Talk of wanting the team to lose is pathetic in my opinion. Support your team or go home. Or become a watcher of non-team sports, for this type of game is not for you.

I’ve found a lot of the recent interviews by players a little worrying as well. Last season, when there were similar mumblings from fans and the media trolls trying to dig up some content to sell their chip paper, I don’t remember seeing many of the players coming out in defence of Le Boss. I am beginning to wonder if that is because the players themselves just thought the noises about Arsene’s time being up last season were complete rubbish and so ignored it. It was a minor inconvenience from people that didn’t really see the bigger picture and so the players treated comments about Arsene ‘losing it’ were just treated with a shrug of the shoulders and a ‘what do they know?’. However, already since the Bayern game we have seen Jack, Theo and Thomas Vermaelen come out in defence of the manager. To me it is the clearest indication that the manager is under more pressure now than he’s ever been in his career. Otherwise, why would the players take so much time and give so much media profile by talking about backing the manager?

It’s up to him and his players to prove the doubters wrong, and I hope they do, but I hope that the players don’t start mentally planning for the next boss. I know it’s an extreme statement to make, but the last time I saw players coming out in defence of the manager so much was for Roberto Di Matteo and a host of other Chelski managers they’ve had down the years. I know it is pointless comparing us with the classless chavs, but I just can’t help but see these similarities – much as I don’t want to. The Chelski players are notorious for their ability to oust a manager, and with that comes the mentality of planning for a new one. I seriously doubt any of the Arsenal players want to oust Arsene, but who knows if some of them are wondering what life at Arsenal would be like without him?

Of course, all of these negative noises from various sections of the media, roared on by the bitterness of Stewart Robson and the king of the trollers Adrian Durham from TalkSport, could also serve a more beneficial purpose for the cause. It could create a siege mentality amongst the fans, players and other stakeholders at Arsenal. It could see us all collectively batten down the hatches, surround the king and mount a hell of an offensive before the end of the season. The next few Premier League games will tell that. We have Villa at home and the Spuds away. A proper siege mentality with success would see us get maximum points from those games, although to be fair, if you offered me a win on Saturday followed by a draw at Shite Hart Lane the week after I’d probably take it right now.

Theo, Jack and Thomas are right: it is the players that must now take the responsibility for delivering Champions League football next season. They have to stand up and be counted. They need to get angry. They need to show the fight we saw us get to reach third spot last season. Starting with Aston Villa this weekend.

And we need to give them all the help we can.

Poking the Arsenal beast for a reaction

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Happy Friday gooners, hope all is well with thee.

Bit of a delayed post from me because I’m on annual leave and there ent no way I was going to wake up before 9am for no man, beast nor blog. In many ways, I’m a lazy, lazy man.

One person who is not a lazy man is Le Boss. Arsene had his press conference yesterday and as usual there were one or two things on his mind. He did talk about Thomas Vermaelen being almost at full fitness, which is great when you think that we don’t have a left back for the Bayern game, plus said that both Kos and Jack will face fitness tests tomorrow. Personally, I hope neither play and they are both rested against the Lancastrians, because now is just the time in the year when gambling on player fitness can sometimes result in the old ‘we won’t see him for the rest of the season’ problem rising its ugly head. I know we need to take Blaburn seriously as an opponent, and the FA Cup is one of only two trophies we could win, but if we don’t have enough of a squad to cope with the absence of those two, then we really do have some issues with the overall team. Plus, our experiences with Blackburn over the years has only been marginally different from the orcs near the River Trent. They still have one or two annoying gits on their books and so I am hoping for a smasherising tomorrow.

I suspect neither Kos nor Jack will play and we’ll see some rotation in a few positions on Saturday, including attack and midfield. More on that tomorrow though.

I was interested to read Arsene’s quotes about us playing well when going behind to ten men. Arsene talked about the good response against Sunderland and also, aside from the two early goals against City, the good response we had at home against the oil whores too. Arsene is no stranger to seeing his side down to ten men over the years and so it was pleasing to see that the team has the physical and mental faculties to deliver three points when against the kosh like they were last Saturday. Don’t get me wrong though, it was not pleasing at the time of watching that last ten minutes, I can tell you.

What I do find interesting is the ability of the team to react to adversity as they do. Whether that be being a goal behind or playing so poorly in the first half, or being down to ten men, we can’t deny that they team has shown that they are up for a fight. You do have to question however, why this continues to happen. Why do we constantly need a catalyst in order to spark into life? Why is it only when you poke the beast with a sharp stick that it roars and lashes out? The mark of championship and trophy winning teams is their ability to turn the screw and be motivated to win from the first whistle, and if I’m to be slightly critical over the team, it’s that they haven’t really exhibited that enough this season.

Is it a question of motivating the players better? Is it their preparation for the games that needs to be questioned? In all honesty I’m not 100% sure. What I am sure of though is that we are now putting together some momentum at a crucial time in the season. We have to ensure that we maintain this momentum through winning games and where better to do that than on you’re home turf on Saturday and then the following Tuesday.

That’s all folks. See you tomorrow.

Everton review: Grinding ‘ugly’

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Morning all. Right, straight down to business.

Ever reluctant, given our constant hiccups and false starts this season, that I am to proclaim to the world that Arsenal have ‘turned a corner’ I find myself today leaning very close towards uttering those words given our superb victory last night against Everton.

Goodison Park is a place that Chelski, Man City and the Spuds just a couple of weeks ago have all come a cropper against an industrious Everton side marshalled And well drilled by their commander-in-chief David Moyes. I said yesterday that I thought that we were in for a tough night and, if I’m honest, I did wonder whether divine intervention from Dennis to offer a draw before a ball was kicked would be a preferred option to sitting through ninety minutes of angst. Ninety minutes made all the harder by the fact the only way I could get an idea on how the game was progressing was through the Arseblogger’s live updates blog on his websites. Tis a tough time sitting on your sofa repeatedly hitting the ‘refresh’ button on your browser looking for the next line of text and, whilst I’m grateful I have something, I’d ideally always want to be there or at least watch it.

The game itself (from what I was reading at the time) started in superb fashion with us taking the lead from a Vermaelen header from a corner. I remember the days when we had the best team in the league and we couldn’t even beat the first defender with our corners, so hearing that we’ve chipped in with one like that is always pleasing. You can’t always score goals from open play and it’s important to know we’ve got that in our lockers.

So within ten minutes we were one up and even after the goal we continued to probe and press for the second. Aaron Ramsey, playing in a slightly unfamiliar attacking left forward position, had a few chances to double our advantage, but the Everton defence stood firm and when they didn’t the young Welshman was unable to find the target.

Robin was also close, hitting the post, and although we managed to avoid conceding, Everton also had their chances. The most notable of which I believe was a goal ruled out for offside when in fact Drenthe was clearly onside. Harsh on Everton but I won’t shed too many tears – I remember only last season seeing Saha standing two yards offside before receiving the ball and slotting it home against us at the Emirates to put them one-up. I think it’s also interesting that we seem to have had a couple of slices of ‘luck’ like that going our way of late, given some of the penalty decisions going against us not a month ago. It was Gary Player, that famous South African golfer, that said that it was ironic that the more he practiced, the luckier he got. And I also think it is ironic that the better we play, the more confidence we have as a team, the more we seem to get decisions go for us than agin. I guess football really is a ‘funny old game’ as they say.

So having not any of the game last night (I’ve Sky+ it don’t you worry!) I’m afraid my analysis on the overall performance is a little light. However, what I can talk about is the significance of last nights football. Not just on Merseyside, but in Manchester and London as well. For Arsenal this is the sixth victory in a row and represents a polar opposite of the mentally battered team that trudged off the Stadium of Light pitch having been knocked out of two cup competitions in under a week. This team – confidence-wise – bares no comparison. Their tails are up, the belief is high and they are looking around in the dressing room and saying to each other: “we can do this”. On Saturday we face Aston Villa and instead of wondering when RvP is going to rescue us, there will be a multitude of players who will all believe that each one of them is capable of notching a goal or two. Who knows, maybe even Chesney will start prowling the opposition box on corners?

A word as well for our ever-improving defence, who ground out a hard fought clean sheet and by the sounds of it thoroughly deserved it. As pundits are quick to remind us, the mark of a successful football team is the ability to ‘grind’ out results. This result last night had more grind about it than a Kenco factory. Robin spoke of the need to ‘win ugly’. The players listened and did as they were told.

Football is about confidence and right now we are so full of it we’ll have to start syphoning some of it off for a rainy day.

The significance of last nights result is made all the more…well…significant, when you look at how our rivals around us performed. Two goals up away from home, Liverpool looked like they hadn’t given up the ghost of fourth place to QPR. Cue three second half goals (two coming in injury time) for QPR and Liverpool now sit thirteen points away from us, and twelve from a top four finish. They may have the Carling Cup to polish their cabinet, but the icing on the scouse cake of Champions League football this year won’t be used to decorate their cup success. Across West London to North and we get more good news. Nobody expected Stoke to get anything against a Spurs team that have been pretty impressive up until the last month or so. But when Van Der Vaart snatched a last second goal, few would have expected it would be to draw level at the end, rather than to wrestle three points from the Rugby players. And finally, to the blue side of Manchester, where Samir Nasri popped up in the last five minutes to end Di Matteo’s winning run and condemn Chelski to another defeat.

Last nights results combined together made it a perfect night for gooners worldwide. We now sit happily one point clear of Tottenham, six clear of Chelski, and eight clear of Newcastle. Both the chavs and the spuds line up against each other on Saturday lunchtime for a televised kick off that would only be made juicier for us if we were able to play first and pick up the points before settling down to watch. It will be a funny one to watch actually. There will be gooners wanting Chelski to win and gooners wanting the spuds to draw. I doubt they’ll be many hoping for a Spuds win, but if we pick up points against Villa and the spuds do beat the chavs, it puts even more daylight between us and the Champions League places, so we could still see the positives.

So overall a happy nights football for us all. Let us remember this evening because in terms of turning the tides, it could be very important to how this season finishes.

Happy Thursday all.

Arsene’s bodacious, audacious and contagious (not really)

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The problem with Mondays is that they’re followed in quick succession by Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursday’s and Fridays – all of which have that little word ‘work’ assigned to them for most people. So Mondays often leave you in a dour mood as you see your weekend disappear slowly from your memory, fading like a dream you had the previous night. And the next weekend seems miles away.

What doesn’t help is when you get told that your journey into work on public transportation is also going to the dogs because of late engineering works.

The one plus point we all have for this week is a juicy encounter with AC Milan in the San Siro in the Champions League. Let’s just bow our heads for a moment as we think of those Northern teams who don’t have the same luxury as us this midweek….

Ok that’s enough of that. As the story of ‘The Legend’ draws to an end (for now) following the sumptuous last-minute goal to put us into fourth (for now) starts to subside, Le Boss is already casting his gaze south beyond the Alps and into Italy. Arsene says that we’re going to try to be ‘audacious’ in Meelan and score goals, keeping true to our style, attacking our Italian hosts as much as possible on Wednesday. I like the thought of Arsene saying things like ‘audacious’ to a waiting press pack. The thought of Wenger rocking up into his presser, joint in one hand, peace pipe in the other, with Pat Rice curled up in front of the table asleep makes me chuckle. Then, when the awaiting hacks try to probe him for quotes all they get are hyperbolistic (that a word) retorts of “yeah man, we’re gonna be all like, bodacious, audacious, contagious and spontaneous on AC’s ass. It’ll be bad ass, ya know?”

Other news coming out of London Colney is that Thomas Vermaelen is not happy playing left back and rarely feels ‘contented’ after games having played as a full back and not a centre back. If you read this story in the papers or an online English football website, it could be viewed as a bit of discontent from The Verminator. However, I think this is a bit of mischief-making from the tabloid press. I can’t confirm, as I’m sure I only saw this on Twitter, but I think the full interview was with the Belgian press and the British media have been very selective with their quotes when building their story today. Besides, if the Vermster is unhappy with playing left back I’ve got no problems with it. He even said himself that he’s only doing it for the benefit of the team. Given that we’ve had no left backs since December he will know that he is most suited out of our three fit CBs (Mert, Verm and Kos) to fill that gap and that it was only ever going to be a temporary assignment. In fact, given Mertesacker’s unfortunate injury at the weekend, I’d wager that Thomas will not be seeing his name next to the ‘LB’ column for quite some time now. particularly now Gibbs is back. Yes, it might only be a couple of games before be breaks down again, but Vermaelen will know that Le Boss, Le Fans and Le Club all know his and our best chances of success lie with him at the heart of the defence.

Fear not Thomas, you’ll get your wish.

Other than that I don’t think there’s that much else going on in the world of football. If I gave two hoots about ‘the handshake’ or ‘the apology’ I’d probably give an opinion on it, but as it centres all around nasty little rungs of players, managers and clubs, all of which I have as much interest in as the latest scores on Dancing-with-stars-on-ice-whose-careers-are-on-the-slide-so-they-have-to-appear-on-reality-TV, I just can’t be bothered.

Have a happy Monday all.