Tag Archives: She Wore

The Arsenal and Me – Ann’s Story

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1974 Not the year I was born but the year I came to live in Islington.

I watched the 1971 FA Cup final at home in Scotland and was enthralled that both my teams had won…Celtic in the Scottish Cup and The Arsenal in London. A few years later (1973) is was doing my A Levels and wrote an essay on lads and lasses who went to Highbury. The essay helped me get a credible B Grade.

A year later, I had moved down to Islington and into a flat share where everyone else hated football. On a Saturday in October 1974 I went to find The Arsenal.

Highbury Fields were empty, there was obviously no home game on. So I walked from Highbury Corner, up past the college, past the shops and down the hill. I couldn’t see The Arsenal but knew they must be here somewhere.

By chance I looked to the left and saw the white and red facade at the end of the terrace. I found The Arsenal. I quickened my pace and couldn’t wait to walk towards the stadium. At the bottom of the road, Highbury stadium. It was beautiful then and remained beautiful the day we played our last ever match there.

I went to as many matches as a civil service salary would permit. I checked the scores on a Saturday, longing to go back and watch live football when I was too skint.

My life changed. I married, moved East.

A few matches here and there, especially if the Hoops came for a friendly, which was often.

My comrades from Glasgow, a friendly bunch came for the day, drank the pubs dry and scared the local kids. They were good box office though!

Brian Talbot, Liam Brady, Jon Sammels, Kenny Sansom, Tony Adams, Rocky Rocastle, Sammy Nelson. I am honoured to say that I saw them all!

Life then changed again. My son was born. It was an era where a team of Red men played great football in a northern town and in Europe. He became a Liverpool fan and still is.

Then Hillsborough.

The horror, the lies the cover up, only fucking working classes, pissed up fighting with the old Bill. Would never have happened otherwise. Fans went to a football match and didn’t come home. I had been to Highbury and I’d always come home.

As a result of Hillsborough, The North Bank was then dismantled. The club failing to include an accurate representation of our supporters in the hoarding while renovations took place.

When the North Bank was rebuilt, everything changed. Seats, play stations, bands before the match (live, not marching). Modern football had begun

On the pitch, footballers like Wrighty, Overmars, Pires! Big Dave in goal, Tony Adams at the back. Times were good.

I started watching on a regular basis again around the same time Monsieur Wenger joined the club. We queued up Avenell Road for 4 hours on the days tickets went on sale but it was worth it. This was before the internet, before a membership scheme. Before the new stadium.

We watched Tony Adams score that fourth goal against Everton, “we won the league, look at us!!!” The one where he opens his arms to take the salute, the same pose that is now his bronze outside the new stadium.

Dennis Bergkamp, “an artist at work” I’d say to my son as we watched him dance and slide skilfully out of a defenders field of vision and over their trailing leg. His testimonial opened the new stadium. I was sad he was going but we saw him at his best.

With the new stadium came a season ticket, a cost.

Regular football watching. One of the chosen few who had a seat and a view.

Our team, our boys, the tourists came, the brand of Arsenal created in a Corporate image. Monsieur Wenger was part of building that brand.

Many cold European nights. Many shock defeat. Many dodgy decisions, but that’s football. What go’s around come’s around.

And it came around in 2014. After 9 years of suffering, I fulfilled a lifelong dream and The Arsenal made that possible. I watched from a seat at Wembley as they won the FA Cup. I sobbed like a child, sobbed loudly into my hands when the final whistle went. It meant so much.

It took me back to 1971 when I was so enthralled The Arsenal had won the FA Cup at Wembley.

Last weekend I went to the semi final to see my Arsenal. It was a strange game as the team laboured. But we won. And that is the important thing. At the end of May to try and retain OUR trophy.

2015 is my 60th year on this planet. The club I went looking for in 1974 moved across the road. I moved several times but I keep coming back.

Last Christmas, my son bought me a plaque and it’s on the stairs along with many other outside the North Bank. It says:

“Ann Gibson, Fan since 1974”

That is who I am.

Ann

Who is Arsenal’s first choice right back?

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Over recent weeks, Hector Bellerin has come on leaps and bounds. Since his shaky first start in the Champions League against Borussia Dortmund, the run in the team has seen him progress at a rate that nobody, including Arsene Wenger, could have expected.

When he played that game against Dortmund, he looked out of place, his inexperience showing. He looked lightweight, his positioning was poor and defending was shocking. He did not show any of the blistering pace, or attributes, that had got many people glowing about as he came up through the youths.

Since that first game, the improvement has been remarkable. Peaking in the recent performance against Chelsea where he had Eden Hazard in his pocket for the entire game.

He looks like a typical young Arsenal full back in the Cole, Clichy, Gibbs mould. Extremely quick, meaning he can make up for his defensive lapses, and happy to bomb forward.

Very rarely now do you see him use that electrifying pace to get back into position. Instead, we now see it going forward, which he does regularly, providing the width to the side with Ramsey dropping inside.

Yes, he can still improve, his crossing is relatively poor and he can still be beaten easily when someone stands him up, but his performances are going to give Arsenal a selection problem, both for the rest of this year and the start of next.

With Bacary Sagna leaving last summer, Arsenal signed Mathieu Debuchy from Newcastle for £10 million. After just a few games, we as Arsenal fans were happy. Debuchy was performing, both at right back and as an emergency centre back. Then he got injured.

It was that injury, and poor form of Calum Chambers that gave Bellerin his chance. And boy how he has now taken it.

The question to ask now is do Arsenal now invest the time in Bellerin, give him the rest of the season, and develop him into Arsenal’s right back for the next decade, or do they return to Debuchy, bring back the experienced man, who looked shaky in the FA Cup semi final?

Of course, we need a squad, and as we are seeing at left back, you can carry two top class full backs. But will Debuchy be happy with that? At best competing with, at worst playing second fiddle to, a 20 year old full back.

Remember, Debuchy is a French international. Their first choice right back. And at the end of next season, the European Championships are to be held in his home country. Would he want to risk losing his Arsenal place, and therefore losing his France place?

We could see a scenario where Debuchy’s Arsenal career is over before it has even begun.

And what does this mean for Chambers? His star seems to have fallen. After starting the season with a bang, forcing his way into the England squad, he now seems to have slipped back. The signing of Gabriel means he is now 4th choice centre back, and Bellerin has leap frogged above him as right back.

At £16 million and still just 20, it would be silly to write him off (why am I even typing that?) but you have to ask where Chambers will get his game time from. Maybe an option would be to loan him out to a Premier League side until January, where he can play week in week out at centre back.

As for Carl Jenkinson, I doubt we will ever see him in an Arsenal shirt again. It is sad to say as he is an Arsenal boy, through and through, but if you are not good enough, you are not good enough. And sadly Jenkinson is our 4th best right back. After playing a full season at West Ham, he has proven he is Premier League, if not Arsenal quality. And a reported £10 million transfer fee is a lot of money, even for someone as cash rich as Arsenal.

To add to the scenario, what would happen if Debuchy decided to leave to a club to guarantee first team football? Would that mean Chambers staying, as a back up right back, meaning he would miss out on important development at centre back? Or would Arsenal sacrifice the £10 million for Jenkinson and keep him around as 2nd choice. I am sure he would just as happily sit on Arsenal’s bench than start for West Ham.

The Arsenal right back conundrum is certainly a confuddled one. And all caused by the excellent for of a young Spaniard.

We certainly have a player on our hands. Hopefully, as Bellerin’s career progresses, he does not go the same was as Cole (greedy), Clichy (never improved) or Gibbs (injury prone). We maybe have our right back for the next decade.

Keenos

clocks+ribbon

Shop – she wore a yellow ribbon badgepins and ribbon

 

Thierry Henry’s Spine

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So yesterday evening the world imploded after Thierry Henry said on Sky Sports “Arsenal need to buy four players, they need that spine,”

This led to all the old internal fighting between fans to once more rear its ugly heads. As Wenger-Loyalists came out and derided the legend, even going as far as questioning his legendary status. At the same time, those they wish Wenger to leave got behind the great man, saying that even if Wenger’s greatest achievement ever, a man who idolises the manager, can see Wenger’s fault, then surely he can not be wrong.

So was Henry right? Do we need to buy four players? Do we need a new spine?

My first thoughts on this are simple. Four first team players are hard to blend in with the current first team. We have seen it with Manchester City in the past. We have seen it with Manchester United this season, who struggled to fit Rojo, Shaw, Blind, Herrera, Di Maria and Falcao into the side (yes, I know that is 6). Sides need continuity.

I am very much from the Sir Alex Ferguson school of thinking. You should buy no more than 2 first team players a season, to ensure continuity.

Of course, it could be argued that as one of the players Henry is talking about is the goal keeper, we would only be adding 3 first team players, which is not a lot more than 2 (just 1 more in fact). And it is plausible, you could add 3 out field starting players, and it not effect the team continuity – although again, I would doubt if you could do it if it was the spine. It might work if it was, say, a left back, centre midfielder and winger, but a centre back, centre midfielder and striker? That would be a big upheaval.

So I am certainly in the “We should not sign four first team players” camp. However, this does not believe I do not think we do not need four new players, just that I do not think we can blend four new players into the team. There is a difference, in my eyes, between wanting to sign four new players, and needing four new players.

So do I think we need four new players? Well let us go through the spine of the team.

Goalkeeper

At the minute, we have David Ospina and Wojech Szczesny battling it out for the number one shirt. I am of the opinion neither is currently good enough to be first choice goal keeper.

David Ospina is a good, solid goal keeper, and he has done very little wrong since he took the number one jersey from Szczesny. But I do not see him as a game winner. His lack of height worries me (although he is taller than Shay Given). I see him as a very able number 2.

As for Szczesny, he has disappointed me. When he was a teenager, he showed so much talent. He lost it when he first broke through, but last season he took massive strides forward and was looking like the real deal. He was on par with the likes of David De Gea as one of the best young keepers around. This year he has regressed and gone back to his silly ways.

He is still just 25, and there is certainly a top goal keeper waiting to break out. But can we afford to wait for him to mature? Probably not.

That leaves us in a situation where we have a good number 2, and someone who could be a number one in the future. We need a number one.

What makes the situation perhaps more clear cut is the availability of Petr Cech in the summer. Whilst he has not played much for Chelsea this season, he is still a top class keeper. He will be 33 in the summer, which used to be the peak for goal keepers. He could do for us what Edwin van der Saar did for Manchester United. He would have a good 5 years still ahead of him. Other than him, I do not see too many goal keepers in world football that would perhaps improve on what we have.

The probability is that Szczesny will leave, and Ospina will be kept as number 2, and a new keeper would be bought in. So in the case of a goal keeper, I agree with Thierry Henry, we do need an extra goal keeper.

Centreback

I honestly do not think we need an extra centre back. In January we bought Gabrial Paulista, who has barely played since he joined. Before his signing, I would agree, we were a centre back short, but with his signing, that position is now set. In Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gabriel and Chambers, we have a solid set of 4.

This is perhaps where the thinking of not adding too many first choice players comes in. We could have waited to the summer to buy Gabriel, but we move in January. This puts us in the situation where, by August, he would have been with the club for a good 7 or 8 months. He will be set. Therefore we would not have to worry about trying to get another player to settle within the team/squad.

Some might argue that we still need another centre back, that Per Mertesacker is not good enough. These people are misguided. Just because he is no good on FIFA, it does not mean he is not a good defender. And infact, he is brilliant on FIFA, if you know hoe to defend, rather than rely on pace abusing. No one ever questions John Terry’s pace, and he has been the stand out centre back in the league this season.

In a sense, Henry is right, we do need to strengthen the defence. But it has already been done with the signing of Gabriel. We now just need him to settle and then break through.

Defensive Midfielder

Despite the progress of Francis Coquelin, we are still short in the middle of the park. Coquelin has been brilliant, but he has only done it for 6 months. It would be dangerous to think he is the solution, and we do not need to strengthen in the area.

With Diaby set to be put down leave, Flamini being sub standard, and Arteta being ancient (although he is still just 33), we clearly need someone to come in and compete with Coquelin. To take the pressure off him. To replace him when suspended. To play alongside him against top teams.

There is a whole host of names that can be mentioned with this position. Morgan Schneiderlin is many people’s favourite. But there is also his team mate Wanyama and Kondogbia at Monaco. Add in long term favourites Sami Khedira and William Carvhalo, there are plenty of options out there.

I would still keep Mikel Arteta. He is club captain, and, whilst he might not make it onto the pitch too often, he does a lot of good work behind the scenes. A lot of this blog has been about continuity, and Arteta is part of that. He knits the team together on the training ground, helps new signings settle, and puts an arm round young players when they join in with first team training. He is also often found at Hale End passing on his experience to the youngsters. He is a future manager and still has a role to play at the club. Also, he is still good enough to play against 60% of Premier League sides at home, which adds squad depth.

In the past we have been too quick to let go our senior players. It is important that we keep hold of Arteta.

What that would mean is Arteta would be 3rd choice, and we would then have Coquelin vying with the new signing to start week in week out. Strength in depth!

Striker

This one is contentious, and has created a great deal of debate and has created a great deal of debate amongst many people from She Wore. There seem to be various aspects to this debate:

  • Giroud is not good enough, we need another striker, ideally someone with pace

 

  • Giroud does not have pace, but he has pace around him, he plays with his back to goal and brings the quick players into play

 

3)      We need a world class player, who can do both what Giroud does, and bring players into play

All 3 arguments are valid. They are all correct, and incorrect. How?

Well for the first, yes, Giroud does lack pace. It is his weakness. This means he can be easy to defend against. He also does not have the ‘X factor’. He is not going to beat 2 or 3 men and score a wonder goal. But that is also not his game. He is big and strong. He can hold up the ball, bring others into play, and when in the box, can hold of players and score.

When we had Henry, we moaned we did not have a big man. A fox in the box. Someone to hold up play. Now we have Giroud, we moan we do not have a pacey man, someone to beat players. It seems you can not win.

Giroud plays for the majority of the time with his back to goal. This then allows the midfield to form behind him. Were we to get rid, and buy someone with pace, we would have to change the way the side plays. They could not longer get close to the front man, there would be nothing to feed off. We would have to play deeper, counter attacking football, with the ball being released quickly to the likes of Sanchez, Walcott and our new striker. However, as Welbeck has shown, it is not all about pace when it comes to playing upfront.

Playing with your back to goal, or facing goal, are two completely different skills, which require completely different attributes, and completely different team set ups. I am certainly in the camp of ‘we keep the team set up’. For me, that would be no new ‘speedy’ striker. No Lacazette, No Aubameyang. We have seen with the experiment of Sanchez and Walcott up top, having a quick bloke with little strength does not suit us.

But we can still potentially improve on Giroud. An option could be to sacrifice a bit of his height and strength, for a bit more pace. When put this to the group, 2 names came up. Cavani and Higuain. Two long term rumoured targets. Neither are as good in the air than Giroud, but both are better at running in behind. They could be genuine options, and if available, should certainly be explored.

A third option, and where I firmly sit, is that we do not need a striker. In Giroud, we have the best in the world at what he does. Plucking the ball out of the air and brining others in to play. His goal record is up there with most of Europe. Is he any worse than Diego Costa? His goals per game this season would indicate no. Yes, he could run the defence better, move the centre backs about a bit more, try and create a bit more space than others, but he is still improving.

What Giroud does is bring out the best in Sanchez and Ozil. So perhaps what we need to do is build on his, and the sides strength. And to do that, we need to focus on our right forward, rather than our centre forward.

Since returning from injury, Walcott’s performances can be described as tepid at best, and with just 12 months left on his Arsenal contract, time is running out. The front line can be strengthened but signing a top draw right forward, rather than a centre forward. In the same way Sanchez on the left side improved teams.

Not only are their more top draw right forward’s, this will strengthen the side a lot more than a striker.

3 names spring to mind as soon as we start talking about a right wing forward. The first is Raheem Sterling. He has struggled recently, but this is more to do with Brendan Rodgers than Sterling. He is class, and still just a kid.

A second name, who we have been linked with for some time, is Marco Reus. He would be another one who would immediately improve the forward line. Yes, you could question his injuries, and he would be more expensive now that he has re-signed a contract removing the release clause, but his talent is unquestionable. Add in the fact that he can also play down the middle, giving us the option to play him centrally if Giroud is not working, it would be a top signing. With 53 goals in 114 games, mainly from out wide, we would be massively improving the forward line,

A final name that is in fine form at the moment is Antoine Griezmann at Atletico Madrid. He only signed for them last summer, for £24 million, but has gone from strength to strength, scoring 25 goals this season. Traditionally a winger, he has spent most of the season playing up top, alongside Mario Mandzukic.

At just 5 9, he would struggle up top alone in the Premier League, in the same way Sanchez and Walcott have done. But play him to the right of Giroud, with Sanchez to the left, you would have a dangerous front 3, with Giroud acting as the ‘pivot’ that Brazil made famous with Fred at the World Cup. And to top it off, Griezmann is French.

Like Reus, he would start outwide, but when chasing in the game, we could push him further down the middle.

A final option would be to change formation. Go 442. Sign Griezmann or one of the speedy forwards previously mentioned (Lazacette being my first choice) to play alongside him, rather than replace him. The old ‘big man little man’ combination. For me, this would mean to much upheaval of the team. Sanchez would be deeper. Ozil out wide. Do we have the central midfield? And City have shown playing 2 in the middle just does not work.

So to respond to Henry’s statement that we need a new spine, I tend to disagree. What we need is to replace a few vertebrate’s a new shoulder blade.

What I do wish for is that every time we fail to win, or an ex player or pundit makes a comment, that the infighting stops. It seems we as a fan group can no longer have a sensible debate with each other. It is embarrassing. We all want the best for the club, even if we want to go down a different route. It always seems we are 1 draw away from a catastrophe.

We are all entitled to our opinion. Mine is that we need 3 new players – a goalkeeper, a defensive midfielder and a right forward. What is yours?

Keenos