Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

Positives and Negatives to last nights defeat

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So we are out of the League Cup. A great start to the game with a sensational free kick by Alexis Sanchez was followed up by with a penalty to Southampton after a poor challenge by Tomas Rosicky and a stunner by Nathaniel Clyne (who deserves an England call up).

A disappointing result, but there are plenty of positives, as well as some negatives, to take from the night.

Positive – Going out

The League Cup is very much the ugly duckling of the 4 honours we begin the season chasing. It always brings up the conundrum of how we should approach it. Play youngsters to see how they do against top opposition, or play a strong side to try and win it. Both have their merits.

Getting knocked out is by no means a disaster.

For a Champions League side, the beginning of a season is always congested. Play on the weekend, play mid week, see your stars fly to the four corners of the world for internationals. Repeat.

Whilst not all the top players might play in the League Cup, they train as a team so will have to prepare together, even if they are not playing. Last night Ospina, Bellerin, Chambers, Wilshere, Rosicky, Podoslki and Sanchez from the 1st 11 and Chamberlain and Cazorla coming on will be involved in the match day squad against Spurs.

By being knocked out, we have now freed up two mid weeks between now and the end of the year. Two mid week rests might not seem much, but lets put that into context of the first 5five months of the season.

Had we made the quarter final of the League Cup, we would have only had two mid weeks off between now and the FA Cup 3rd round tie in the New Year.Not much time to get a little refresh. By being knocked out so early, we now double that time off. It should leave us that little bit fresher for upcoming games.

We now have the week between Sunderland and Burnely free, and perhaps more importantly, the week between Newcastle and Liverpool. It might not seem like much of a silver lining at the moment, but were we to win all four of those games, you could argue that not playing a League Cup tie between them contributed to the victories.

And these thoughts don’t even take into account the fixture congestion making the semi-final or final creates.

Negative – Going out

I want to win every trophy. Whether it is the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup or League Cup. I want us to win it. We are in football to win things. There is nothing better than a day out at Wembley.

Also, the League Cup has always given us an opportunity to blood younger players against decent sides. You have to wonder when Hayden, Bellerin or Akpom are now going to get a chance again, or will they return to he youths before a January long move to some dump like Carlisle? The League cup is brilliant for their progress, an it’s over before it’s really begun.

Also, the League Cup provides a brilliant opportunity for youngsters to watch the games. For Dad’s to take their son’s. With Premier League and Champions League games becoming more and more expensive. One adult and 2 kids can go to the League Cup for less than £50. The League Cup is a good breeding ground for our future fans. For many kids last night, it would have been their first game.

With Arsenal now out, in the same way you wonder when the kids will get their next chance to play, you also have to wonder when the kids will get their next chance to watch live.

Positive – Arsenal 2nd 11 v Southampton’s 1st 11

Only Alexis Sanchez would be guaranteed a starting place in Arsenal’s strongest 11. Meanwhile, Southampton had arguably their strongest possible 11 out, bar a debutant left back. They are 2nd in the league and last night was their 5th win in a row.

It was certainly not a defeat on the scale of Bradford or MK Dons beating Manchester United. It is no disaster or embarrassment to lose to a very good Premier League outfit.

A lot can be taken from many of the performances, and we should now be confident that many of the players on show last night can be rotated in against mid-table and lower sides and we should still perform. The performance of the youngsters impressed the most (more later).

We played well against a strong Premier League outfit

Negative – The Seniors

Lukasz Podolski and Tomas Rosicky were disastrous.

Firstly, the German. I barely realised he was playing. He showed why we have attempted to offload him the last two summers. He is still only with the clubs due to circumstances conspiring in his favour (injures). He put in the tepid lazy performance that has plagued his Arsenal career. This season will be his last at Arsenal.

Tomas Rosicky has not played much, so maybe I am about to be too harsh, as he probably isn’t match sharp, but he looked old last night.

Slow decision making, 2nd to react to every loose ball, he looked every year of his 33 on this planet and more. A lot might have been down to lack of match sharpeness, but for me, he took the place in the starting 11 that I would have liked to have seen go to someone younger, to see what they can do.

I have long been an advocate of keeping around senior players, but the time has come for him to step aside and give youngsters sub as Oxlade Chamberlain or Gedion Zalelem a chance.

I would not be upset if both players left us next summer. Last night they let their younger team mates down.

Positive – The Youngsters

We played three 19 year olds in defence last night, and none of them looked out of place.

Unfortunately, injuries mean that Bellerin and Hayden won’t get a loan move to another Premier League club. Then again, training against Sanchez, Ozil and Walcott every week, alongside Mertesacker and Kosicelny, might be better for their development anyway.

All 3 did not look fazed at all, and all look to have a bright future at Arsenal, even if it is as a squad player.

Negative – Joel Campbell

A youngster who I feel does not have a bright future at the club is Joel Campbell.

A lot of hype has been around Campbell since he joined us in 2011. He became the forgotten man last summer, only to burst back into our conscious with a wonder goal against Manchester United.

A good World Cup later, and his stock was high. Hindsight shows we should have cashed in at this point.

Yesterday he showed exactly why he is not good enough for Arsenal, and why he has struggled on loan at 3 different clubs in 3 different counties.

Maybe now our fans will stop hyping up players based on YouTube videos and the odd good performance. He is senior to both Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Serge Gnabry but junior to them in talent and ability.

Another to be sold next summer, unfortunately at a lower price than we could have got this.

Positive – Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Whilst he only played 15 minutes (or so) he looked a class apart in comparison to Joel Campbell. Barely 21, his brief cameo should get him a start against Spurs, seeing Arsene Wenger returning to 4231 with Sanchez Ozil & Chamberlain behind Danny Welbeck.

With Theo Walcott now out until middle of October at the earliest, Oxlade-Chamberlain should be given a run in the team on the right wing. He deserves it.

Negative – Where are the Local Lads?

A longer blog for another day perhaps. The talk throughout the game between myself and others was “What has happened to the local boys?”. We played without a single player from London (let along North London or just Islington) again.

Yes, it is part of the wider picture of problems in English football, but the lack of local boys at Arsenal is worrying. The two players that we often claim as our own – Carl Jenkinson and Jack Wilshere – are from Harlow and Stevenage respectively.

In our first team squad we have six Englishmen (seven if you include Jenkinson), but only one can really be said to be an Arsenal Academy graduate (Jack Wilshere). Just two are from London (Kieran Gibbs from South of the River – Lambeth, & Theo Walcott from Stanmore). I honestly can not remember our last Islington born player.

I know GC has some very strong views on what he believes is a problem in our youth set up, and something that needs to be addressed. Hopefully he will write something fuller on it soon.

Positive – Moving On

Well, me mum always said end every day with a positive, and it is the same with this blog. I don’t want leave it on a sour note.

We lost to a very good Southampton side to a penalty and a screamer. Disappointing but not a disaster.

But what is the biggest positive of the night? Between the match last night and you reading the blog this morning, there is one less sleep till Spurs. Now that is something to be joyful about.

Keenos

 

10 reasons why we will beat villa + my starting 11

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1) Szczesny – After praising him in most of the 10 Reasons this season he goes and has a few mares, so far this season he has conceded on the first shot he’s had fired at him in every game. I still trust him tho.

2) Our defense is strengthened with the return of 19yr old Chambers after his sore throat, I’d still rather see specialist Bellerin at Right back and have Chambers on the bench if needed.

3) Jack and Aaron 2 top class young British midfielders, both have the lot, both struggle to look good in the same side, could today be the day they click ? They both need to take more responsibility in protecting the defense, one needs to drop back when the other goes forward, they can do this without impairing what they give going forwards, they just need to think more.

4) Santi, stories I heard in the summer was he wanted to return to Spain, but was blocked, another player who can destroy teams on his day and he should be bought in today.

5) Ozil, play him down the left or the right or down the middle, just dont expect him to track back.

6) Alexis one game soon he is going to hammer a team, I’d like to see him running onto more balls than having his back to goal

7) Welbeck today’s the day, lump your mortgage on him scoring.

8) Villa have 10points from 4 games, conceding only 1 goal but scoring only 4.

9) Villa along with Chelsea and us are the only unbeaten teams left this season.

10) Wenger knows that we have been pretty poor this season so far, he has to pull it out the bag today or there will be a meltdown.

My starting 11 – Chesney, Bellerin, Kos, BFG, Gibbs, Jack, Ramsey, Santi, Ozil (free role) Alexis, Welbeck. (4-2-3-1)

 

Why didn’t Wenger strenthen our defencive side ?

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Arsenal in big games eh? “If we could snatch a draw it is a good result” I’m sick of hearing draw is a good result because we are playing away to a big team in the League or in a Champions league match even before the match has started. Tell you what, draw is a good result, when you are in the last 10 mins of a game and losing 1-0 or 2-1 from that moment onwards anything you get out of the game is a good result. For The Arsenal of 10 years back, win was the only option no matter which team was playing against you.

After the Man City and the BVB games, yet again it was highlighted that the squad lacks a solid defensive structure and not one player in the center of midfield is aware of their defensive responsibilities in case the opponents are waiting for counter attack. The same mistakes are repeated in game after game and season after season which are underlined by pundits, journalist and even neutrals and to which the manager remain completely phlegmatic and distant from overturning the approach of Arsenal towards so called ‘big games’.

On Sky sports Monday Night Football, Gary Neville highlighted Arsenal will NOT win the league. To support his argument he said the players are naïve, they lack power, experience and steel in midfield, there was no defensive plan set-up to protect the lead at 2-1 and that leaves them vulnerable to attacks. When you are leading 2-1 and there were 10-12 mins to go against a big team you don’t take risk, you keep hold of the ball and put on a defender!!! Right, we don’t have any CB!!! After Debuchy’s injury Chambers was on the pitch leaving no further CB option further highlighting the sheer negligence and stubbornness of the manager. Similarly, BBC MOTD also pin-pointed to Arsenal’s jeopardy at the back and in defensive midfield from last season and continuing to be repeated yet again against Man-City.

Personally I can’t stand Jose Mourinho, but on Saturday after Chelsea’s match against Swansea City when talking transfers he was spot on, said he identified needs before season ends, target players, go and get them. How often have we (Arsenal) ‘identify needs’ or ‘target a player’ and get him?

It was 2012 when Robin Van Persie was sold to ManUtd, 5 transfer windows to find a striker and when questioned about not signing a striker Wenger gives his usual statement “we have Sanogo, Walcott who can play as a striker, Podolski can play up front, Campbell can play there” OR his verdict that Arsenal are only looking for a ‘TOP TOP class player’ and those player are not available in the market. Enough with the excuses Arsene!!! And finally when we buy a striker in last 8 hours on deadline day who was never on the radar and was only available because ManUtd signed Falcao, again highlighting that there is/was no planning or a strategy in place when it comes to buying a player and Arsene had no intention of buying anyone if Welbeck was not available.

For the case of Defensive Midfield (DM), last summer (2013) we had to sign a player (Flamini) who was training to get fit with us. Now our DM is a player (Arteta) who is converted and made to play that role in the team, typical make do Arsene Wenger methodology. He still refuses to pay for a player (DM) and fails to address the gaps in the team which the team is desperately calling out for. We’ve team full of tap dancers/cheerleaders we needed a conductor. Misplaced ire to get angry at Arteta, not his fault Wenger didn’t sign better in the summer, or that he isn’t a natural holding midfielder. After watching the Man City and BVB games twice its Deja vu, if you don’t address the problems ergo….. Once again paying for shambolic transfer strategy. That issue lies with manager.

AW after the defeat to BVB: “They were very strong in midfield, stronger than us, I agree”. Yes Arsene they were strong in midfield because you and you alone failed address the one position this team craved for, and why do you have to agree now!!! Weren’t those heavy defeats to Chelsea, Liverpool enough to accept the need for a DM and that a Defensive Mid should be priority number 1 for the summer window? Baffling……Puzzling…….Shambolic….

Written by Sidd