No big sales. Let’s start with that.

Jim 17/05/2013 1 Comment

We have arrived at the breathless finale, and it could go anywhere. Same as last year, then.

The Wigan game was no doubt fantastic for the neutral – ebbing and flowing like the tides – but it was hard work for the partisan until the triple-goal salvo. But here we are again and I have no idea what I think, if I’m honest. It’s desperately close.

What I do believe though – and it’s worth saying before fourth (or fifth, or third) is decided – is that irrespective of where we come this year, we are in as strong a position as we have been for several years to keep our pivotal players. We have been a selling club for a while now and as well as sending out the wrong signals, weakening our squad every summer has clearly also weakened the effect of buying new players, and has led to a lot of treading water. Last year we lost two key players, the year before two, in 2009 we lost two. Only in 2010 did we not shed too much.

If you look at who Wenger brought in last summer – Cazorla, Podolski, Giroud – all three have had very decent first seasons (and in the case of Cazorla, an outstanding first season). But their additions were mitigated by sales. The year before, we bought Mertesacker, Arteta, Jenkinson and Gervinho (plus others of limited impact, though perhaps I am being harsh on Benayoun) but we lost Fabregas and Nasri. Always fighting fires.

Now though, with perhaps fewer vultures circling, more money from TV and from Emirates and potentially also from a better shirt deal, we ought to hold a stronger hand.

Sagna, Vermaelen? Perhaps the former will go, and that would be a shame. But given his form and age, would that be as hard an exit as others have been? Jenkinson has done well.

Vermaelen we need to keep, frankly. You can’t prosper with anything less than three top-draw centre-halves.

Build on what we have, rather than react to departures – which is how it has sometimes felt – and we might end up with the stability and growth we crave. But another drawn-out summer exit saga – no thanks.

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Four, five? Senses working overtime

Jim 06/05/2013 8 Comments

I think I would perhaps be enjoying this fourth-place run-in a bit more if Arsenal were a little less in the wanting zone. I’m finding it hard to prefer this new-found gritty football (‘unremarkable’ as the Independent have it, though they also admired our ruthlessness) over its free-flowing predecessor. But it’s no use forever harping back – this season and perhaps the last one too have been marked by a less flamboyant style of football. That’s diplomatic speak – you can interpret it how you like. Besides, I’m with L.P. Hartley on this one. The past is a foreign country and all that.

It used to be said that even when we were no longer winning stuff, we were still playing the best football in the league. That accolade has been quietly filed away and I am having to fast re-learn the art of grinding one-nils. We’re certainly defending better than we have done in ages. Mertesacker and Koscielny are impressing, Sir Chesney has come back in re-focused and there are options on both defensive flanks.

(PS – I wonder what Sir Ches’s dad thinks now? Credit where it’s due because dropping him worked).

The late George Graham era is so long ago that the mind plays tricks, but I basically remember it as being trillions of one-nils, with all of the goals coming from Ian Wright. It felt a bit like that last season too with almost forty goals coming from one player, but we’ve had to share things around this season. In this period of impressive results but limited goalscoring, we’ve had six different scorers sharing our last eight goals.

Even though his form has not been great, we’ve missed the waving arms and focal-pointiness of Olivier Giroud. Podolski can’t do that, Walcott can’t do that, and of the other two Arsenal players who could fulfil that role, one has forgotten how to play football and is warming the bench in east London and the other prefers coming out of nightclubs with his trousers at half-mast and driving the wrong way down streets.

We’re heading towards the relay finishing line with one baton pass to go. That baton pass has to go in our favour and if it does we need to run our arses off to the finish line. It’s a scenario with too many ifs and buts at the moment and I’d be lying if I said I was enjoying it.

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Per-shaped, points plundered

Jim 21/04/2013 3 Comments

Fulham 0-1 Arsenal

What will posterity tell us about this game? Not, I suspect, that it was a curiously below-par performance despite an 80-minute numerical advantage. History will record it as a win. Three potentially crucial points for supremacy among the title unchallengers.

I do not deny that it would be preferable, having accelerated into some promising form, for us to be playing with a bit more swagger than we are. We looked sapped yesterday, as if the pressure was getting to us a bit. I wish there was a handy catch-all phrase that Wenger could come up with to describe playing in this way. Something that refers to us playing within ourselves. Perhaps something automotive. Anyway, here’s what he said:

We played a bit with the nerves, a little bit with the handbrake in the second half

The bottom line is that we won. What is a bit of a concern is that the goals have dried up a bit since thumping Reading. A 3-1 win against Norwich that could so easily have been a 1-1 draw. No goals against Everton and the solitary one yesterday. But 7 points from 9 – I call that efficient…

Red cards? Sidwell (Slidwell? Slidbadly) can have no complaints and I suspect Arteta will have a sore ankle this morning. And Giroud’s, while I think less dangerous, was still over the top of the ball. I can’t really envisage Arsenal challenging it but as someone asked on Twitter (and I forget who, sorry), is there anything to lose in giving it a go? Can the FA extend a ban if it considers the challenge to be spurious? I think it might be able to but I can’t remember.

Of course, Giroud’s card has a knock-on effect, banned for three games as he is. I guess in simple terms it opens the door for one of Walcott, Gervinho or Podolski to lead the line for a bit. Walcott’s form is such that I wouldn’t even go there. Gervinho simply doesn’t need the opprobrium that would inevitably be heaped upon him and Arsenal could do with someone more reliable in front of goal anyway. It’s Podolski all the way for me. Plus, he ought to be the freshest of the lot as he’s made his home in recent weeks on the bench. He’s probably the best striker of a ball at the club.

There are some huge games today but whichever way they go, next Sunday’s visit of the champions elect is shaping up to be a humdinger. They have a bit of a hoodoo on us right now. We’ll need to douse some WD-40 on the old handbrake if we’re to undo the hoodoo.

If I could sum up the reality of the last few games of the season, it would be ‘points first, performance second’. If we can end the season well – by which of course I mean *weeps silently at the thought of bygone eras* coming in one of the holy grail places – then we can worry about our deficiencies a little more calmly at a later date.

Glorious day here in London – go on, off you go the lot of you.

PS – This blog was brought to you in a 2002 gold Grimandi 18 shirt. Possibly my favourite shirt.

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A funny old game? It’s not that funny.

Jim 18/04/2013 5 Comments

An 86th minute penalty that opened the floodgates in one otherwise tight game, followed by a tight draw full of varying forms of promise but deficient in the goal department to the tune of any. I suspect this is how the rest of the season’s going to be – hard to predict, nervy. Walking over teams and seeing them off into the distance with a merry wave tends not to be our way and with a fair bit at stake, I’m not convinced we’re going to waltz gloriously past anyone over the next five games. Under these circumstances I find it best not to even pretend to predict. Second guessing what Arsenal will do is a mug’s game.

All that being said, being the inquisitive sort of fool that I am, I couldn’t resist clicking on Mr Mouse’s Predictortron. Is it on? Is it off? What is ‘it’ exactly? Why do I do this to myself?

And then I cast my eyes upon this tweet from Orbinho:

Gah! I suppose, on the one hand, the edginess of these late-season fixtures means that we know are playing for something. Cast aside for a moment the fact that yet again it’s the Fourth Place Trophy – there’s something at stake. As Wenger has said on numerous occasions, there’s a clear goal and the only way to guarantee getting to it is by winning all our games (never a realistic proposition – if only life was that simple).

But on the other hand, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. If I studied this stuff too hard I’d work my way into a wild frenzy.

I would summarise things by saying I am neither pessimistic nor optimistic. I might be a different kind of istic. I’m encouraged by more things now than I was after our defeat at our neighbours. But am I going to scale the flagpole in my victory trousers? No no no. I am not.

I can 110% guarantee that I’m going to take each game as it comes. It’s five games of two halves after all. We could do with scoring a few more early doors.

There are no easy games at this level.

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No doubting Tomáš

Jim 07/04/2013 4 Comments

W.B.A. 1-2 Arsenal

A few days from it all does wonders for your soul – and it transpires that Arsenal haven’t done so badly in my absence either, with an I’m-away record of P2 W2 F6 A2. Perhaps I should leave the metropolis more often.

In fact, we’ve now won five out of six league games, a very decent and needed run of form ruined only by a time-honoured Defence-o-Wobble up at our friendly neighbours.

If Gervinho was the homme du moment – as they say in France, mark my words – last weekend, yesterday’s laurels go to our under-the-radar Pilsen-powered Tomas Rosicky. Did I foresee our Ivorian slotting one and creating two last weekend? Not in a month of Sundays. Could I envisage Rosicky dictating things both behind the goal and in front of it yesterday? Again, that’s a no.

But it’s fantastic to see unexpected players – the great unscorables – getting on the scoresheet at a time when it is needed most. It’s the Ljungberg factor – who can step up to the plate when the heat is on, a little bit unexpectedly, and go on a little run of goals.

Lovely goals too, yesterday – a bullet header and a rasper that needed a second, controlled rasper to be sure of things. Rosicky, amazingly, has made only two league starts this season (and scored twice). It’s a big old waste for a talent like his, though you can of course extend that sense of regret to pretty much his whole Arsenal career, not just this season. He pioneered the now well-known Arsenal trait of being out for a few weeks, only for it to be eighteen months.

But you need a few things to drop into place, and in the absence of Wilshere and Diaby, he has proved he is up for it, and up to it.

Naturally, this wouldn’t be Arsenal if we didn’t make things hard for ourselves – and we did again yesterday. It could have been a draw in the end – though we missed a few other chances ourselves too (no second touch needed, Aaron, and judging by your bouncing frustration when that ball drifted wide, you know it too). Mertesacker can have no real complaints about his red, but where there is pain for one player there is gain for another, and Vermaelen will need to see Per’s absence as his chance to get some form back. That’s how it should be really, and I hope there’s some work done on the training ground this week to sharpen up the now-smaller, but also more mobile, central defence.

But three points it was, and how we need them all at the moment. For the first time since what feels like an age, we’re sitting in the top four – albeit briefly.

It’s one-game-at-a-time territory, and it’s going to be nerve-wracking. Twitter might melt. I might go even greyer. But where there was despair a month or so ago, there’s definitely something to chew on now.

Onto Norwich on Saturday. More of the same, chaps, more of the same. Though less of the red card stuff, eh, Per?

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An old VHS held the key. It was in the basement.

Jim 24/03/2013 No Comments

vhs
Image borrowed from here

I like to think that this is the very machine that our merry gang of defenders sat down in front of the other day in a bid to fix things defensively. You see, Arshavin, when he was trying to find a copy of his contract in the basement, had stumbled upon it in the storeroom that contains, amongst other things, George Graham’s old scarf, a somewhat dishevelled Glenn Helder and Paul Merson’s pool cue. Anyway, Andrey didn’t know what it was of course, because they didn’t use VHS in the Soviet Union. They were betamax all the way.

But Arsene knew, as he tends to – he’s got trillions of VHSs at home, all lovingly arranged in player alphabetical order (though Mrs W has now recorded Corrie over the top of the Stefan Malz scouting appraisal and Chamakh’s is being used to prop open the shed door).

Le Boss set it up and made them watch it. The video still sitting inside the machine had a segment of Tony Adams dropping Steve Morrow, followed by Nigel Winterburn doing passing practise with his right foot, a montage of Lee Dixon’s own goals, Steve Bould’s top ten near-post flick-ons and Martin Keown reminiscing about when he played midfield with Ian Selley. Taken together, it’s had the desired effect.*

*Except let’s not get too carried away. I was not the only one who got over-excited in early September when we point-blank refused to concede goals at all. Look at this, on the front page of the Guardian’s sport section.

And we all know how it panned out after that. So if it’s alright with you, while I’m obviously encouraged that we’ve not let a goal in for two games and have looked tidy at the back, the proof will be in the pudding at the end of May.

But I do like the idea of a basement storeroom at Arsenal with loads of old trinkets in it.

I also like the idea of a rock-solid defence.

Though I don’t miss VHS.

Or Ian Selley (no offence, Ian).

Sorry about this, but this is what happens when there’s no Arsenal and it’s as cold as hell outside.

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No swashbuckling, but no buckling either

Jim 17/03/2013 4 Comments

Swansea 0-2 Arsenal

Optimism is not an emotion I have much associated with this stuttering season, during which all our weaknesses have been laid bare on far too many occasions, but I have been in a curiously upbeat mood since our ultimately futile win in Bavaria.

I thought we’d win in Swansea – based on nothing but the clutching of straws, probably – but my bullishness had started to fizzle out by the middle of the second half. Neither side created much and it wouldn’t have surprised me had it finished 0-0. A few high-scoring games aside (Reading, Southampton, Newcastle), we’re not scoring for fun these days. So when the goal came, it was after some huffing and puffing, and it was a bobbler of the first order.

I have to say, I love a bobbler. A scuffed slicer, one off the knee, or something bouncing off a player’s rear echelons. There are pirhouettes, volleys, 30-yard raspers and there are daisy-cutting scuffed-bobblers. I’m standing up for the latter.

It was a first goal for Nacho Winterburn (Nacho Winterburn, Na-cho Winterburn – thanks Nige) and boy did we need it. Then as if to turn the world as we know it on its head, a second came at the end from Gervinho, who hasn’t scored since the trees were in leaf, a goal set up by the oft-maligned (but in my view increasingly impressive) Aaron Ramsey. Substitution-tastic.

I’m not sure Fabianski could have had a gentler re-introduction to Premier League football – but things could have been different had Michu rolled a good effort a bit to the left. Overall though we defended pretty well again and whatever our weaknesses elsewhere on the pitch we do now boast real quality at full-back. Gibbs and Monreal, Sagna and Jenkinson. A lot of teams would kill for that depth.

We’re still a way off where we want to be, let’s be honest, and it’d be a fool who got too confident, but it’s been a good week – however bitter-sweet Wednesday was.

Heading into the ‘lull pointless and back to square one would have been no fun at all.

So those three points were sweet.

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It’s time I perked up a bit, I think

Jim 15/03/2013 4 Comments

I’ve been pretty down on all things Arsenal recently. Down on our chances, down on writing this blog, down on everything. Down on wages, down on the ticket prices, down on some of the players, down on the crest (still think it’s crap). Down on Le Boss. Now look, things could go wrong again tomorrow – don’t I just know it – but right now that Bayern game has reinvigorated me. Shallow? Maybe I am. But there was defiance, some pride restored and it was a performance I really enjoyed. As Chris said on the Arsenal America podcast, sometimes we get carried away with the misery. I know I’m guilty of it.

So yeah, no ifs, no buts, the Bayern game was good. It was on the biggest stage, it was gripping. I watched 7amkickoff’s video from the away end, and the happiness is insane.

It reminded me of my video of Thierry’s goalscoring return, against Leeds. Pure joy.

And then it reminded me of the bloke – no idea who he is, but I’d love to know – who lost control of his senses when Smudger scored in ’89. You watch it here at about 4m 20s – he leaps over the hoardings, and bounces off like a madman, arching his back, off the scale bonkers. The copper does his best Benny Hill going after him.

Ah yes – that’s what it’s all about. Like I ever forgot. Let’s have a bit more of that because I bloody love that.

And let’s have a bit more of that tomorrow*

*I reserve the right to be miserable again in the event of a poor result

And oh – here I am, on the Arsecast, trying to be a bit positive there too.

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Me: Not efficient in the zones where it matters

Jim 11/03/2013 3 Comments

And so it came to pass, as they said in the olden days (along with other common but now old-fashioned phrases like ‘Willlttttttooooooord!’ and ‘it’s up for grabs now’). We lost the derby and I went into hiding and swore a vow of blogging silence. That, at least, is this week’s feeble excuse. Honestly, how Arseblogger and other Arsenal bloggers do this every day at the moment – well ever, really, but especially at the moment – remains beyond my comprehension.

And then this random mid-season break of 11 days came along, which arrived courtesy of the FA Cup, a tournament you may or may not have heard that we are no longer participating in. (It still needles, yes). These 11 days form part of an entire month of no home games, all of which I feel I ought to blame on Sepp Blatter, so I will, irrespective of evidence.

I’m eager to get the home games flowing again. I still miss the starter and pudding of matchday, you see, if not always the main course.

Wenger admitted after the derby defeat that we were not efficient in the zones where it matters, which he then named as at the front and at the back. It made me laugh at the time. You know the kind of laugh.

So it’s a bit like me with this blog, then – I am efficient when it comes to intending to write something regularly, but rather lacking in the zones that matter, namely the writing of the blog and the publishing of it (and there’s an additional zone, which is writing something that makes any sense or has a structure, and is worth reading, and I’m not enormously efficient there either). Not efficient in the zones that matter. So good I ought to make it my new tagline.

Anyway, it got me thinking a bit. Which area are we most likely to have a bit of luck fixing? Defence or attack? My initial view was that our defensive errors are so stubborn that Wenger should concentrate on eking out some more goals from the people who have stopped scoring them – Giroud, Walcott in particular, but let’s be honest, we’re not scoring enough so from everyone. But then I read Tim Stillman’s excellent piece arguing that we should go all out to tighten up at the back, then build from there, and I can see the logic in that too. And then I thought, why can’t we do both? Got ahead of myself a bit, I know.

I bet all three options have been considered over the last ten days, albeit probably in a more lucid manner.

And what of Munich away? I read tonight that Wilshere is a doubt, and I just wouldn’t risk him if that’s the case. Winning 3-0 or 3-1 is pie in the sky. Play for a bit of pride, yes – but not if it sidelines Jack for more realistic matters.

But at least it’s looming, it’s nearer – and we can all get back to normal. Or whatever passes for normal just now.

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Jack be nimble, Jack be quick

Jim 02/03/2013 4 Comments

Oops. Two weeks have zipped past with nary a word. There are mitigating factors, though. Straight after the Blackburn game I took a wrong turn in Chipping Barnet and ended up 6,000 miles away, and as luck wouldn’t have it, it was the middle of the day when we played Bayern and I was in a meeting. I now have an increased admiration for any global lunatics who follow the Arsenal before breakfast, after the pubs have closed or in the middle of the night. They are, to a man or woman, quite crackers.

The Bayern game went as I feared it might, leaving us with no eggs and no baskets, unless you call fourth place a basket, or indeed an egg. Either way it leaves our genuine trophy chances pretty much fried. They were never going to be an over-easy opponent, I suppose, and my guess is that Podolski’s poached – or was it scrambled – effort will not be enough.

A few days later I made a half-hearted attempt to watch the Villa game at breakfast, found a stream, lost a stream, refreshed Twitter with abandon, got cross with buffering. Honestly, following football is a complicated business these days. In the mid eighties (warning: old man’s wistfuI reminiscences incoming) I remember very well coming down to breakfast and opening up the paper to find the score of a match from the night before. If you were really lucky and the game had finished before the copy deadline you might get a small match report. Occasionally there was nothing at all. How would I then find the score? I have asked myself this question many times. I imagine I wrote a letter to Don Howe. Or went to the library. Or phoned someone. The eighties were rubbish for football.

So despite being punched from rope to rope in the cups, we find ourselves on a five-match unbeaten run in the league. There are unbeaten runs and there are unbeaten runs, and I would place this more as an unbeaten saunter. Nevertheless, it’s the kernel of some league form.

Form and confidence – something that has ebbed and flowed throughout this peculiarly fitful season.

It’s hard to disagree with those who argue that tomorrow’s NLD (the Twitters is a wonderful tool but I do resent the way it has forced acronyms into our everyday speech. NB52, ITK, NLD, AVB, JW10 – it doesn’t make me lol at all. In fact the only acronym I like is WWWWW. And anyway that’s not even an acronym. It’s just five Ws in a row. OK, shut up now, man).

I wouldn’t say that losing it rules us out of the holy grail, but our friends from N17 already have form and momentum, and if they win tomorrow they might reasonably be envisaging the hula girls and pina coladas and find themselves humming the Uefa ‘Pyjamas’ theme tune. At this stage of the season, a run of form is priceless. If we lose, we are back to a form square one.

We need to start the game well, play with a real intensity throughout, and take it from there. Another of our lacklustre opening 45s will be hard to bear.

It feels like I finish most of my pre-game posts these days with the words ‘I have no idea what to expect’. Well I think it will be helter-skelter and blood-and-thunder. I’d say that’s a given. But beyond that – who knows.

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