Middling to Average

Day 3 of my ceaseless quest to enlighten you on the Euros, and it’s time to look at those making up England’s midfield. Compared to the depth of the defence, it’s pretty sparse:

Steven Gerrard

He, along with quite a few others, is part of that ‘Golden Generation’ which we heard so much about but still failed to ever progress past a quarter final. He certainly remains one of the biggest names in the squad, and will likely start every game, but he doesn’t fill me (or anyone) with confidence, because he has simply failed to deliver on the international stage so many times. Debate is ongoing at the moment about whether he is actually that good any more, and whilst I don’t think you could say he’s past it, he certainly has seemed more inclined to spray long balls around, rather than pick up the ball and drive forwards himself as we used to see. Whether he’s past his best or not, if we want to progress, we need him to be playing well.

Frank Lampard

Currently the situation regarding his thigh injury is unclear. Despite who he is, it would be a blow for England if he was declared unfit for the tournament (not least because Henderson would be his replacement). The consensus seems to be that he would sit deep alongside Scott Parker in a midfield 3, and to be fair he has been doing that fairly well of late. Of course, that would mean the ancient Lampard-Gerrard conundrum rears its boring head once again, but maybe the deployment of Fwank in a role further back would ease that. If he’s injured, we’re seriously light of options in the middle.

Scott Parker

A guaranteed starter. Parker has suddenly found himself an integral part of the England team despite not getting a look-in for years. I haven’t loved him at Tottenham (naturally); I often think that if he were not English he would be seen less as a ‘40s throw-back Battle of Britain fighter pilot type, and more of a Nigel de Jong thug type. His vision on the ball is about as limited as an Alan Shearer tactical analysis, but that’s OK because he doesn’t need to be the one playing the defence-splitting pass, he needs to be the one making sneaky fouls before midfielders can bring forwards into play. This is something he does well.

James Milner

Milner seems to have been around for ages (in fact, according to Wikipedia, he made his England debut in 2009). He is an asset in tournament football because of his versatility: he is alright if nothing special on either wing; alright if nothing special in an attacking position in the middle; alright if nothing special as an emergency full back. Useful guy to have around, but probably (injury to Lampard permitting) won’t start.

Stewart Downing

Meh. Downing has provided the only properly controversial decision of Hodgson’s reign so far: most people looked at his stats (zero league goals, zero league assists) and decreed that he is rubbish. Personally, I think that the assists thing is slightly off: he was largely feeding the ball to Andy Carroll, who spent the first 95% of the season doing his best impression of a donkey who has been kept down a year in school. If Downing had been assisting a more capable striker, his stats would have improved slightly. That aside, watching him play tells you more than statistics ever could: he is a bog-standard, unexciting winger, with a skill level typical of most of England’s second string. Meh. Meh. Meh.

Theo Walcott

Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I remain a fan. His return of 8 goals and 11 assists this season has been decent, if not remarkable, and he has that ability to finish instinctively, provided he doesn’t have any time to think about what he’s going to do. He will probably start, and if nothing else the knowledge of what his pace can do to teams will mean they can flood forward less freely. It is frustrating when he tackles himself, but he also poses a genuine threat and, without Rooney starting, we need all of those we can get.

Ashley Young

Young is one of those players who I never really thought anything of, until he moved to United and suddenly seemed incredibly dangerous even though he’s actually nothing that special (another example would be Valencia). Could start ahead of Downing, but then we will have two very fast wingers with arguable end product starting. To be fair to him, he’s scored in his last 4 England games so he must be doing something right, but I just don’t see him having a big impact. Call it a hunch.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Clearly there’s something to the Ox. He comes on against Norway and almost sets up a goal with his very first touch, in what was an otherwise dull game. He’s one of those rare players that every time he’s on the ball, there’s a certain expectation that he’s going to do something with it. For this reason, I hope he makes more than a few conciliatory cameos in this tournament. If we’re drawing with France, say, I’d love to see him come on with 70 minutes gone and really get a chance. Having said that, I am well aware that it is somewhat alarming that so much vague hope rests on his admittedly burly shoulders. I fully supported Wenger’s decision (he’ll be glad to hear) to use the Ox sparingly throughout this season. Look what a full season did to Jack Wilshere (how much brighter would the midfielders section look with him in it?) I hope that the pressure of a country that has only really seen him play a bit-part so far doesn’t affect him, when and if he gets a decent shot. I’d like to see more Michael Owen in ’98 than Theo Walcott in ’06.

So there you have it, the cream of English midfielders. If it looks a bit more like semi-skimmed, gone-off milk, then blame the FA. Or grass-roots football. Or Paul Scholes. The fact is , a starting 5 (for the first 2 games) of Walcott, Parker, Lampard, Gerrard, Young, is decent and arguably could progress from the group. The problem is that Lampard might be out, and substitutions will need to made. That’s where Downing, Milner, and maybe even Henderson(!) come in and start to make everything look a bit bland. Generally, it takes a whole squad to do well in these tournaments, and the midfield is somewhere where we’re likely to come up short.

Tomorrow I’ll return to consider the final piece in the jigsaw, the forwards. Until then.

                                         This beige square sums up my thoughts on Stewart Downing

Clean Sheets and Dirty Talk

OK, so today it’s the defenders that made the 23. With the injury to Barry and the call-up of Jagielka we are now taking 8 rather than 7, so let’s have a look:

Glen Johnson

Like most Liverpool players, he didn’t tear up any trees this season but he is experienced enough to do the job adequately. You worry about the game against France though- Johnson is not particularly disciplined in terms of keeping shape at the back, and he will be up against Ribery, who will be interlinking with Nasri and Benzema. If Walcott (or whoever) is pinning the opposition left-back back with pace, Johnson is an asset on the overlap. If we are the ones being pinned back, you sense his positional play will be a bit of a weakness.

Gary Cahill

The second starting centre half position will be between him and Lescott. He was an asset to Chelsea during their push for (or, more accurately, purchase of) the Champions League, and that kind of backs-to-the-wall defending will no doubt stand him in good stead if he is chosen to start. Still, he doesn’t fill me with that warm, safe, Tony Adams-type feeling that a real English centre-half should. Probably the Chelsea factor.

John Terry

Bleurgh. At least he’ll feel at home in ‘liberal’ Ukraine.

Joleon Lescott

Decent. The second centre half position is one where we have good options. I thought he was excellent for Man City pretty consistently (with the exception of that near-fatal header back to Cisse on the last day), and I will be happy if he starts, with Cahill on the bench.

Ashley Cole

If you can look past the loathability (and I can’t), he’s a very good left-back and one of the few players England have that would get into most other international teams.

Phil Jagielka

It shows the relative strength in depth we have at centre back that Jagielka is our fourth choice. He’s another decent if unspectacular player, and there’s no shame in that when it’s unlikely that he’ll play at all.

Leighton Baines

I don’t love him or hate him, but he’s a decent, solid left-back. I must admit I don’t watch Everton all that much, but I don’t recall any massive Baines howlers. I’m in the rare position of hoping Ashley Cole doesn’t get injured, but if he does, at least we have another qualified left-back (unlike at right-back). This will probably be Cole’s last tournament and so it will be good to get Baines some international experience so he can disappoint us next time around.

Phil Jones

Is more likely to be used in case of injury (or confidence-shattering mishap) to Glen Johnson than anywhere in the centre. This is worrying. The man with the rubber face   is not really a right-back at all. At Man. United he has been pinged from position to position like a Chelsea WAG and has suffered for it. Clearly a great prospect for the future but why take him as specific right-back cover? Ah yes. The lack of viable alternatives. That’s why.

So, there you have it. I think if there is any chance of us progressing out of the group, it will have to be down to an extremely tight defence, because I can’t see us setting the world alight with our attackers. Luckily, this is probably the strongest area of the squad. A starting back four of Johnson, Terry, Lescott, Cole, whilst not exactly Italy in 2006 , is experienced and looks good on paper. There is convincing back-up everywhere but at right-back. Let me remind you that Greece won Euro 2004 scoring only 7 goals. Spain won the World Cup scoring 8. In tournament football, clean sheets are everything, and I’m feeling surprisingly positive about the defence overall.

Back tomorrow when it all starts to go downhill as I take a look at the midfield.

My kingdom for increased squad depth

So, with the Euros heading our way faster than John Terry towards a trophy he has contributed nothing towards, it is the duty of your humble blogger to analyse the England  squad that Hodgson has finalised this morning. I’ll start off today with the goalkeepers, and work through the rest as the week goes on. I am only one man…

Goalkeepers:

Joe Hart

It is worrying to me that so much seems to depend on him staying fit. The thing is, he isn’t that amazing. I’m not saying he’s a bad goalkeeper, far from it. But his shot-stopping ability is far, far better than his handling of crosses (in terms of a truly safe goalkeeper, England have never replaced David Seaman). Hart is excellent, but his deficiencies under high balls have been masked by the fact that he had the Premier League’s stingiest defence ahead of him, including a rejuvenated Gael Clichy and Zabaleta as the left and right full backs. He wasn’t facing the barrage in the league that he will be at the Euros with the distinctly less-good Baines and Johnson occupying those positions. However, he does seem to reassure the defence that plays in front of him and one has the feeling that he is good enough to keep the number one for the foreseeable future. And his shot-stopping ability is actually excellent. Maybe I’m just being pessimistic.

Rob Green

He was decent against Norway at the weekend. The reaction to his admittedly ill-timed mistake against the USA two-years ago was typically hysterical and must have done wonderful things to his confidence. Again, he is a decent shot-stopper but less than sure under high balls from out wide. Come to think of it, that seems to be what separates the good goalies from the great. You can count the number of current goalkeepers that are actually confidence-inspiring when facing both shots and crosses on your fingers. Not a disastrous back-up goalkeeper to have, but isn’t exactly going to inspire fear in opposition strikers.

Jack Butland

Unsurprisingly, I have never seen this guy play, so I can’t comment on his ability. What I can comment on is the indictment his call-up is on the paucity of English goalkeeping talent. We have one goalkeeper who arguably would not look out of place in the really great teams. Rob Green is a decent deputy, as above. But the fact that the third choice goalkeeper is a 19-year old who has only ever played in League Two is, if you think about it, astonishing. And this is not to put him down, if he’s the third-best available then good luck to him, I’m sure he’ll go on to have a great career in the Premier League. But that’s in the future…

Let’s compare to some of the other teams going to the Euros. Spain will be taking along Casillas, Valdes and Reina (I assume). Three goalkeepers who would start for the best teams in England (and I include Reina in that, who I still think is in the Premier League’s top two goalkeepers. He’s their third choice.) OK, England are not at Spain’s level, and if we compare all of our players to their frankly ludicrous pool of talent we’ll be getting suicidal pretty quickly. What about France, who are probably just about at our level, at least defensively? Lloris, Mandanda and Carrasso. 2 excellent and one very good. And, you’ll notice, none of them have only ever played in the fourth division. Holland: Stekelenburg, Michel Vorm, Tim Krul. Russia: Akinfeev, Malafeev, and (er) Anton Shunin, who admittedly I do not know about but plays for Dinamo Moscow.

This has become a rant. The point I am essentially making is that we appear very limited in terms of indigenous goalkeeping talent at the moment. To be reduced to taking a 19-year old uncapped new kid, for the country that has produced Banks, Shilton and Seaman, seems quite sad.

In fact, why not give Seaman a quick call? He played the other day and looked just as good as the old days, until he was chipped by the lead guitarist off of Kasabian. But Seaman’s never been lobbed in an important game for England...

I’ll be back tomorrow with a look at the defenders. Three of whom play for Chelsea. Expect bile.

Tail, meet legs.

Err, sorry about that.

Firstly, the excuses for my three-month absence. Suffice to say, I was betrayed. After finally summoning up the courage to write about our end to the season (summary: phew) something terrible happened that made me consider whether I had any love left for football. Seeing that gurning clown prancing about in his shinpads, my mind turned to this blog. Could I really start it up again in the knowledge that football can bring that amount of pain? Where would I begin?

However, I have battled through, and due to an overwhelming surge in popular demand, I have dusted off the old laptop and am ready to spew my thoughts on football into the minds of my multitudinous readers.

'But Joe, the season's finished!' I hear you exclaim. Well, yes. But this year ends in an even number, so to fill the void that is normally filled by watching static for 2 hours at 3pm on a Saturday, we're going to have wondrous, fulfilling international football to feast upon. Well, 'feast upon' is a bit strong. 'Watch' would be more accurate.

I know, I know, it's passé to like international football. It's out of fashion to drink beer, take your top off, paint a red cross on your face and cheer on Ing-er-land to a heroic group-stage exit. But I'm going to anyway, because I bloody love it, and you should too. Enjoy the way that big players consistently fail to turn up at major tournaments. Embrace the inevitable controversy surrounding racist Ukrainian fans. Take pleasure in the way that in England's draw with Sweden, most of the actual viewing will be of stunning blonde girls in the crowd who catch the eye of pervy cameramen. Yes, the football will be of a much lower standard. Much, much lower, if you're supporting England. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, and I'm going to.

With that in mind, I have set aside the weeks between June the 8th and July the 1st for a veritable buffet of football. And, if you've forgiven my 3-month absence from the blogging world (are people still saying 'blogosphere'?) you'll be able to read my collected ramblings on the progress of England, as well as the other games I watch, and a variety of various other Euro and Arsenal related things.

Don't let the presence of John Terry spoil it for you. If you're English, support England and, you never know, we might just pull off a Greece. If you're from a non-European country (and a warm hello to my few regular readers in Taiwan and Kazakhstan), may I recommend Spain or Germany, they're likely to bring you the most joy.

So, it's good to be back. I'll return later this week after Hodgson's confirmation of the final 23 on Tuesday. See you then.

                                                                      Even the Swedes are jealous...

Sunderland 1-2 Arsenal: God Does His Thing

Sometimes, too often, there are weekends where everything goes wrong in football. Arsenal lose, all of our competitors and close challengers win, Stoke and Blackburn, Bolton and Wolves, all of the teams you love to hate somehow to conspire to do wonderfully. These, in turn, are balanced out by those wonderful weekends where pretty much everything falls your way.

This was one of those. Clearly, 3 points for us were super-vital. More on the gaining of those points in a minute. We also saw Liverpool, Newcastle and Chelsea lose. Unfortunately, the Newcastle result came at the hands of an astonishingly effective Totnum performance, but I suppose if we're being ultra-realistic, we have to accept (gulp) that that bunch will be finishing above us and that we will be fighting for the fourth place with the three other teams mentioned above. From that perspective, the Spuds did us a favour, even if it did stick in your throat slightly to see Redknapp celebrating so irritatingly 5 times. He reminded me of a dog that can't quite believe it's being allowed to go for a walk.

I must confess to not seeing our match in its entirety, and thus I can't comment overly on our performance. I watched one of those half-hour highlight packages afterwards, but you all know what happened so I won't detail that. One thing that won't have been discussed much is Aaron Ramsey. I know he has been criticised a bit lately, which hasn't been entirely unwarranted. I was very glad he got a goal, and so soon after coming on. Despite his less brilliant (though still not by any means terrible) performances since the new year, I remain convinced that he is going to be a major component of Arsenal's midfield for a while to come, and it was good to see him celebrating a goal. Henry, rightfully, grabbed most of the attention. What can a mere blogger say about him that hasn't been said a thousand times already. The man was simply born to be part of the history of our football club. I have loved watching him celebrate his three goals almost more than score them- he celebrates like a fan. That goal was so important to the club, to the fans, and to the man himself. It's odd, as well, that he would score an injury-time winner when notable football sage and all round prediction guru Mark Lawrenson would have bet against him scoring in the league at all. (Disclaimer: alarming smile in link, open with caution). Don't worry though, your license fee pennies were better spent this week, when Guru Lawrenson out-predicted the Muppets.

Sentiments aside, it goes without saying that those three points were absolutely enormous on a day when all of the teams around us dropped points. Not only do we gain three points on Liverpool, Chelsk and Newcastle, we leapfrogged Chelsea into fourth place. What is it about football that means you are constantly 'leapfrogging' teams. In what other circumstances is that word used? We overtook them. Whatever we did, we are now in fourth place. I remember solemnly predicting a few weeks back tbat we were out of the race for fourth. More proof, were it needed, that what you are reading are the semi-formed ramblings of a Mark Lawrenson-level bullshitter. What I had forgotten was how crazily quickly things can change in this game. Chelsea are on a run of form that make our recent run of form look like a slightly less bad run of form. Their 10-match record looks like: DDDLWWDDDL. Yikes. I suspect that that run can't go on forever, they will no doubt find their feet soon. Which is why taking full advantage like we did over Sunderland is so important. There is now very much a four way race for that one spot, and although we have crept ahead, there is still a third of the season to go. I'm not sure if we're favourites for fourth, but we have shown resolve and tenacity (as well as luck that our run of awful form coincided with Chelsea's) in the last two weeks to claw our way back to the very minimum level that should be expected of us. Fingers crossed we are gathering the necessary momentum.


In a weekend dominated by off-the-pitch matters, we did our job, and that's all I'm really interested in. That Thierry Henry was the one to finish the job off made it that much sweeter. This was one of those weekends when everything goes your way (even Stoke lost!) so let's enjoy that while we can. Coming up is the small matter of a midweek game against the Italian league leaders. I'm going, so will write on my return. Let's hope it's a good one, but for today and tomorrow, let's just enjoy our leapfrogging.


Until next time,
Joe


Follow me on Twitter @joeblogsarsenal

Arsenal 7-1 Blackburn

First thought: phew. It goes without saying that we needed a win
yesterday. It wasn't obvious that we would get it, and I certainly
didn't predict that we would get it with such ease. Before I describe
the performance and the impact one might hope it has on morale for
games to come, I need to add the caveat that Blackburn were truly
awful. Watching them yesterday, it was very much clear why they are 19th in the league. Add to that the fact that they played with 10
men for most of the game after Gael Givet was rightly sent off, and
we'd be wrong to take too much from the thrashing we delivered.

Having said that, let's not be too hard on ourselves. This is the
Blackburn team that beat United a couple of weeks ago. Scoring 7
against any Premier League side is a feat. Gael Givet was sent off
after we had quite clinically 'won' the game in the first half. They
were terrible, but we made them look worse.

I was so pleased with the impact of Walcott and AOC. They were very
effective, and when you have wingers (or wide forwards, as neither was
really playing on the wing) that are getting behind the
defence so effectively, you're going to create chances. And when you have a striker
of the calibre of Robin van Persie in the box, chances are you're
going to score from some of those chances. People might look at van
Persie's goals yesterday and think they were all relatively
straight-forward. And in terms of the actual finishing, they were. But
watch the replays and focus on the man's movement in the build up to
each. He's like a ghost. Defenders know that they are playing against
the most in-form striker in the world, but they can't defend against
him because his movement makes that impossible. He is phenomenal to
watch. 3 goals and 2 assists yesterday, one of which was a visionary
through ball to the Ox. If you didn't know before, let me tell you:
this is one of the best footballers ever to play for Arsenal. Bold
words, I know. Let me put it another way: he has now scored more goals for Arsenal than Dennis Bergkamp. That says it all. Obviously, one of our main priorities now has to be
keeping him. He deserves to have a team built around him.

Others impressed. Rosicky started and looked really good, as he has
done recently. Koscielny is a very solid defender. More ammo against
the mugs who argue that Wenger inherited a defence and can't spot
defensive talent. For every Cygan, there's a Koscielny. I'm a big fan
of the Kos.

So what does this comprehensive victory mean? Certainly not that we've
turned a corner. We may have, that remains to be seen. Maybe we never
had a corner to turn, perhaps we were just on a straight road but had
foolishly gone into a Little Chef and eaten an omelette which had
turned out to be made with 6-week old eggs, got salmonella, and had to
spend a month recovering. Or something. One of the best ways to get
out of a deep rut is to spank a load of useless-ex-allardyce-long-

ball-hoof-merchant-relegation-fodder clowns 7-1, so let's hope it was the tonic that allows us to improve our form
to the extent that we can at least start to idly dream about not
playing in the Europa League next year.

As I write, I have recently returned from watching United do us a
massive favour against Chelsea. Of course, if they really wanted to do
us a favour, they could have not beaten us 8-2 in August, but I
suppose it's the thought that counts. I know I have written off our
chances of coming fourth, and I stand by that, but what is the point
of being a football fan if you can't cling to the straggliest of
straws? There's still a mathematical chance, and Chelsea showed off
some more of their deep-rooted flaws tonight. 3-0 up to United, they
were pulled back by 2 Wayne Rooney penalties and a Chicharito header.
One thing you could say is that that would never have happened under
Mourinho. Chelsea are certainly not the force they were, and watching
them objectively (something I struggle with, admittedly), they do not
necessarily look stronger than Arsenal. There's still hope, even if
your heart tells you that fourth is out of our reach.

Overall, I'm happy with the weekend. Newcastle won, of course but if
you see Chelsea as our main competitors for fourth place, this was yet
another opportunity to make up points on them, and an opportunity we
took. We scored 7 goals, RvP got a hatrick, Thierry scored in his last game at the Emirates, and Stoke lost. Call me a
man of simple pleasures, but that for me is a great weekend of
football.

Until next time,

Joe

Arsenal 0-0 Bolton: Let’s Play the Blame Game

How to describe the fortunes of Arsenal at the moment? Malaise? Torpor? Stuck in a rut? Simply not good enough? Last night has left me totally disheartened. No 4^th place for us, I’d put money on it. This team doesn’t seem to have the wherewithal to fight for 4^th place. Currently, we’re outside of the f*cking Europa League positions. Talk about dire.

Who can we blame? The manager, to an extent. No (proper) signings in January probably didn’t surprise many people, but it infuriated plenty. Having been a Wengerphile for so long I don’t know if I now deflect blame from him automatically without being objective enough. But look, we had the same players that we had when we went on that decent winning run that seems so long ago now. This horrendous run of form, then, can’t be down to a lack of signings. Can we blame injuries? There were plenty in January (this is Arsenal), and they played their part, but those were mainly in defence. I think the problems lie further forward; defence certainly wasn’t the issue last night. What else? Luck? Certainly, it’s played a part. On another night we would have been 3-0 up at half time. Having said that, Bolton missed a fair few chances of their own. Not luck then. Psychological issues? It’s well known that confidence takes a long time to build up, and not long to shatter. Maybe, but where was the broken confidence in the second half of the Aston Villa game in the FA Cup? Those were the same players. Is this a strictly league-bound problem?

Many question marks, as you can see, and very few answers. I suspect the answer is a bit from each pile. All the ingredients, combined, make one revolting pie of shit form, topped with a lumpy gravy of sliding league position and served with a salad garnish of fan disenchantment. For desert: Andrei Arshavin’s career.

What makes this even worse, for me, is that there are only three teams in the league who are definitively better than us. Chelsea are stumbling through the season like Boris Johnson stumbles into tackles. Liverpool and Newcastle are ahead of us not really on their own merit, but because of our failings. Don’t get me wrong, they deserve to be ahead of us, but only because their form has been marginally less awful than ours. In our last four games, had we taken the nine points we could reasonably have expected, instead of one, we’d be three points behind Tottenham. I know, it’s like saying if Owen Coyle had fewer teeth, he wouldn’t look so much like a dolphin- he doesn’t, so he does.

 But don’t be mistaken that Spurs are a wonderful team and have been in such good form that they’re uncatchable. Had we taken the points we ‘should’ have over the last month, we’d be right behind them, and well clear of the dross of Liverpool and Newcastle. Fourth is up for the taking, but we’re not up for taking it.

I am not one of the fans calling for Wenger’s head. Not because of what he has done for the club, not because he is a wonderful manager going through a very tough season (all true), but because fans calling for the removal of a manager because of a poor run of form is the reserve of bottom-of-the-table dross, and clubs run by amoral Russian billionaires. I still possess, deep down, that glimmer of hope that this season will be just a blip, and that soon Arsenal will be back where they belong. I suppose that’s what keeps any fan sane.

At the moment, however, that blip is a needle hidden in a haystack. A tiny needle, and a huge haystack. I won’t even begin to consider Saturday’s game. I don’t want to give myself false hope, I truly no longer believe that we can or will finish fourth. The best I’m hoping for now is a run in either cup and some serious discussion among the leadership about how to turn this club around. Otherwise we could be looking at a couple of years in the wilderness, at least.

Pessimistically yours,

Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JoeBlogsArsenal