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.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Bham 1 - Arsenal 1: Guess who messed up again?????
The picture says it all, we all know what Wenger has to do........
Thursday, 18 March 2010
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......
Saturday, 13 March 2010
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.
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.
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