Arsenal 2 - Barcelona 2: Teenagers vs Men.

Talk about a football lesson. We are supposed to be the best passing team in England, if we are, then we need to improve big time. Barcelona starved us of the ball all night, we only mustered 38% possession all game, and at home, incredible. For the first 45mins, we only had 1 shot on goal, and that was wide, whereas Barcelona had 12.

I do question what was Wenger's tactic for this match? Cede possession and then try hit on the break? If so, it was totally wrong. He should have had a man marker on Xavi as well.


Barcelona took their 2 goals very well, one after an Almunia special, and the other after our defensive line was caught out, nothing new to us Arsenal fans. Our two goals came from Walcott squirming a shot and Fabregas earning a harsh penalty which he scored.


Let me put it on record, any Arsenal fan should not be proud that we drew 2-2, and that we showed heart and desire. Since when were we Aston Villa or Chelsea that rely on that? We are Arsenal, we rely on technique and intelligence, and now the lies of Wenger have been exposed to the world that our players are nowhere near the best technicians on the planet. We may outplay teams like Portsmouth, but we never do it to the big boys, Barcelona do it to everybody, it doesn't matter who it is, be it Man Utd in a final, or Inter Milan or Chelsea, they will outplay them. I am only interested in winning, not drawing matches, we should do everything to win, and clearly last night we never, so there is nothing to be happy about. Arsenal fans have begun to become cowards by not demanding success and being happy by simply challenging, since when did that become acceptable? man Utd fans were fuming when they lost to Bayern Munchen, we are over the moon with a draw? Wake Up fans!


This then raises question about our transfer strategy. 5 of the Barcelona team were bought in, the rest from their cantera. So what they have done is buy the best players on the market to supplement their players.All the players on show for us tonight were acquired by Wenger, not under duress, by choice. We do not buy the best on the market,we buy prospects, and this surely has to change now. If we are serious about challenging for prestigious titles such as the Champions League, tonight showed how far away we are from the level required. We need to start buying players that take us closer to Barcelona's level.


Barcelona had players who have won domestic and international honours, every single one of them has won something, they are champions and played like it. We need to sign some champions. Wenger also has to change his tactics, not be scared, and go for it. Why were his players not prepared well enough? Why did Alves have so much space to do damage? Why did Xavi have freedom to pick his passes? This needs to change.


Another thing, why are we playing injured players? Arshavin got injured after being injured last week, Gallas never should have played and he is now out for the season and will never wear our shirt again as he will leave the club, Fabregas should not have played as he was injured. We have a big squad, what message does that send to Campbell/Silvestre, who are 100% fit but not played? What message does that send to Denilson/Nasri/Walcott/Eboué/Rosicky who could all have played for Fabregas and Arshavin, they are all 100% and don't start. The medical team needs to be fired for these decisions.


Player Ratings:

Almunia 3: Good saves, which were routine if we are honest, then made a clanger and was scared of the second. 1 mistake can undo all your work.

Sagna 2: Same old Sagna, crap crosses.

Clichy 2: Dominated by Alves, he should also learn to come inside with the ball.

Vermaelen 2: Exposed against an elite opponent.

Gallas 2: Should not have started the game.

Song 4: Showed guts and good passing, moved to defence and was not up to marking Ibrahimovic.

Diaby 1: Went missing.

Fabregas 2: Injured, should not have played, and selfish reaction when given a yellow card. Xavi showed him what being a regista is all about tonight.

Nasri 1: Alves had a good game because Nasri gave him a bye. Also crosses the ball when there is no one in the box, what is the point of that?

Arshavin 1: The man who says we need new players never pitches up again and gets injured.

Bendtner 3: Created both goals, but he is there to score, and never looked like doing it, especially when he heads straight at the goalkeeper.

Denilson 2: Over run in midfield.

Eboué 2: Not much.

Walcott 4: Created havoc and scored, but still needs to be intelligent.


Coach Rating

Wenger 3: Wrong selections by using injured players who are now probably all out for the season, wrong tactics by not pressing the team and applying man markers on the pressure points i.e. Xavi and Messi. Gets points for ensuring the team never capitulated, however not acceptable that his team is outplayed so comprehensively again at home.

Bham Disaster: Barcelona Nightmare.

Wow, just when it looked like we had grown some balls and become smarter, we throw 2 points away, and the championship too. Make no bones about it, with only 6 games to go and the team 4 points behind and with an inferior goal difference, we had no business giving away 2 points.


The team never played the football required to win this game, Wenger had a very questionable team sheet omitting Arshavin, Eboué and Nasri, and starting Walcott instead. Diaby had a good game, although for all his tricks and moves, he never opened up Bham as much as he should have. Fabregas sucked after getting injured, and a note to Wenger, if players are injured, replace them, Nasri could do his job too. Walcott was awful again, Bendtner never looked like making the difference, Rosicky was intelligent but the others around him were not. At the back, Sol has no legs but has lots of personality, Song was steady, Clichy and Sagna gave their usual clinic in how not to cross the ball, seriously, what do they do in training?


Nasri opened the scoring with a nice drive, however he also missed two chances, one he tried to feed Arshavin when one on one, you need to be selfish in such regions. Arshavin sucked as well. This guy is lazy, he picks and chooses when he wants to play, and some say he is a potential Ballon d'Or winner? Ronaldo even when injured puts a solid shift in, Arshavin got 25mins and never did a tenth of the work Rosicky did. At this rate, we need players to replace him in the summer, seeing as he likes talking about new players all the time.


Almunia also sucked, this guy is so lucky to have a boss that thinks he is a real keeper. He can't kick or pass, one time he passed to a Bham player under no pressure. He fumbled a freekick, allowed one shot to hit the post, and saved the best till last with an early Easter present to Bham and Utd-Chelski by palming the ball into his own net, in the last 30 seconds of the game. My declarations, he should be dropped and shipped off when the team is mathematically out of the title race and told to find a new club, each performance sees his value drop. How many more mistakes should the other 10 players have to deal with? 97mins work undone by his antics.


Barcelona


Finally, Wenger will get what he has always wanted, a team that plays all out football, to really judge his side? I can tell all fans what to expect, we will be brushed aside by Barcelona because Wenger will not be smart, he will not change his tactics, he will not want to do all required to win. Already he has come out saying we will not man mark Messi. Is he nuts? Fergie never man marked him in the final, and look what he did to them, he killed them. I bet if Fergie played them again, he'd put Fletcher on Messi for 90mins, it is worth it man marking. He needs to also look at last years semi-final vs Utd, we never changed and we got dismantled. Infact, look at the big games this year, Utd and Chelski knew what we would do and they simply went around us.


Some think that Barcelona are just all out football, but even Guardiola knows 2 games are not the same, and he changes from time to time, even captain Puyol admits this saying, “Our rivals have studied us a lot and we have to look for alternatives,” so we also need to be pragmatic. Some see it as a gift that Iniesta is out for the first leg, but they have many players who can come in to replace him, Keita Seydou-Busquetsa-Toure Yaya and even deploy Messi in midfield, so it is still very very tough.


Some say their defence is weak, but they know how to defend, they have let in only 4 goals in 8 games, we have let in 7 goals. They have scored 12 goals, we have hit 18, but they had a tougher group than us. However they have their full defence to call up upon apart from Abidal, we are down to the bare bones. They have Valdes who is supposed to be the weak link, but he always seems to win them the big games, we saw that in the 2006 and 2009 Finals where he saved his team, can Almunia do that for us? He has consistently shown he does not have the capacity for it.


If we play our 4-3-3 and then our timid 4-5-1 in the Cam Nou, Wenger is to blame for our impending elimination, we all know it is coming as we have seen it many times before.

Bham 1 - Arsenal 1: Guess who messed up again?????

The picture says it all, we all know what Wenger has to do........

Exclusive: William Gallas To Leave Arsenal This Summer.

Arsenal fans are about to receive the first bad news of the close season and this indicates that the club will need to go shopping, William Gallas will leave Arsenal FC this summer on a free transfer. The club has talked about extending his contract since August, but as yet, nothing has materialised. Since the preparations started for the 2009-2010 season, players such as Lukasz Fabianski, Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere, Kieran Gibbs, Robin Van Persie, Nicklas Bendtner, Denilson, Eduardo, Alexandre Song, Abou Diaby, Carlos Vela, Tomas Rosicky, Vito Mannone have all signed the obligatory 'long term contracts' between July and December 2009. That is 13 contracts extended in 5 months, and we are now 8 months into negotiations with Gallas, I think we can all see where this will end.


William Gallas has a 'mulling order' on him after he was stripped of the captaincy. He was given a club record fine after his declarations on the status of the team he was leading in 2008, and since it came after a series of 'outbursts', the club decided to shackle him down. That is why you do not see him having any press conferences unless he is on national team duty, and that is strictly only with Domenech by his side. Any press he gives outside of these duties could see him get fined again.


William is keeping his options open, and will only announce he is leaving when Arsenal are out of all competitions, and the bets are on him returning to his native France to see out his career. His preferred destination is his home town club, P.S.G., however with their floundering in the league, he may look to Lyon or his former club Marseille who could provide him with European football. Money isn't a huge factor, France is about to increase taxes on sports men that has excluded them from paying up to 30% of charges on social obligations.


Just as this website was the first to announce that Arsenal would not acquire Felipe Melo when everyone else pointed out is was a done deal, and this website indicated that Juventus had already pressed shirts in Melo's name, this website has concrete information that Arsenal will have to find a new defender next season.


This is very bad operations by Arsenal, they have let an experienced player leave, the team needs more experience, Gallas has played nearly 500 games in his career, where are Arsenal going to find such experience to replace him? Gallas has played as well as he did in the 2007-2008 season where he nearly skippered the side to the domestic championship, now he is leaving. Djourou has been out for the season, Nortdveit barely completes 90mins at Nurnberg and when he does, he does so in central midfield, Campbell is not a realistic option for next season, Silvestre should leave. Arsenal are playing very dangerous games......

Hull City 1 - Arsenal 2: Too Close, But 3 Points Is All That Counts

The matches are all ticking down, 8 more to go, Arsenal have 64 points, joint level with leaders Chelsea who have played a game less, and 1 point above Man Utd who have also played 1 game less. If Arsenal are to win the championship, they cannot afford any losses or draws, they require 24 points from the next 24, why expect anything less?


This match was a hurdle that needed to be overcome, and the team just about did it. The team started very well, lots of nice passes and movement, there was a sequence where there were 3 successive blind passes from the team as they ripped Hull apart with their skill. The team took the lead, nice build up on the right, the ball found its way to Arshavin who dinked in between 2 players and fired home, really nice goal.


From then, Arsenal continued to push a little bit, Arshavin missing efforts, is he becoming close mates with Bendtner? That said, Hull constantly tested the Arsenal defensive line, their Dutch striker being flagged offside before finally 'breaking' the trap and clashing with Campbell for a penalty. Bullard smashed past Almunia who had no chance, but it was a very very dubious penalty, the player was offside and in England, tackles like that are rarely a foul.....


After that, their captain Boateng got a red card, a natural consequence after the team focus on persistent fouling, he could have caused serious damage to Sagna with his tackle. Campbell also did his share, clattering into Zayatte, he was substituted. Campbell in my opinion should have got a red, we cannot cry foul when others tackle hard, we do it as well, Zayatte was on crutches at the end.

Hull then resorted to a 4-4-0, and sat very deep. Arsenal never took any shots until the final 4 mins, first Clichy, then Denilson, his shot was spilt and Bendtner smashed home, 2-1.


My view, the team could have solved this game earlier, this business of taking games to the limit is not too clever. The team faces West Ham, who are a good team, we need all the reserves for them, if the match was 'finished' after 70mins, we could have integrated Eduardo to play and get into form and not rush him. Secondly, where were the shots on goal? You don't win if you don't shoot, and yes, we can shoot from outside the box. Third, we need Gallas back ASAP, I'm not sure that Campbell can handle so many games in a week, he looked very shaky today.


Match Ratings

Almunia 4: Not much to do.

Sagna 3: Still scatter crossing, decent in defence though.

Campbell 2: Gave away a penalty, looked sluggish at the back. Headed everything away though, but clearly doesn't want the ball to feet.

Vermaelen 4: Decent game, not much to handle with.

Clichy 3: Bad crossing, good intercepts though.

Denilson 3: He seriously needs to hit the gym this summer, ridiculous he gets knocked off the ball so easily, bulk up.

Diaby 4: Carried the ball well and made some nice tackles, but not decisive.

Nasri 2: Bump back to earth, been very good in the last few games, offered nothing today.

Eboue 3: Not much impact despite some fine running.

Arshavin 3: Nice goal, but very wasteful and lazy.

Bendtner 4: Bad control, but held his nerve when the time came to bury his shot to clinch the points.

Eduardo N/A: Not much time,then again looks slow in legs and head.

Walcott 2: Still has very fine speed in his legs, but some of his passing and crossing stinks. Why cross or pass when there is no one in the box?


Coach Rating

Wenger 5: Used his best players available, although why did Denilson stay on for so long? Also when Hull went ultra defensive, he could have reacted quicker and introduced Walcott or Eduardo wide or up front. Apart from that, 3 points is what he is paid to deliver.

Arsenal 3 - Burnley 1: Slow but Exciting.

So, Arsenal have drawn blades with the other big knights, Man Utd and Chelsea, and are now equal on points with Chelsea, and 2 points behind Man Utd. I am bittersweet about this result, it is bitter because we took so long to seal the deal and now have Fabregas out, sweet as it increases the pressure on the other teams who know they cannot afford to slip up.


The first goal, it saw Fabregas connect with Nasri, the latter it seemed looked to have dwelt too long and looked indecisive, but Fabregas made a small run and he lofted it over the defence with precision for Fabregas to slide under the keepers legs, really nice stuff.


After that, we were treated to a Bendtner masterclass in how to miss chances, it was trully ridiculous how many chances he missed, headers, tap ins, shots, the lot, he managed to mess them up. is Luciano Moggi of calciopoli his agent, because it is madness to miss so many chances?


Nugent broke the offside trap and again we were treated to an Almunia slow motion save, 1-1, with Burnleys only chance of the game. Almunia and Silvestre were awful, even Vermaelen for that, watch the man and get the line right.


Walcott was playing decently, and he scored the second, cutting in from the right and for a change, using his left foot to guide a shot beyond the keeper, 2-1. Arshavin and Eduardo came on, they never added much urgency, the former scoring the third with a low hard drive in the box.


This game shows some flaws in the team, you cannot spurn so many chances and hope to win a championship. Added the fact they play Porto for CL qualification, the team should have had an easy last 30mins to save up energy, instead they had to play the entire 95mins to secure a result, big shame. Nice to see Nasri centrally, more of the same, Bendtner needs to learn to score, Walcott needs to learn elementary control, some of the lapses of control he showed were a disgrace for a professional footballer.


Player Ratings

Almunia 4: Not much action, but failed to save the Nugent goal, wake up.

Eboue 5: Nice thrusting play from him, he should work on his left foot though.

Vermaelen 5: Decent, at fault for the equaliser though.

Silvestre 4: Attack the player, don't stand off them.

Clichy 4: Not much work, but should add much more in attack.

Denilson 5: Decent passing and squeezing space.

Nasri 6.5: Why isn't he deployed here more often? Not likened to Zidane for nothing you know Wenger!!

Fabregas 5: Injured, but scored a nice goal, big loss for Porto.

Rosicky 5.5: I love this guy, very involved and his intelligence is key to the team.

Walcott 5: Lots of speed, but his crosses need to be more measured and he needs to learn basic control.

Bendtner 2: 1 for being present, 1 for trying, but seriously, no striker for a team looking for titles can spurn so many chances, really ridiculous performance by him.


Wenger 5: Easy game to manage, but why play Silvestre and why not take Bendtner off earlier? Forget being nice, do what is right for results, take Bendtner out earlier, the game may have been over by 60mins and the team will be less fatigued for Porto.