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The good, the bad and the ugly.

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Jan 272013

Firstly so no-one think I’m some sort of a pessimist, weldone to the lads for pulling through with one more win in what was a rather nail biting game. A simple but horrid combination of extremely good attacking and just as extreme but bad defending.

Before going ahead in the 16th minute we almost went down a goal like 20 seconds before that. Brighton we looking very solid, asking questions the defense couldn’t answer, we are lucky to have our offside traps working to out advantage. Tomas “little mozart” Rosicky looked absolutely phenomenal, adding the extra dynamic that we so desperately in the middle of the field. Playing the ball across to Podolski and then a beautiful lay off by the German to Giroud resulted in the opening goal and a major boost for the gunners. With all the momentum and we really looking like we were going to score a second, a set piece and some horrid defending from everybody ended that dream and resulted with an equaliser from the Championship side,ending the first half in a 1-1 stalemate.

Second half whistle goes and within minutes Giroud puts us ahead again with a beautiful ball from Diaby, who looked like he was struggling to keep up with the pace of the game. He (Diaby) is not looking solid at all at the moment, yes he makes the crucial pass and a goal saving tackle once in a while but he is very far from being the Viera he is compared to. On the complete flipside Ramsey is looking absolutely amazing. I have never been a fan of the Welsh International but lately I think he is filling Arteta’s shoes pretty well. He has a good balance of attacking and defending and even though his pace is nothing to brave about, his positiong and tactical awareness are off the charts at the moment. Wanting to add to his goal tally Podolski shook the cross bar with an insane freekick from just outside the box.

Then the umspeakable happened. A defensive blunder by interim captain Merti saw Brighton draw blood for the second time with a rather simple header from the Argentine Ulloa, putting the sides level with two goals a piece. Wenger panicked as did every other arsenal supporter watching the game so, “The big guns came on” in attempts to try and fix the mess that was made.The introduction of Jack and Theo just brought the game to life, it was like I was watching flashbacks from the mid-week victory. My prayers were answered when Gibbs came on to add some stability to the back four and some much needed pace on the left. Walcott ended the story as he fired a long range shot and it took an unlucky but rather appreciated deflection to send the keeper one way and the ball straight to the back of the net, putting us back In the lead with a 3-2 scoreline.

The story does end well for the gunners as we progress to the next round. A little concerned with the defending at the moment, whether it was all a lapse of concentration or confussion amoungest players, the expectaion of playing a high level football is upon us and if we do not shape up we will be punished.

I am proud to be a gunner today. They are looking great.
Love my team.

By Ntokozo Hlongwane

Arsenal to make bid for Adrian Lopez – Why we need him!

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Oct 192012

We can all breathe a sigh of relief, the international break is almost over, and doesn’t the West Ham game feel like months ago? However, don’t fret, it’s only a matter of days before the same football media who frothed at the mouth criticising the national team for its inability to pass the ball, will be criticising Arsenal for doing precisely the opposite.

This morning we have been linked to Adrian Lopez, apparently the Atletico Madrid striker has a £14.6 million buy-out clause and Wayne Veysey is also bright enough to realise that by putting a decimal point in a transfer story, it makes it seem more genuine. However, in this case, there are legs in the story. We were apparently (same source) close to buying Lopez towards the end of the summer and even considered dropping the Giroud transfer at the last minute, when it appeared that Lopez was available.

Now I’m pleased we bought Giroud, he’s the type of physical presence that we’ve needed for a while, and probably thought we had secured with Chamakh. There are certain teams you need some muscle up front against but Lopez offers something definitively different. He has the specific ability that we haven’t had since Freddie Ljungberg – he makes runs behind the opposition defence, anticipating a through ball, beating the offside trap – it’s deadly.

I agree that every international striker should have this down pat, but most don’t manage to do so naturally. Ian Wright bagged scores of goals for Arsenal making exactly the same run, and he was very fortunate to have the world’s best number 10 putting them on a plate for him. Thierry Henry wanted the ball in different areas, he’d drift out wide and collect the ball relatively deeply, but he had the type of unparalleled pace that would decimate full backs and centre halves as he ran past them. The awareness to see a space, make the move into it at the right moment, collect the ball with a first touch which then establishes a scoring opportunity – that’s a gift that ensures that players blessed with it usually command £25 million transfer fees. As Mr Wenger won’t pay more than £16 million, when an asset comes on the radar at our comfort level, we should strike. Football is essentially a constant challenge to attract and retain the best players available at your level.

Speaking of which, Robin Van Persie changed his game (or was told to change it) in his final season to allow Arsenal to play more directly, by playing close to the centre half, playing a wall ball with his back to the defender and then taking a touch on the return ball before (often) smashing it in the net. Great to watch and also very hard to defend against. For the record, I was gutted when RVP left, but let’s be fair, without his goals last season we would have finished outside the top 3 places needed for Champions League qualification and would have struggled to attract players like Podolski and Cazorla.

At the moment we are fortunate to have a surfeit of the type of footballer who can complement a system that plays in a striker like Lopez – in particular, we have Santi Cazorla who can spot movement and almost faultlessly deliver pinpoint passes. Recently, it’s what we’ve been missing, so if Mr Wenger really has £35 million burning a hole in his pocket, get on the phone to El Vicente Calderon and get the negotiations moving.

By Ian Byrne

Good Habits – do the Gunners have any?

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Oct 012012

Wild animals survive day to day by following a strict routine. Any Maverick behavior will probably 9 out of 10 times get you killed. So if an Impala sees a Lion it runs and runs until danger is gone, that’s how it’s able to survive. Animals are born with some behaviors that allow them to cope with their environment, wildebeest calves for example are able to run faster than Usain Bolt a few minutes after they have been born. I saw on the discovery channel on one day young male lions that clearly hadn’t come across honey badgers before trying to practice hunting on them. They learned pretty quickly that the ill-tempered honey badgers are not to be messed with. The young lions went back to their dens with honey badger bite marks to show for their troubles.

A lot might be wondering what the African Savannah has to do with Arsenal. I wanted to write a piece last week but I felt there was a missing piece in the puzzle which for me was the Chelsea game. To me this game was where I was going to learn about where our Arsenal ship was pointed and how Arsene has evolved his ideas. Arsene for the start of the season has been pragmatic; he knows that teams that win the championship defend well. We seem to have swapped places with Manchester United in terms of last season we were leaking goals at an incredible pace. History proves it that the team that concedes the least goals usually goes to win the league. Football is a game of momentum and even in tight games as long as the defence keeps solid then there is a better chance of getting at least a point. If the defence is weak then you get pegged back before you know it you are chasing the game and then Blackburn Rovers last season happens.

Football like any other theory in life in this piece I used an example of an African jungle is about good habits, Its about continuity, so that means not rocking the boat by changing the personnel too much. Again back to good habits, if players keep on playing together again and again and again partnerships are formed they understand each other and usually there are no surprises. The positive thing I suppose this season is that You can’t name more than 2 games where the opposition scored because simply of good play but mostly to mistakes. The bad news it that we were one of the teams last season that conceded the least goals in open play. Carl Jenkinson, Per Mertesacker are an example of players with good habits, they keep everything simple they follow the same formula over and over again. This has contributed to the defence being very mean this season. Rocking boat doesn’t have to be a change of personnel because its unrealistic to ask the same players to play all 38 games of a season, it’s just not possible but not rocking the boat is also about how the personnel you bring affects the dynamics of the team. Just back to good habits for a second, when I heard Arsene had gone for Koscielny and Vermaelen and Ramsey I instantly thought the old chap has let his bad habits creep in again. Koscielny and Vermaelen first of all are both under 6 feet and secondly they are similar. Both very good defenders of the highest quality but their defending styles are too similar and they do not complement each other very well. With Aaron Ramsey’s selection Arsene looked to flood the midfield area to deny Chelsea of possession nullifying their main threats. The season he also went with that Central midfield pairing was to counteract Chelsea’s tricky players like Torres, Mata, Oscar and Hazard.

One of the qualities of Per Mertesacker which people saw a lot during the game against Man City was how well he reads the game. Per doesn’t chase the players around but he reads where the players want to play through their passes. He is one of those intelligent players that understand the play around them and spots danger early. In contrast Koscielny and Vermaelen are defenders that follow the play they are ball playing defenders that probably wouldn’t look uncomfortable in midfield.

Sometimes Arsene lives in a Utopian world where he sees 11 players that play completely fluid football. In the premier league you cannot have 11 technically gifted football players on the pitch, you have to have schemers players like Mertesacker that read the game better than the players around them and I hope for the next match Arsene goes back to what made arsenal very solid. In his pre-match interview Arsene pretty much conceded it probably was not a good idea to play those 2. I cannot say if Mertesacker and Vermaelen had played we would have won, but my comeback to that is that a team requires continuity and good habits. The team that played Chelsea displayed the bad habits that have stopped Arsenal progressing in the past seasons.

So I hope this chapter has taught Arsene that in the jungle bad habits well you can get away with them once in a while but you will get punished for them sooner or later, same applies to the players. Very glad Jack Wilshire is making his comeback this week and he will be LANS (like a new signing) and a big signing as well. There were positives to the Chelsea match and we will keep getting better and hopefully at the end have some silverware to show for it.

Till Next time

@mista_mani

Football, like a game of chess

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Aug 162012

So Robin Van Persie has left the Emirates and is headed to the Greener pastures of Old Trafford, so he says. It ends another transfer saga that Arsenal fans have become accustomed to and this might not be the end. Its less painful in the respect that a lot of Arsenal fans are now used to big players leaving the club and for those who are superstitious, Van Persie and Fabregas left exactly a year after each other, same date. Robin’s reasons was that him and the club did not agree with the direction. Its more painful in the respect that a lot of fans really felt a connection with Van Persie, he was a captain that loved the club, a captain that felt how the fans felt, a captain that bled red and white he said :

Anything we win here will come from the heart and that’s what I want. It’s my dream and I see no point in speaking about other teams when I have these dreams. I think other people know that about me; I’m just hungry to win with Arsenal and that’s it – Robin Van Persie February 2011

Fast Forward to now :

Out of my huge respect for Mr Wenger, the players and the fans I don’t want to go into any details, but unfortunately in this meeting it has again become clear to me that we in many aspects disagree on the way Arsenal FC should move forward.

Funny what a difference a year makes, back then Robin was a he could be exceptional type of player, he was always injured and there were doubts he could stay fit for a season, so what’s changed well lets consider all factors :

Injury free

Robin, went through the season without any major injuries and maybe he is now confident he can stay fit and play at the highest level and maybe he was not convinced that the current Arsenal squad was capable of matching his ambitions of winning major trophies before an inevitable retirement that is fast approaching.

Nasri and Fabregas

Nasri received and incredible amount if abuse from Arsenal fans, so did Ashley Cole and Adebayor but that’s not the only thing they have in common. They also went and won major trophies with their respective clubs. Yes Nasri received a torrential time at Arsenal when he came back, just pure hate but you only have to play Arsenal a few times. This could be one of the reasons he looked at.

Money

This is the main reason I’m mainly aligned to. Now I may be talking from my backside but I understand that the reason why Robin Van Persie’s transfer to Juventus fell through because they couldn’t balance his wage demands with the transfer fee, basically they couldn’t afford to spend £70 million pounds over four years for Robin. With Manchester City for those who are possibly thinking well he could have just gone to city, they have Adebayor, Roque Santa Cruz (yes I know right), Sergio Aguero, Carlos Tevez, Edin Dzeko, Mario Balotelli, and John Guidetti. The club wanted Van Persie but had to shift Santa Cruz, Adebayor, Dzeko and Tevez to be able to sign Robin and it looks like they will be unable to do that, and are also not that keen on spending 25 million pounds on a 29 year old with a bad injury record. This is possibly, Robin’s last big contract and it made more sense in that Kees Vos and Robin are both set to cash in big time on this transfer.

So what now for the future, I for one hope that the wages freed and the money made from the Van Persie sale is reinvested in another centre forward.

So this leads me to the topic of this piece, chess and how for me mirrors what football is like. During a chess game you have a lot of pawns, they are the soldiers, they provide a tactical base, they go out there and fight they consist the biggest number but are the least important parts of the club. They are the heroes of the war when a check mate is achieved they would have put in the most work. Then comes the rook’s or Castles they are the forts of the club they provide stability and support to the club that’s the fans, then you have the board members in hierarchy, the knights, the bishops and then the (Usmanov) then the king
(Stan).

Fans need to stop worshipping the pawns, they need to worship their clubs more, players say this thing then the next moment they are gone. Bar a few examples loyalty is something that is dying in football. Since Roman Abramovich flew above a small blue stadium then dropped his anchor and said that’s mine football hasn’t been the same. Add the bossman to that it has given players an incredible amount of power over clubs. Maybe financial fair play rules are required to restore the peace and get rid of the madness that has gripped football. Its funny for a club that has had a recent history of bad player loyalty we have one of the most loyal managers in football today. He has shunned offers from Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan and all the other big clubs in Europe to stay and manage Arsenal, it’s a shame that a lot of players don’t share his vision, or maybe they do but money changes everything. ‘Heroes come and go. our passion is forever’.

Follow me on twitter @mr_mani