Tag Archives: Arsène Wenger

Wenger facing selection headaches ahead of North London Derby

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Giroud v Lacazette

The £50m man against the old trusty horse. A friend of mine message me on Wednesday;

Lacazette scores two goals against Germany last night. Back on the bench on Saturday though I bet.

I responded;

Giroud scored against Wales last Thursday. Back on the bench on Saturday I bet.

My point being that Olivier Giroud usually starts ahead of Alexandre Lacazette for his country.

Giroud and Lacazette are both very good strikers. But also both very different strikers.

Each players brings something different to the table. Giroud is class with his back to call, can hold the ball up, and is powerful in the box. He is not going to run clean through. He benefits when defences play deep,

Lacazette, meanwhile, is quicker, can spin in behind, and finds space in the box like the fox he is. His build up play is not the best, and he does struggle when teams defend deeper.

The key is playing the right man against the right team.

There is no point playing Olivier Giroud against Manchester City, who defend on the half way line. He would be more suited than Lacazette, however, playing against a side like Leicester, who tend to defend deep.

Against City, Wenger decided neither was his preferred striker and went for Alexis Sanchez instead. I understood the decision, that Wenger felt it would take individual magic to score a goal and Lacazette was his man. But we only started to look a threat when Lacazette came on.

So who is the best man to play against Spurs? Giroud or Lacazette?

Then thrown Danny Welbeck into the mix.

Sanchez and Ozil

Does Wenger stick with the contract rebels, the two best players in the team, or does he say to Mesut Ozil and/or Alexis Sanchez “lads, time for you to F off”.

It would be pretty pointless to do the latter. I see some on social media saying if they are not prepared to be part of our future, they should not be part of our present. In theory, I do understand this, but then we should have sold both in the summer.

If we are going to drop the pair now, we should have shipped them both out in August no matter if we had replacements lined up.

Not playing them now is denying ourselves of our best players and not getting a transfer fee for them.

Both seem to be going up and down with their moods. The pair were brilliant against Everton, but have then been awful against other sides.

Do you maybe go the mid-ground and only play one at a time?

Solve the Lacazette / Giroud conundrum by dropping Sanchez or Ozil and go 2 up top? Or push Ramsey higher up the field alongside one of them. Or even Wilshere.

Sanchez seems to have overtaken Ozil as peoples favourite to not play at the moment. His sulking at team mates is annoying people. But then he never went on international duty over the last two weeks, whilst Ozil played (and assisted brilliantly) in the 2-2 draw with France.

Alexis will be fresh.

Play the pair and they are in the mood, we win comfortably. If they are not in the mood, we might as well be playing with 9 men.

Jack Wilshere

Another 2 weeks training under his belt, Jack Wilshere is getting stronger.

Against someone like Spurs, we need pride and passion. And he has that. But is he ready to be thrown in at the deep end in what is one of our biggest games of the season?

Tottenham’s strength is in the two men behind Harry Kane.

Dele Alli and Cristian Erickson run the show. They have goals and assists in them aplenty and, if given the freedom to operate between the defence and midfield, they are deadly – as Erickson showed midweek against Southern Ireland.

Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka have looked average defensively this season. Defending is not Jack’s strength, so would it really be improving things by playing him?

Maybe the better bet would be to play Francis Coquelin? Put him on a man marking job on Alli. Get him under Alli’s skin?

Or do we fight fire with fire, play Wilshere, and try and exploit the space Spurs leave between defence and midfield. The best form of defence is often attack.

Another option could be to go for a solid 3.

That would mean sacrificing one of Ozil and Sanchez, but is certainly an option.

 

Wenger certainly has a few selection headaches coming up for tomorrows game.

Get it right, and we win, get it wrong, and the pressure will increase further.

Keenos

 

When Arsenal’s anger turns to apathy

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The morning after the night before. Another morning after another night before. We’ve been here a few times in recent years but something is different.

The anger is subsiding and the apathy is creeping in. I’ve noticed it all season, Liverpool was a great example. Another humiliating display of football and very little reaction from the travelling supporters. We trudged out of Anfield as we did Stoke with no real feeling.  

Friday morning I woke up to various social media statuses that were simply accepting. Few rants, but no real feeling behind it. Let’s face it, it was another very typical Arsenal performance. I’ve said it so many times, it really doesn’t matter who our starting 11 are we, we are average, boring and predictable. We are playing football Wengers way. Loads of possession, poor finishing, dubious defending……it’s now just the norm.

To get us to this level has cost millions in investment to the training facilities and academies, we were told they were amongst the best in the world.

What we saw Thursday was supposed to be our future. Let that sink in. That is our future. That was a result of all that investment. That is solely on Wengers shoulders, not the board, Wengers.

We had one player in the under 17’s World Cup squad. How? What’s happening to these promising youngsters with big hopes and dreams? 

But this was all predicted by many years ago. Be careful what you wish for. We were, that’s why we fought against it. That’s why we held banners and protested. 

In my last article I wrote about the fans. I liken what is happening to the grief cycle. First the denial, some are still there. ‘He’s the greatest manager we’ve ever had’, ‘he revolutionised football’. Then the anger kicks in, ‘This can’t be happening, let’s fight against it’. We will protest, we will sing, we will hold banners. Problem is no one listened and too few of us did it.

Then we get into bargaining, if only we had different personnel things may be different. Then the depression follows, we are nearly there, nearly ready to accept the inevitable and finally the acceptance. This is where we are now. The apathy is at every game, on every social media group and page. The ground is full of no feeling at all. 

Thursday night saw another low attendance. People aren’t staying away because it’s too expensive, they are staying away because the football is absolutely diabolical. 

It may be different if we had something to look forward to. We were all getting a little bit more excited at the prospect of young Eddie coming through and the return of Jack. But we are putting a robin reliant engine into a Porsche shell. I feel I can confidently say that young Eddie will either not be at the club in two years or he will be a shadow of the player that we have seen so far. None of us will have to look back too far to give examples of this being the norm for us. 

When we have a manger who is as silent as his boss upstairs it’s no surprise really is it? He sits there looking as disinterested as us. No passion, no leadership, no class. Slowly this has been creeping into the seats where we sit, where we used to sing and we used to support. Every so often we are thrown a crumb. 1 decent performance in 6 and a little hope is restored.

What we have now, and have had for a long time, is a club in crisis. Even Ivan said when the manager has lost the fans there is no going back. We have no football strategy from what I can see. We fall into each season sticking a few plasters on, plugging a few gaps, only to spring a leak somewhere else. 

I don’t think Wenger could tell you where he sees the club in two years. I am very confident that he couldn’t tell you how he was going to get there. 

Sunday sees us travelling to Manchester.

I asked my son if he wanted to come. He didn’t have to think about it, he’s going to watch Leatherhead v Billericay instead. He will have a great day whatever the outcome, be amongst fans with hope and belief and pride. I will be in Manchester, I suspect having the same conversations with the same people that I have had over ten years or more. 

One final word, should we be given another crumb on Sunday, remember it is a crumb, another token gesture, it’s all part of the successful brainwashing that is taking place from within the walls of Wengers castle. 

Poor regular football is one thing, accepting it is far worse. Making excuses and blaming those who don’t pick and motivate the team is extraordinary.  
JD

Where did it all go wrong for The Arsenal?

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The moment Mesut Ozil replaced the struggling Danny Welbeck, everything seemed to just go wrong for Arsenal.

At the time we were 1-0 up, not overly on top, but also not in much danger. A brilliant run by Alex Iwobi saw him put Mesut Ozil clean through. One-on-one with the goal keeper, he tried to give Gomes the eyes and go the opposite way.

Gomes read Ozil like a book, and fall on the ball to his left, good chance gone. But at least we were still 1-0 up.

Gomes quickly released the ball, and before we had mentally recovered from the Ozil miss, Watford had a penalty.

Ozil carry’s the blame for not scoring, the referee has to carry the blame for giving Watford a penalty that never was.

STOKE ON TRENT, ENGLAND – MAY 13: Arsene Wenger the head coach / manager of Arsenal during the Premier League match between Stoke City and Arsenal at Bet365 Stadium on May 13, 2017 in Stoke on Trent, England. (Photo by James Baylis – AMA/Getty Images)

As Arsene Wenger said, it was a scandalous decision. One of those decisions that makes you pine for VAR’s to come in sooner rather than later.

1-1, Ozil had given Watford a lifeline with his miss, the referee had put them straight back into the game.

From that moment on, things went from bad to worse The Arsenal as Watford began to dominate.

Olivier Giroud came on for Alexandre Lacazette and Arsenal sat back, inviting pressure on from Watford.

On the 85th minute, Wenger looked to twist rather than stick. Jack Wilshere set to come on for Alex Iwobi. But just as Iwobi was coming to the touchline, Koscielny signalled that he can no longer carry on.

Wenger kiboshed the substitution with screams from the travelling fans of ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ as Rob Holding quickly stripped down and came on for Laurent Koscielny.

Rather than make an attacking change, Wenger was forced into a defensive change. Could he have bought Wilshere on for Koscielny, gone 4 at the back?In hindsight, yes, because we lost the game. But hindsight makes football so easy.

What it meant is rather than being on the front foot for the last 10 minutes of the game, Arsenal were on the back foot, and inevitably Watford got the injury time winner.

Petr Cech made a brilliant double save, before Tom Cleverely put the ball in the net, whilst Granit Xhaka failed to track his man and was stood on the edge of the box, hands on hips. It reminded me of Denilson.

Everything seemed to go downhill when Mesut Ozil missed that chance.

I have said before, the league title this year will be decided between the two Manchester clubs. Chelsea lost to Crystal Palace to remain level on points with Arsenal, and Liverpool slipped to 8th with the bore-draw against Manchester United.

Watford’s win took them to 4th in the table. It shows Manchester City’s strength that they scored 6 at Vicarage Road, and another 7 yesterday against Stoke. 29 goals in 8 games, just 4 conceded. Scrap what I said earlier about it being between the two Manchester clubs, Manchester City just look like they have it all.

I guess that is what you expect when they spent £212,200,000 last summer and over half a billion pounds in the last 3 seasons.

Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea all look fairly average. Whilst Spurs won yesterday, they did just scrap through. All 4 will continue to lose points against sides they should beat.

The title is gone, despite us not even being 10 games in. Time to concentrate on the Europa League? The poor league campaign will soon be forgotten if we win a European trophy.

Onwards to Belgrade…

Keenos

ps: Someone needs to swat that annoying Bumblebee