Arsenal 3-2 Aston Villa: Remembering What a Win Feels Like

Apologies for the lateness. I was having some issues with my keyboard- specifically the letters c, h and v were doing nothing. Very odd, but the problem has been resolved. Lucky, because ‘Jon Terry is a useless unt’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.

So, at half time on Sunday we were 2-0 down. The boos returned, although, I must say, I still think that’s a minority. Sitting in the ground, the reaction of everyone sitting around me was of ‘why are these morons booing’? I was extremely unhappy, with the performance, with the manner in which both goals were conceded, with the generally shit start to the year that Arsenal had made, but I don’t see why my negativity should be transmitted to the players, particularly when there was still a half of football to be played. Having said that, I can understand the frustration of the crowd. Here was a team that, despite not playing that badly, had gone two goals behind to a totally inferior team through nothing but defensive mistakes and laxity. A team that has lost its last three league games, and that only has one realistic hope of winning a trophy this season. A team that had shown that promises of a renewed strength were false. All in all, a bit of booing was perhaps to be expected, if not enjoyed.

The second half was one of those rare times that make watching football great. We came out, attacked, attacked, attacked, scored, attacked a bit more, scored again, attacked a bit more, then scored again. I was delirious. We had had a similar amount of possession, but had seemed to pose a much more direct threat than in the first 45 minutes. Everything we did ended up at least in the penalty box, rather than fizzling out. I said at the time that had we been 3-0 down at half time, we probably would have scored 4 goals in quick succession. Aston Villa’s collapse played a part. It was almost Arsenal-esque on their part- to turn victory into defeat that comprehensively and quickly was straight out of the Arsenal playbook, but we can’t put is solely down to that. Our players showed some of that character that we are all so desperate to see. I loved it.

Make no mistake, we can win the FA Cup this year. Why not? We will have to beat Sunderland or ‘Boro away in the next round, and why shouldn’t we? Do that and we are in the quarter finals. I still maintain that there is no team in the country that a fully-firing Arsenal team couldn’t beat. If I were in charge of Arsenal, I would tell the players that this is what we are going for this year. Obviously, 4^th place has to be a priority, but then so does silverware. If you asked me whether I would prefer to win the FA Cup or come 4^th, the reasonable side of me would say that the latter would be the best for the club. However, we can do both, and we should attempt to do both. I’ve got a good feeling about the FA Cup.

The news about Jack Wilshere is a huge blow, but not anything that most of us didn’t know, in our heart of hearts, we would be hearing sooner or later. Long-time readers (ha) will remember this piece I wrote, where I said that Jack not returning at all was one of the things I least wanted to see this season, but probably would. A huge shame, but what can we do? Part of being an Arsenal fan these days is coming to terms with long-term injuries to our best players. I won’t go into the myriad arguments about why all of our best players are so injury-prone, or why minor injuries become major, or why it’s always us. Life’s too short for that. My reaction to the Wilshere news (besides a knowing sigh) was to think immediately about how we can best manage that loss. That means the rotation of Arteta, Ramsey, Song, Coquelin, Diaby(!), Rosicky and Benayoun. Without Wilshere, we have the makings of a decent, top-four midfield, just about. It’s a matter of managing our remaining resources wisely, something that I’m sure Arsene is devoting much of his time to.

Tomorrow we face Bolton away. I despise Bolton. A remnant of the Allardyce years. I have complained before about the myth that Owen Coyle has instilled in them a free-flowing, passing game. It’s a media creation: just watch them play tomorrow and decide if they have moved away from the cloggers that they are rightly seen as. We need a win tomorrow, no two ways about it. Anything else will rightly be considered a disaster. We are 5 points behind Immoral Post-Soviet Oligarchs FC, who play in Swansea tonight. Assuming they win, that gap will be 8 points. Anything less than a win tomorrow and we really will have to start planning for life in the Europa League. Let’s hope that the Aston Villa game will be the spark needed to reignite our push for fourth and beyond. Stranger things have happened.

Till next time,

Joe

Arsenal 1-2 Man United: Third Loss Running

Well, that was inevitable.

Where to start? I suppose one positive to be taken from today was that... erm... well... we didn't lose 8-2. That's a start. Also, Spurs lost, meaning that in terms of the race for fourth, we dropped a single point further behind Chelsea this weekend despite this totally dispiriting defeat.

Enough of that. In reality this was a real low. We have now lost 3 games in a row in the league. Even at the start of the season I don't believe we hit that number. Too depressing to check. We are 5 points off Chelsea in fourth place. Ten, ten, off Spurs, with 16 games to go. Eighteen off Man City. I believe that we now need to seriously begin considering life without the Champions League next season, something that Wenger has already admitted would be a disaster. It's not guaranteed, we could still sneak into fourth, but we are five points away and seemingly going backwards. As I've said before, even a team in form would struggle to overcome that gap, and we are not in a team in form. Well we are in form, but that form is shit.


The atmosphere at the game was largely positive and encouraging, but I do notice a great deal of frustration now. One gentleman behind me was expressing his views loudly throughout the match. From his erudition, I assume he was some kind of professional football analyst, perhaps a correspondent for the Times or the Telegraph. 'TAKE THAT FAKKING COAT OF WANGER YOU CAAAAAAANT!!!', he opined, rightly annoyed by Arsene's choice of clothing. 'DO SUMFING YOU USELESS MUG!!!', he posited, seemingly disappointed that the manager wasn't warming up himself. The booing at the substitution of Oxlade-Chamberlain was the nadir of this crowd unhappiness. I was disappointed at the decision but told myself that there must have been a reason for it (turns out AOC had cramp). Not so the rest of the crowd. A chorus of boos greeted the decision, which no doubt inspired the struggling Arshavin. I can't understand that attitude. In a team that desperately needs a goal, surely support has to be the first priority? Wenger wasn't taking AOC off for Almunia. I can understand frustration, but not booing, and not on that scale. An argument for another day perhaps, but it certainly left a bitter taste.


In terms of the actual football, I am finding it hard to put my finger on what is going quite so wrong. Certainly today, but also against Swansea and Fulham, we struggled going forward from midfield. The tired-looking Aaron Ramsey looked... tired... today, and Rosicky was poor in the first half, though improved significantly in the second. It's tempting to say that we miss Arteta, which we clearly do, but it's not like he's a barnstorming central midfielder who unlocks defences with mazy dribbles. What we miss is his ability to 'turn over' the game, from defence to attack fluidly and with a minimum of fuss and mistakes. All that said, in the three games we have lost recently, we have scored four goals, so it's not like they've totally dried up. Our focus needs to be more on our defence, which is quickly beginning to resemble the February-September vintage. The main problem in the first half was Djourou, who looked totally lost at right-back. Seemingly every time United got the ball, they pinged it over to Nani, who looked up at Djourou's positioning, chuckled, and played in cross after cross. The last one of the half, unfortunately, was a goal. Why Vermaelen allowed himself to be outjumped by Valencia I don't know, but that error aside it was a goal that everyone could see was going to happen sooner or later. Djourou looked totally downtrodden. I know he's not a full-back, and it is quite a lot to ask, but when he kept getting sucked in to the middle so obviously, why didn't someone, Wenger or Rice or Vermaelen or Mertesacker or Szczesny, have a word and explain what he was doing wrong?


Anyway, Djourou was replaced at half time, and Wenger deserves credit for that decision. (Maybe not  a great deal of credit, but at least better than 'ABOUT TIME YOU USELESS TWAAAAAT!!!' from the scholarly gent behind me.) Yennaris did a lot better and most United attention in the second half came down the right. With the fact in mind that Yennaris is capable of playing against United for a half, you have to ask, why not two? A question that others will be asking, I'm sure.


Overall, you've got to be very, very worried. The points gap above us increases, the number of games we have left to get rid of it decreases, and the mood around the club is certainly lower than it has been for a few months. Three defeats in a row is a rarity, and not the good kind. As ever, I'm not totally pessimistic. We have players returning that will change this team for the better. Arteta, Wilshere, Sagna, Gibbs and Santos are all going to return at some point. In the astronomically unlikely event that our starting eleven strings a few games together, we will all be a lot happier, and I suspect results would improve. Chelsea aren't a great team, and stranger things have happened than us making up the requisite five points on them. However, for now, it's going to be one of those weeks where football websites are avoided. Try doing something productive instead.


Until next time,
Joe.


Follow me on Twitter @JoeBlogsArsenal

Swansea 3-2 Arsenal: Falling Away from the Top Four

Gloom. Doom. Two words that sum up quite nicely how I’m feeling about Arsenal at this moment. On a weekend when Spurs dropped points to Wolves, a win against Swansea was pretty much a must. A draw would have been massively disappointing. A loss is not far short of catastrophic. It’s not just the fact that Tottenham gained ground on us despite their own wretched result. Chelsea, the only other team we could conceivably catch, completed a fairly routine win over Sunderland. Four points now separate them and us. Further, Newcastle beat QPR today to move level with us on points. Had we beaten Swansea, we would have pulled away from them once again. As it is, we are looking over our shoulders and realising that Newcastle are not actually behind, they’re neck and neck. Seriously worrying.

I would now like to officially revise my position on Tottenham. I don’t think we will catch them. It’s not impossible, of course they are more than capable of bottling it, but they now have a 10 point lead with 17 games to go. That would be difficult enough to overcome even if we were a team in decent form, but we’re not. In the league, we’ve taken four points from our last four games. None in our last two.

It looked like it would be easy. Four minutes in, van Persie’s superb finish caused Martin Tyler to pause in his fellatio of Swansea City, albeit briefly. I worried over the next few minutes that the mistakes from the Fulham game would be repeated, and I was right. We failed to build on our early lead, and Swansea fought their way back into the game well. Their penalty was never a penalty, but at that point there were 16 minutes gone and we should have had enough to retake control of the game. Sadly not. The déjà vu continued after the break, with Dyer’s goal not against the run of play. Even at this point, though, we were in a better position than against Fulham, in that we had plenty of time to get back into it. The removal of Benayoun and the arrival of Henry was a move in the right direction. I actually thought that Ramsey should have made way as he had an absolute nightmare. Even apart from giving away the penalty and Swansea’s second goal, he seemed affected by the crowd’s booing of him when he was on the ball. He gave it away too much, something that quite a few Arsenal players could be accused of today. Even so, we got the vital second goal, a wonderful Djourou through ball splitting apart the Swansea defence and finding Theo Walcott, who finished calmly. It is almost certainly too dramatic, but I will say it anyway: our season hinged on the next 10 minutes. Would Arsenal play like the Arsenal of October, November and December, killing off the game and wrapping up three points? If so, they would gain ground on Tottenham, and go into next week’s clash with United in a confident mood. Alternatively, would Arsenal play like the Arsenal of February-September 2011, totally bottling it and conceding almost immediately? Sadly, you know the answer, and we will host Man United next weekend with a serious lack of confidence and form.

So where is the problem? This being Arsenal, injuries take some of the blame. I really thought we missed Arteta today. Ramsey did not do well, but neither did Benayoun. The midfield in general, including Walcott and Arshavin, should have dominated possession and chances after van Persie’s opener, but allowed themselves to outplayed. Injuries to full-backs and Vermaelen also affected us: Miquel looked alright at times, lost at others. Not a great day for Szczesny either, who was beaten somewhat too easily for the second goal and was probably at fault for the third. Injuries and off-days aside, I don’t know if there is some deeper problem with this Arsenal side that will prevent them from achieving their potential. I am tempted to say that there is not; the psychological demons of last year appeared to have been more or less exorcised until the Fulham game. Time will tell if they are resurfacing or if this is more of a blip that can be put down to an unusually makeshift back four, even for Arsenal, and a midfield missing one of its key anchors of this season in Arteta.

What did not aid my foul mood was the stream of bullshit emanating from the mouth of Martin Tyler. I don’t know if anyone else found him unusually irritating today, but I was reaching for the mute button every three minutes. His obsession with Swansea’s style meant that every pass they completed was evidence that they are on their way to the pantheon of football’s greatest sides. At one point in the first half he said that Arsenal were ‘being given a lesson in the way they like to play’.  Not one of their goals, indeed not one of their chances, came from wonderful football. The first was from a very harsh penalty, the second a mistake when Ramsey gave the ball away, and the third a hopeful through ball and a hesitant goalkeeper. Not quite the triangles that Tyler was trying to portray. At one point he mentioned how they were emulating Barcelona. That’s not to take anything away from Swansea. They beat us, and they deserved to beat us. Now we need to work out why.

All in all, then, not a good weekend. The chances of us getting into the top four are now entirely dependent on Chelsea and Tottenham, and once again we have to start looking over our shoulder at those in 6^th place, when we should be looking ahead. All is not lost though. Tottenham are still Tottenham. For now, we need to look at where we went wrong today, and fix all the problems before the visit of Manchester United in a week’s time.

Gulp.

Follow me on Twitter @JoeBlogsArsenal

This Blog does an Henry

OK, so I owe my innumerable legions of readers an apology. My form of late has been terrible. Since the Aston Villa game I have given you nothing. I know that, for many of you, your days are incomplete without reading my semi-drunken witterings. I should imagine that some of you have stopped functioning as human beings at all, stirring from your beds only to refresh this page, mumble about the lack of updates, and wonder vaguely if some ill has befallen your blogger. I can only apologise and hope that my forgiveness can be bought with some disparaging remarks about Spurs and perhaps a comment or two about John Terry. It's all I know.

Circumstances and geography have been the two major factors holding me back from my blogging destiny over the last few weeks, so I will try to summarise very quickly the matches that have gone uncommented on in that time. Here it goes.

Aston Villa 1-2 Arsenal: YES!
Arsenal 1-1 Wolves: Meh.
Arsenal 1-0 QPR: YES!
Fulham 2-1 Arsenal: Eurgh.
Arsenal 1-0 Leeds: YES!


As you can see, my analytical skills remain undiminished. Seriously though, the league results over the Christmas period were a mixed bag at best. Beating QPR was lovely, particularly given the other results that day. Drawing with Wolves was not, and losing to Fulham was all the worse for the crushing inevitability of the result when we failed to go 2-0 up and were dominating possession. All things considered, taking 7 points from the possible 12 above is not a disaster, but nor is it the form of a resurgent team who showed they can push into the top four and beyond in this half of the season. If I were a teacher, I would give the team a B- in terms of results over this period. Not terrible, but the nerds ahead of us all came out better. If it were a real school I'd give them all wedgies and steal their lunchboxes. Let me know when this analogy runs out of steam...


Anyway, away from the league, which I will visit tomorrow in more detail after the Swansea game, there was the small matter of the return of the greatest player ever to play in the Premier League. Maybe. TH14, rechristened TH12, came back and did what he used to do best. For me, the best thing about his goal was not the fact that it sent us through to the next round, or even that it was a returning hero that scored it. It was his celebration, the pure, angry joy of it, the hug with Wenger, the screaming 'I'm back' at the crowd. This man loves Arsenal, and clearly, scoring winning goals for Arsenal makes him very happy indeed. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Not that I would know, as I was watching in a pub in Geneva, Switzerland, continuing a fine run of missing iconic moments at the Emirates that started with us beating Barcelona last year. Even so, I made do, going appropriately mental and trying hard not to openly weep.


Away from the chest-thumping and feel-good factor, Henry's return is practically positive as well, meaning that Gervinho and Chamakh can go to the ACN without feeling guilty that their stream of goals will be missed, ahem. Naturally, RvP is still the main man, and fingers crossed he stays fit and scoring. But having as back-up one of the deadliest strikers ever to have played football can  be no bad thing, even if he does look slightly more Lampard-esque, physique-wise. That didn't stop his perfect first touch from that Alex Song ball, nor the trademark finish. Hopefully, we won't need to rely on him for goals, but if we were forced to, I wouldn't be altogether distraught. It might also take some of the pressure off of van Persie, which is going to be relentless in the coming weeks. I know Arshavin is expected to play a bit more during the ACN, but don't kid yourselves that a lot of the extra work isn't going to fall to van Persie in the absence of his African colleagues. As our best player, much of what we do is going to go through him, assuming he is fit and playing. Henry might provide some welcome relief.


Tomorrow we face Swansea away. The pressure on that game will be to some extent determined by results this afternoon, with three of the four teams above us in action. Fingers crossed that Bolton, Wolves and Sunderland can buck combined odds of over a trillion to one and win their matches. In particular, I would like to see Spurs lose. My confident prediction that Spurs can't go on like this due to the simple fact that they are Spurs is looking less convincing by the week. They are now nine points ahead of us, having won their pesky game in hand in midweek. Worrying, but there remains time to reel them in and dispatch them like one would dispatch an irritating mosquito. We just need to pick up some consistency again. Harry's date with Her Majesty is looming, and they have some African players shipping out. Theirs is a shallow squad with a huge discrepancy between their starting eleven and most of the rest of their players. Let's hope this works against them in the week to come.


Until tomorrow, fellow Gooners. And for those readers who suffered in my absence, my apologies again to you both.


Joe.
Follow me on Twitter @JoeBlogsArsenal