Porto 2 Arsenal 1: See yesterday’s blog – but we can win at home

It was a disaster waiting to happen, it was a disaster that should spell a new goalkeeper in the summer because by God do we need one. Come back Almunia, all is forgiven.

I suppose it really isn’t that bad of the face of things, we got the important away goal and are still in the tie, a 1-0 at home will put us soundly through. So is it so bad considering we were without most of our best players?

Fans are probably so angry because both goals were preventable in the extreme, the first was an incredible piece of incompetent goalkeeping and after the Stoke disaster and the FA Cup semi-final display under Lucasz Fabianski’s belt, it is hard to see him staying at the club much longer if fans have their way. The ball was crossed into the six yard box and somehow he fumbled it into the net, it was Roy Carrol-like. He has just done it too many times now and whilst he has obvious talent, there are massive question marks over his mental strength.

I feel sorry for him, for whatever reason he isn’t good enough right now to be Arsenal’s second choice, Almunia isn’t good enough to be first choice. We need a world class keeper badly, especially given our attacking game.

It seemed the damage was limited when Sol Campbell scored to make it 1-1, credit must go to Rosicky who flicked the ball back across goal – into the danger area – for Campbell to head it home. What a story, Champions League final to Notts County, back to scoring in the Champions League again. Incredible.

The goal to make it 2-1 Porto was just unbelievable. The ball was played back to Fabianski after Sol Campbell accidentally made contact with the ball, and Fabianski picked it up. A) No free kick – the back pass was unintentional.  B) Fabianski should have put his foot through it but panicked.

It got worse.

Fabianski threw the ball back to the ref quickly, who allowed a quick free kick. Fine. No problem. We have done it in the past. No complaints about that. But, the ref gave the go ahead whilst blocking Sol Campbell completely. How utterly ridiculous is that?

Then there was the penalty appeal, a blatant foul on Rosicky – cast iron. His legs were taken. Arsenal will never get a penalty again it seems, its so frustrating, on another day, with another ref the game could have been so much different.

We can’t hide the same old failures though, the naff defence and keepers who are just not up to standard, we must stop conceding if we are to go anywhere in the Champions League but I just can’t see us tightening our defence. If we were playing a better side it would be game over. This time its Porto though, who are really not very good.

It is frustrating, so frustrating but we are only at half time. We have the advantage of a three week gap until the return leg so whilst the missing players will probably not return for the Sunderland game, they should be back in those three weeks.

I said yesterday that it could be a case of damage limitation, but we made our own damage, we dug our own grave and what Cesc Fabregas described as ‘schoolboy errors’ will frustrate him more than anyone. He deserves better if I’m honest. He addressed the fans on the plane as normal after the game and promised us a win in the return leg, and we will get one, no doubts about that.

This team don’t seem to get much in the way of luck, and wouldn’t it be just their luck if we drew one of the few teams we fear in the competition? Barca, Chelsea, United and at a push, Bayern Munich. There is a lot of work to be done though.

Til tomorrow.

Apparently ‘spineless’ – but I think we’ll nick a win

This Porto team seem to be getting  a lot of hype, but they really are not very good. Yes, they have reached the last 16 but so have CSKA Moscow and Olympiacos, they have not achieved anything special. They sold their best players in the summer and haven’t scored in something like 4 or 5 games – their manager has said they are going to set their stall out and defend. If we fall at this stage the team has failed, the only real teams I fear are Barca and the other English sides, thats all.

Of course, it is wrong to underestimate them, PSV Eindhoven dumping us out of the Champions League is still quite memorable but we should have enough to beat Porto over two legs, even with all the injuries.

Here are the missing names:

Almunia

Gallas

Gibbs

Song

Arshavin

van Persie

Eduardo

Vela

Djourou

I think thats all of them, if its not, tough – but you get the idea. The biggest misses are Song and Arshavin, the out of form Denilson will come in for Song but I think if the manager wants to get the tie over and done with today, Ramsey could come in. Arshavin has hardly been at the top of his game and a few games out will probably do him good, but we hardly have a wealth of options up front, Nasri and Rosicky flanking Bendtner is a pretty samish frontline, Id start Theo instead of Nasri.

A clean sheet is really important, but an away goal is even more important. If we can get an away goal or a one goal lead it means Porto will have to take the game to us at the Grove which always means there is more space to exploit. They do not really have a stand out forward (there’s Hulk but he is shit) that will worry our defence, a lot of always made of ‘Hulk’ but he is just a big oaf, he’s hyped and hyped but has never done anything, I think he has 2 goals this season.

Apologies for this blog being all bits and pieces.

Just a note about all the plaudits for United’s win against Milan last night. A few years back I seem to remember an Arsenal team most people said was poor go to Milan and win 2-0 –  at the time Milan had the best player in the world, a young Pato, and a much younger version of the players they currently have. Did I hear this sort of praise? Not taking anything away from United’s win but Milan are past it.

Hopefully we can get a win tonight, get on a good winning run in the two competitions we have got left to fight for.

til tomorrow.

_______

Oh pleaaaaaaaase. Give up will you. Jesus christ.

My take on the Olympiakos experiment: Time running low for Vela?

With a starting team with an average age of 19 without the captain on the night, Silvestre, the way the team swarmed all over Olympiakos side like a plague of Locusts.

You did sense that making all the possession count was vital and sadly it was a case of the same Arsenal as no real chances were cut out, and when they were, nobody seemed to be able to finish them.

Ramsey was immense in the center of the park, his vision is second to none and you can see why people call him a young Cesc, not that Cesc is all that old himself at just 22. Merida did his hopes of more appearances in the first team no harm at all with a lovely little performance. At times he chose the wrong pass but young players tend to do that, his close control is fantastic and he can get himself out of really tight spaces in the center of the park, and what can I say about Alex Song? Simply superb. Strong, surprisingly agile. Class act.

In defence Kyle Bartley impressed me, his only mistake, and it wasn’t a howler by any means, ended up in them scoring a rather good goal. Is it just me or do we concede a very, very high volume of goals to chances in ratio?

Another mention for Tom Cruise who for a kid with a fantastic name, seemed decent going forward and didn’t really make any mistakes of note. Can cross a ball which makes a change I suppose!

Kerrea Gilbert was unconvincing I thought, its a shame to see after the impression he made a few years ago. Hopefully he can turn his career round. Fabianski was very good tonight I thought, I usually have kittens watching him but he seemed dominant and confident, a vital mix. Very nice to see.

Now, the forwards. Wilshere, Vela, Walcott. Wilshere did nothing and was the best of a very bad bunch, he has a little bit of the spoilt brat about him sometimes, at one point he ripped into Fran Merida for not playing him in but Merida had already been knocked to the ground. One decent chinking run but it ended in nothing.

Vela. For all the hype around him, he has shown very little. This is his big chance, he has got to do something soon because at the moment it doesn’t look like he’s cutting it. I don’t care what he has done for Mexico, I judge on what he has done for Arsenal and at present, its very little. Two guilt edged chances he screwed up today, could have won us the game. The only positives? Worked hard, was in the right position to miss the chances.

Theo Walcott apart from two runs, was woeful. I guess its hard to expect much from a player who has had two hours of football this season. Hopefully that wasn’t too bad-a knock he picked up towards the end.

All in all, it was encouraging the attitude the lads took out there. There is no shame in losing with that line-up against a side that is going through to the next round. You can’t look into this game too much so thats why i’ve decided to comment individually and there were some very encouraging performances.

We have to look ahead to Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday. Its a big, big game and 3 points are essential. Arise, Mr Arshavin.

We have the draw in the next couple of days for the next round so lets hope we avoid Milan, Bayern, Lyon. Porto would be a very nice draw but probably too nice to ask for.

Til next time.

Arsenal 2-0 Standard: I wasn’t convinced from what I saw

“we do have to be wary of this Standard team, they have a habit of raising their game away from home and tonight we will have to be careful”

Actually, they are a very poor side indeed. I got that wrong.

I missed the first half, and consequently both the goals. Looking at various blogs and match reports we seemed to play rather well in the first half and took the foot off the pedal in the second. I hope that is true because what I saw in the second half didn’t please me much, it was similar to the Sunderland game in the way we lacked that cutting edge. I haven’t harped on about how van Persie gave us that cutting edge but we are really missing him at the moment, Wenger said any team would miss his ‘super class’ and nobody can argue that we are missing him.

Despite Denilson and Song having very good games, (Denilson making a welcome return from injury), we were shocking at the back. Liege hit the post twice and if they were a better side would have got a couple of goals at least, this is really starting to grate with me because without much of our favoured front-line we can’t outscore teams as we did before. We just don’t have the same firepower.

A quick bit on the goals though…. in their own way they were both superb, Nasri’s finish was top top class although he made it look so easy, its moments like that that show you just how good these players at professional level have to be. Denilson’s goal was superb, the sheer power behind the ball and the fact it swerved both ways bamboozled their ‘keeper and netted the Brazillian his second of the season on his comeback.

These last couple of games I have been thinking of the difference a bullying, powerful striker would make and you can’t really argue that it would give us another dimension, someone in the Drogba mold could bulldoze defences and get us very important goals. Eduardo and Vela can’t do that.

On those two, Eduardo is a class finisher, I’ve always thought that but right now what he needs is goals and he needs them quick. Vela is a player with a great amount of hype around him but he has settled here now and has to prove his worth, he isn’t doing that at the moment. We have seen him do it at Carling Cup level but we are yet to see him do anything of the sort in the Premiership. In frame he reminds me of Pato at AC Milan, I just hope he can cut it here, I really do.

We can now look at the weekend and the game on Sunday, I suggest to the boss intensive defensive drills. He can say all he wants about Sunderland only having one effort on target in the entire game on Saturday but if that one effort goes in we are at a disadvantage straight away, Chelsea have been scoring just as many goals as us in previous weeks and I somehow doubt we will be able to outscore them, we will have do defend very well too. I’m nervous about the game to tell you the truth.

The game last night gave us three more injury victims, Gibbs has a broken metatarsal so we won’t be seeing him for a long time, Arshavin has had to have his head stapled after his clash of heads with Gallas, who has a nasty swollen eye and an ankle niggle.

Great.

Time to get back on track: Standard preview

After the defeat at Sunderland on Saturday attention has mainly focussed on the game with Chelsea next week, but at the moment that is the least of our worries as Arsenal entertain Standard Liege at the Grove tonight. A strong confidence boosting performance is vital ahead of the big game on Sunday but expect a few changes with some of the players who went away for the internationals a couple of weeks ago given a rest.

I’d expect Carlos Vela to start, maybe alongside Eduardo who needs a goal to boost his confidence, Denilson may come in for Alex Song but I’d expect Cesc to start and Samir Nasri to fill in the other midfield slot. The battle for the right will be fought out between Rosicky and Walcott, I think Rosicky will start with Walcott getting 30 minutes or so to pick up some sharpness before the weekend.

Be under no illusions, the boss wants to win tonight and to top the group, giving us the chance for a slightly easier draw in the start of the knockout rounds:

“You feel at the start we were favourites, so if we finish top, it will be like ‘job done’,”

“If you are second in the group, you could have a disadvantage in the draw for the next stage, and you do not want that.”

The minimum requirement should be winning the group, we are much better than any of the teams in the group, and I mean no disrespect when I say that.

As Wenger says though, we do have to be wary of this Standard team, they have a habit of raising their game away from home and tonight we will have to be careful not to get caught cold like last time out in Belgium.

Cesc was up for interview duty yesterday and he made some rather nice comments about staying here for the rest of his career, I certainly wouldn’t mind that at all. We all know how good he is and he seems to be loving life here in what is his seventh season already:

“I’m very happy where I am and there is very long season in front of us. The last thing I want to do is get disconnected from what I have to do which is to play football for my team and for the Club that pays me. I’m really looking forward to a great season with Arsenal.”

[The skipper was then asked if he would like to stay for the rest of his career.]

“Why not?” he replied. “I have never thought about it. I’m only 22. You never know what your career will bring but why not? I’m in my seventh season now and I’m really happy, better than ever.”

Those seven years sure have gone fast, I can still remember when he burst onto the scene as a 16/17 year old, he is not one of the very best players in the world and he is only 22 years old. He can become one of the greats in my view.

Hopefully tonight we see some real desire and urgency because we were really lacking that on Saturday, despite already almost guaranteed progression into the next round it would be nice to see the lads really go out there and play like their lives depend on it to at least heal a bit of the weekends disappointment.

I will be out when the game is on but hopefully I’ll catch the end of it, heres to an encouraging result.

More tomorrow.

AZ obliterated/Kroenke/3 points at Wolves please

Another home game, another win, another game with over three goals. Nearly three months into the season and we have not scored less than three goals in a home game in any competition, it shows just how strong we have been at home this season and any team visiting the Grove will be aware of this record and aware of how strong the squad we have is.

Some fans were of the opinion the AZ game could be a bit of a bore draw because of their perceived negative tactics, how wrong they were, we tore them apart and only conceded when the game was won and we got a little sloppy. Fabregas is having a hell of a season and was at the hub of all the good moves again, Arshavin created three assists and Nasri became our 17th goalscorer so far this season – this formation could allow him to get more goals too. Cesc has eight goals already this season and is one of the form players in world football at the moment, there is no other player I would rather have in midfield.

We didn’t draw the plaudits too much after the game because apparently AZ came and had a go attacking us, I don’t remember them attacking too much. Gabrielle Marcotti was reticent to give us any praise at all (is it just me or is his head slowly sinking into his torso?). Not that it matters though, our football did the talking again.

It was the first game that Kieran Gibbs has had to step into Gael Clichy’s shoes and I feel he will do a great job. Yes he will make mistakes but thats part of developing as a player, he has all the attributes needed and I think our crossing might improve on that side as Gibbs is a far better crosser of the ball. What are the odds on him becoming the 18th Arsenal goalscorer this season?

The day after I wrote about Stan Kroenke’s share gobbling, (check the commenter from the Colorado Rapids blog with a good knowledge of Kroenke) he moved again to purchase shares taking his ownership up to 29.9%, making him unable to buy anymore shares unless he makes an offer for the whole club, a takeover, or a takeover offer can’t be far off now and it would be nice to hear from him and to confirm he has good intentions.

Moving onto another game this evening away at Wolves and the matches sure are piling up at the moment, the injures are too. The current injury list reads: Vela, Walcott, Denilson, Traore, Clichy, Fabianski, Wilshere, Bendtner, and Djourou. Thats one hell of an injury list and until midweek Rosicky was also on that list, it just goes to show how strong our squad is this season, its not that we have more numbers of players but the quality of the players we have has improved.

The Wolves game is an important one, we need to take advantage of the fact that either United or Chelsea will drop points this weekend, we lost a couple of points at West Ham and need to make up for it here because opportunities like this do not come along all that often in a season.

The Wolves boss has come out and said they will have a go at taking the game to us but you just know they will sit back, its one thing saying you will attack Arsenal, its another to actually do it. I do think we could drop points in this game so we need to go there, get the job done and take the 3 points.

Fabregas, Arshavin and van Persie will hopefully continue their fine form, not forgetting Alex Song who is doing so well in the cleaning up role behind them – the unsung hero of the season so far. The boss has been hyping up van Persie who has been in fantastic form, scoring 8 in 9 games or something like that, one of the form strikers in the league and clearly enjoying his football, to be honest any striker with service from Cesc Fabregas would be enjoying his football.

It wont be a glamour game but it could be a really, really big three points. I’ll be back tomorrow hopefully with a round up of the game.

Til then.

AZ 1-1 Arsenal: A draw might just do the team good in the long run

I didn’t get to see much of the game last night and I have hardly had a chance to sit down today and watch the full highlights so this blog may again be fairly short.

We drew 1-1 away at AZ Alkmaar of Holland but should really have won the game and closed it out, as it happens we conceded from yet another set piece and had to settle for a share of the spoils. In recent weeks we have smashed in goals from everywhere but this little setback might just stop complacency sneaking in. Away from home in the Champions League a draw is deemed a good result but what is important is that we learn from conceding that late goal and don’t let it happen again.

We will progress from the group easily enough, its not something I am worried about at all, Wenger is equally confident:

“We are still in a strong position. We have three games left, two at home, and I believe to win one game will qualify us. What I want is for us to continue to play like we do, focus to play better.

“In football, you have to produce the maximum result with your game, and tonight that did not happen.”

There were some shocks around Europe last night, Liverpool sunk to their 4th consecutive defeat which is pretty funny, they were at ‘fortress’ Anfield which is even funnier. Barcelona lost at home to the Russian champions too.

Apologies again for the briefness of this blog. Normal service shall be resumed shortly. Till next time.

Arsenal batter down the Greek barn door

Yesterday I asked for the team to show how good they can be, and they did. The 2-0 scoreline does Olympiakos a favour, they were under the cosh for 99% of the game and the movement, speed and creativity you get from Arsenal at their very best lit up Ashburton Grove last night. The 60 odd thousand people in the stadium got a real glimpse of football at its most beautiful.

On the other side they got a glimpse of football at its most fustrating.

Olympiakos, managed by a Brazillian, conspired to keep as many men between the ball and their net, and for the majority of the game it worked. If it wasn’t for their keeper it would have been a cricket score, he put in one of the best goalkeeping displays I have seen for a very long time, it was similar to Almunia’s display in the Champions League away at Old Trafford last season.

I was starting to get twitchy, for all the beautiful football I would have given anything for a goal and when it came it was a massive relief. It was an acid test, can Arsenal now get three points from a game where the other team parks the bus in front of the goal? The answer it seems is yes.

Eduardo, who I thought should have started in a game like this, was fed the ball by Cesc within minutes of arriving on the pitch, he produced a lovely little pull-back for van Persie to slot home and get a goal he really, really deserved. His celebration showed the team-spirit that is in the squad this season, he didn’t race away lapping up all the applause from the crowd, he wanted his team-mates to celebrate with him.

Eduardo is one of those players that can produce something that can win the game, yes Arshavin and van Persie are capable of that but neither of those possess the natural predatory instincts that Eduardo has. He will be important this season, very important.

The second goal was a thing of beauty, after some lovely passing the ball was slid across the box to the offside Arshavin to back-heel home, it was a deserved reward for him after a frustrating game, he was sublime in phases and towards the end of the game was running around like he was getting chased by a swarm of wasps. In a mood like that nobody can touch him. At one stage earlier in the game he seemed to get a bit of a bollocking from the boss on the touchline but when a game opens up, there are not many finer exponents of a situation like that than Arshavin. It shows why he is one of the worlds best footballers.

It was a fitting way to end the scoring, none of the goals came from scrappy goal-mouth scrambles it was pure football, the type Zico would be proud of, sadly he seemed to be a little bit angry with the French officials, accusing UEFA of being pro-Arsenal.

There were welcome returns to form for Cesc and Clichy who despite having the odd wobbly moment was sublime in others, his interceptions were brilliant and he attacked with the kind of force we saw a few seasons ago. Cesc was everywhere, he had numerous attempts on goal and on another day would have got himself on the score-sheet more than once, the woodwork denied him what would have been a quite stunning goal. It was good to see him back, a relief.

Praise must go to Emmanuel Eboue who is probably playing some of his best football in an Arsenal shirt, you can see why Wenger sometimes goes with him instead of Sagna to offer an extra bit going forward and in the final third Eboue can come up with the down right awful, and some down right excellence, there was some of the latter last night.

The concentration the center-back pairing showed was impressive, along with Vito Mannone who was a passenger for much of the game, when called upon he did his job well and made one good save. Sadly for him it seems Almunia may well be back at the weekend and hopefully Mannone has given him a kick up the arse.

It was a great performance from the lads last night and so far this season we have shown that we have the class, grit, and determination to get us through the toughest of games. Yes, have have lost two league games already but there will be no team this season that goes to Citeh, Everton and United and comes out with more than 6 points. We got 3 from those games, thats 3 very tricky games out the way.

Bring on the weekend. More tomorrow.

We ground out the win at the weekend, now for the convincing performance

Apologies for my absence over the past few days, my server has been somewhat temperamental.

It is a bit late to tell you about the game on Saturday night but you can see my summary here on my Sunday column:

Yesterdays win was fantastic in my book, we were made to show a few characteristics that have been beyond the side in the last few seasons. It was one of those days that we had to really dig in and grind out a result, it was a chance to close the gap on Chelsea and a chance that we couldn’t afford to miss.

If you take stock now, our start to the season has not been a bad one at all, we have been to Everton, United and City and got 3 points out of it – its not form that would set the world alight but many teams will go to those three places and get nothing.

Read the whole thing here.

Tonight we take on Olympiakos at the Grove and they are a decent side so its not going to be the rollover some people seem to think it will be, Olof Mellberg and Enzo Maresca are players I rate pretty highly and we all remember when Mellberg scored the first ever competitive goal at the Grove.

Pic from The Sun

We have yet more absentees for this game, Bendtner has had a very lucky escape from a car crash but will miss the game after not training as a precaution, Walcott is still not back and Denilson has been ruled out for two months with a broken bone in his back. He is the third player in the last six months to have damaged their back with Clichy having what sounds like an almost identical injury at the end of last season, Walcott has had back problems too. Is it something someone should be looking at in the training routines?

Tonight is a chance to show how good the team can be, we saw the ugly side of the team on Saturday and we battled out a win, now is time for the convincing win to back it up. We have to win all our home games in the Champions League, and all our home games in all competitions, if we are going to win something this season.

I would like to see Eduardo given a start down the middle tonight, its games like this when he can grab some important goals to get the game over and done with without much hassle, Arshavin will probably start on the left again and there is a chance Eboue could slot in on the right, van Persie could get a rest and be introduced in the second half.

In midfield I hope to God we don’t see Diaby again, though I fear we will. I said last season I wouldn’t give a toss if he was sold on and I stick by that, he is giving more of the ridiculous that sublime at the moment, he unbalances the whole of the midfield when he is playing. If Wenger wants a tall player in the middle of the park why doesn’t he just buy Peter Crouch and stand him in the middle of the pitch? Thats all Diaby offers at present.

I’m looking forward to this game but a win is far from a certainty, I don’t think we will lose the game but a draw is a possibility, another clean sheet would keep Mannone’s confidence up and the confidence of the defence as a whole.We might see Carlos Vela tonight as well, he needs to start performing and pressing for a starting birth.

More tomorrow.

Last night leaves more questions than answers

Afternoon all, its another manic one today.

Last night was all rather stressful wasn’t it? I couldn’t quite believe it when within 5 minutes we were two goals down, the row z allergy continued to spread and it cost us the first goal, Eduardo trying a suicidal backheel to Cesc, it failed, they scored.

A couple of minutes later Gallas was judged to have fouled a Standard player in the box, despite minimal contact and questions over whether the contact took place in the box. The penalty was awarded, they scored, oh dear.

What followed was 40 minutes of quite spectacular crap. The passing was diabolical, Clichy was all over the shop, Eboue, chosen over Sagna, was pretty poor, Gallas had a funny few minutes and it seemed Vermaelen was the only one who could pass the ball or just keep calm.

Cesc looks out of form, Song has gone off the boil and the returning Thomas Rosicky was still some way off his best, but he ran his arse off and put in a very promising display in my opinion. He adds an awful lot to the side.

Diaby was awful, his only non-disastrous moment was when he skipped past 2 Liege players to play in the hard working Bendtner to hit home a quite lovely finish. That changed the perspective on the game.

It was more of the same in the second half but our leveler came from an awful piece of refereeing, Cesc crossed, Song and Vermaelen were offside, then Song hand-balled it into Vermaelen who stabbed it home. How it was given I don’t know but I said straight away, that broke the camels back, we are gonna win this now.

And so we did, two minutes later Eduardo managed to somehow get the ball into the net off his knee, it was written in the stars that he would score, even if he was having the game from hell. Was it his worst performance in an Arsenal shirt? Probably, but he still scored and thats what he is paid to do.

We won, we played more than badly but the three points are there and I would rather play like that and win than play brilliantly and lose again.

Clichy is having a mare at the moment, I would really consider playing Gibbs against Wigan at the weekend, even if it is only just to give Clichy some time out. I have no idea what is wrong with him but he needs a boot up the arse, and fast. Cesc needs to get to grips with games and start getting on the ball more and finding his passing range, that said, a ‘bad’ Cesc game is as good as many players ‘good’ games.

We have 9 first teamers out and the chances of that number decreasing before the Wigan game are minimal, this side has to get real and improve because I can’t stand another performance like that.

Like I said though, playing badly and winning…I can take that.

If we were playing a better side we would have been in serious trouble, but we weren’t and no team really send shock-waves through European football this week.

There will be more team news tomorrow ahead of the game this weekend and you can catch that all here tomorrow. I will hopefully be bringing you an exclusive interview with one of the fans caught in the Citeh melee after Adebayor’s celebration at the weekend.

I’m gonna get a beer. More tomorrow.