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Man City, Wenger’s Tic Tac’s, Joel Campbell And now you’d better believe us

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Man City

Well what a win that was.

Yes, we did it the hard way, inviting the pressure, conceding the inevitable goal with less than 10 minutes and holding on at the end. But who cares? It is a brilliant victory which keeps us holding onto Leicester’s coat tales going into the festive period.

I have a headache this morning after the beers last night. But it is well worth it!

Wenger’s Tic Tac’s

For a long time, and quite frustratingly, people have always claimed “Wenger doesn’t tactics”. It infuriated me. And was incorrect.

It was a line that was rolled out every time we lost a game. Easy to blame the manager and his tactics.

As this season has shown, teams lose games. Does Luis van Gaal not tactics when losing to Norwich? Does Manuel Pellegrini not tactics when failing to score against Aston Villa? Does Jose Mourinho not tactics in any of the 9 games Chelsea have lost this season?

And then you look at someone like Barcelona. Is Luis Enrique a tactical genius? Winning 5 trophies. Playing Neymar, Messi & Suarez upfront?

Against City, Wenger got his tactics spot on. Allowing City’s defence and midfield to have the ball, he knew that none of the back 7 had the ability to pick out a killed pass. It was only when the ball went into David Silva, Sergio Aguero or Kevin de Bruyne did Arsenal put pressure on.

And to a large extent, it worked. Whilst in the first half City had a lot of position in Arsenal’s half, they did not have a single shot in target.

On the flip side, it was Arsenal’s lack of pressing that caused us to concede a goal, but it was a glorious strike by Yaya Toure.

Wenger got his game plan right. And should be praised for it.

Joel Campbell

I will happily admit when I am wrong.

I felt we missed a trick after the World Cup by not flogging him whilst his stock is high. And this summer, after another average loan spell, we should have just cashed in. He looked like a headless chicken every time I saw him play. Continually running nowhere with his head down.

And how wrong I was. It shows perhaps that Arsene Wenger does just know what he is doing.

He is still very rough round the edges, but he has ability. Skill, pace and a good work rate.

I still do not feel he has the talent to be a regular long term starter for The Arsenal, but as a squad player, he could be key.

The fine run of form he has been in since breaking into the team has forced him ahead of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the reckoning.

I am more than happy to be wrong when something positive is happening at Arsenal. I am honest enough to swallow my pride and admit that I was wrong. Now if only some people were the same with Mesut Ozil.

And now you better believe us

In what has been an unpredictable season so far, you would be stupid to predict that Arsenal will be top by New Years Day. But I am stupid.

Leicester next two games are at Liverpool before hosting Manchester City. Whilst Arsenal travel to Southampton before a home game against Bournemouth. It would not be a surprise if Leicester lost both, with Arsenal winning both. Then again, I am probably setting myself up for a fall and a lot of mocking.

What is for certain is that Arsenal are competing. Over the years it has been what we as fans have been calling for. We do not expect to win the title every year. No one has that divine right. But we do expect to be competing.

2 points off top going into the festive period is certainly competing. It still grates a lot that our lack of transfer movement has probably cost us a few points this season. For every point Petr Cech has won us, you have to wonder how many we have dropped by not having the options and squad depth. But that is over. For now.

With January coming up, we need to get the signings right to help us push on. We are still a defensive midfielder short with Francis Coquelin out – although Flamini has performed well. And with last nights news that Alexis Sanchez is out until mid January, coupled with Danny Welbeck’s extended absence, we still need a striker to ease the burden on Olivier Giroud.

We make the right January signings, and continue the great run of form we have had over the last 14 months, and we will be crowned Champions.

Arsenal linked with new signing. Lots of new signings

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So silly season is well under way. The newspapers are cranking up their fabricated stories to get hits and appease advertisers.

Since the 1st of December, Arsenal have already been linked to well over 40 players. It is almost as if someone is sitting their with a random name generator, hits go, and whatever it comes up with they run the story.

This December it seems as crazy as ever.

As usual, we enjoy logging every player linked with them from reputable sources. What is reputable now is so much harder to define then 10 years ago as it seems you now have main stream media quoting random speculators to get that hit.

We have already logged over 40 players.

I always laugh when I am adding the names. You get players who seem to always be on the list for years in a row. I am still awaiting Arsenal to sign Sebastian Frey.

Recent ones include Bender (Sven or Lars, depending on which name comes out the hat) and the newest media favourite, Adrian Rabiot.

December 2013 was the first time I can find Rabiot linked with us. Since then, he has been an ever present in our A to Z. That is 5 in total. And yet we have not signed him yet. He is one of the names many Arsenal fans add to their personal wish list, despite having not seen him play. They rate him purely because he was always linked with us.

We will not sign him this winter. But we will be linked with him next summer. Rabiot is the new Sebastian Frey.

Than you have players where it is clear that the journalist is being fed information by an agent. The likes of Alexandre Pato and Ezequiel Lavezzi are clear examples of this. Players who are itching for a move. Link with Arsenal in the hope to get a move elsewhere. And more often than not they do!

Then we have the real random ones. Usually kids. It is almost like a journalist is sitting their playing the new Football Manager, discovers a Wonder Kid, so links him to every major club over the course of a few weeks. The hope is that one day he might make it, and make that move, and he can become ITK and tell everyone ‘I told you so’ despite getting another 50 deals wrong and linking that player to 10 different clubs.

Bartlomiej Dragowski is an example of that this year. No one knows who this kid is. Except for him being the best young goal keeper on FM2016. And yet we get linked with him, and people will get excited, proclaiming that he is one of the top prospects in Europe. An opinion based on them playing the same game as the journalist who linked the player.

I also notice a cheeky little link to Yann M’Vila this year. I find that odd considering we signed him a few years ago…

And then we have someone like Reece Oxford. The same person who linked him to Arsenal probably also linked him to X-Factor winner Louisa Johnson. Found to be untrue. And the paper had to apologise.

Imagine if The Sun or The Metro had to apologise everytime they falsified a link to of a footballer to a club? The back pages would be full of them.

One thing we are happy with is the link of Arsenal to sign Granit Xhaka.

A little game we play is seeing if we can get the perfect score. A player linked starting with every letter of the alphabet. We always get close, but never the full 26. With X the one that usually lets us done.

I remember many years ago, when we were a little old forum hosted in the back waters of the internet, we tried our hardest to get a link to Abel Xavier in the paper. Just to complete the list. We failed.

But this year we have a chance. With Xhaka we have our X.

All we have left is A, F, Q, T, U, V, Y & Z. Bring on the links to Claudio Yacob, Wilfred Zaha & Ricardo Quaresma.

The sad thing is, enough people click on the links to the speculation that it makes it worthwhile to continue doing it for both media outlets and rubbish blogs. We have all seen the like. They are always most read on the News Now feed. With titles such as “Arsenal set to sign French midfielder” and an article linking us for the 100th time in 3 days to Adrian Rabiot.

One of the best of these I saw went along the lines of “Arsenal to strike up £30m deal for England striker”. It was about Theo Walcott’s new contract.

The speculation really does my head in. And it also gives people a stick to beat the club in. People moaning that we have not bought a certain player that we were linked with. Well if you decided to believe the speculation, its your fault, not the clubs for not signing him.

As the old saying go’s, believe nothing until you see the player wearing the shirt.

Enjoy silly season.

Keenos

Arsene Wenger the Fraudulent Genius

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“Proof that Wenger is a genius” they all cried after the miracle in Greece. And whilst it was a brilliant result, it was certainly no proof that Arsene Wenger was a genius.

I would like to think I am a fairly honest fella. I call it how I see it. If someone is over critical of Arsenal, I will call them out on it. In the same way, it people give praise where praise really should not be due, then I will pick them up on it.

And after the Greece victory, Arsene Wenger has got a lot of praise, which is, in my opinion, not really due to him.

The fact is, Arsenal should never have been going to Greece on the last match day of Champions League qualifying in the position they were.

The first two games left us with 0 points with a double header against Bayern Munich to come up. How we lost to Zagreb & Olympiakos is beyond me. It ultimately came down to team selection and motivation. It was Wenger’s fault.

So he put us in the position we were in after 2 games. And yet we got out of it, and now we praise Wenger for getting us out of it. The man who put us in the hole is praised for digging us out of it. Odd.

Situations like this have gone on throughout Arsene Wenger’s career.

So often people – including myself – have spoken about how well he has done on a limited transfer budget. Yet especially in recent years, it is him who has decided not to spend. Surely we should be criticising for not spending, rather than praising for finishing 4th whilst not spending?

Or the injuries. I have seen people praise him for winning games despite a lot of injuries. Yet it is Wenger who built a squad which has half a dozen injury prone players. It is his fault that the squad has too many injured players, so lets not praise him for winning a game despite the injuries.

You would not praise a builder for finishing a job that he cocked up half way through. Or praise a doctor for curing an illness despite previously misdiagnosing it numerous times.

Imagine your mate pushed you into a lake. Would you then praise him for jumping in and getting you out? No, Because he put you there.

The fact is, this ‘Wenger Genius’ tag put on the Frenchman after the win in Greece is false.

Yes, the side should get praise. The way we got out of the hole was brilliant. And the 3-0 win away in Greece is a memory that will never be taken away from the fans who travelled and got held in the stadium for hours after. But the fact is, do we praise the man as a genius who got us in the hole foe getting us out? NO.

Keenos