W.B.A. 2-3 Arsenal
We score an early goal, then we let two in, then we score two more before holding on for dear life for the win. And that, ladies and gentlemen, sums up Arsenal’s strengths and weaknesses in one handy cut-out-and-keep sentence.
Ultimately though, despite pretty much three dicky patches, ten league defeats and a defence that shipped 49 goals, we have come third and made our summer all the more enjoyable in the process. When we were two goals down at home to the Totterers, that outcome looked far beyond the wit of this side, so to surge past them and still make third despite taking just 6 points from the last fifteen is pretty remarkable. We stumbled, but we made it, so well done the lads. It’s an achievement – the 15th season in a row we’ve qualified for the European Cup – but above all for me it’s a relief.
Last summer has loomed over us for much of the season and although I have no crystal ball, I think it’s fair to say that whatever happens – and a lot may happen – coming third has at least mitigated against a similarly calamitous and damaging close season.
The post mortem would have been long and dispiriting had we blown third, or come fifth. We’ve avoided that, even though we all know that there’s work to do. And plenty of it.
But this is not the time for that. For now we can bask in what passes these days as Arsenal glory. I’ll get round to an end of season review in due course – there are plenty of players who deserve praise, I think – but I will start by dishing out a few early gongs: A Long Service gong goes to Pat Rice for 44 years loyal work. It was a good send-off, in the end. Thanks Pat for on and off field excellence.
And a What Would We Have Done Without You gong goes to Robin Golden Boot van Persie for 37 priceless goals. That was some season, peppered with world-class goals. I hope he stays but will not begrudge him if he doesn’t.
Should I give a gong to Fulop? It would be deserved but a bit harsh. After all, we know what it’s like watching a goalkeeper suffer. (Actually, we know what it’s like watching two goalkeepers suffer). Well Marton, I will at least doff my cap to you.
And I’m pleased for Wenger. He has polarised fans like never before, but for battling on despite a dismal summer and season’s start, and for being as dignified as ever despite the brickbats, I think he deserves credit. It can’t have been easy.
We all know it’s not been a vintage season. We never challenged for anything made of silver. But something tangible has come from it and – though plenty will disagree – given the circumstances that makes it a decent season in my books. Now to a decent summer.
That’s it, really.
Tags: pat rice, third, van Persie, wenger
Arsenal 3-3 Norwich
I would like to tell you with a straight face that I withheld my thoughts on Saturday’s ‘thriller’ because I anticipated yet another twist on Sunday afternoon, but if I did say that I’d be lying the lie of a thousand liars. I honestly expected the Totteringhams to take the gift we had presented them on a platter, once and for all, and put us all out of our misery.
Instead, it looks as if we’re going to have to go through it again though, doesn’t it.
I doubt that I am the only person who has developed an unhealthy dollop of fatalism about the eventual outcome. I mean, if you fail to grasp your chances several times in a row, despite klaxons sounding, who’s to say you’re ever going to grasp it? Wenger couldn’t pinpoint the reason why we stodged through the first 45 minutes – “We have to analyse the reasons why we were not sharp enough in the first half”, he said, “There is no obvious reason because we prepared normally…” before then pinpointing exactly why: “But maybe subconsciously [we thought] we would win it.”
Complacency is a fault line that runs through this side, regrettably. It has been for ages. As Gunnerblog said on the Twisters, most teams have a sticky patch during a season – we have now had three.
Or as my brother said during half-time, “There’s nothing wrong with our players, physically or in terms of technique…. THEY JUST HAVEN’T GOT IT UPSTAIRS”.
Well in that case they have a week to go rummaging around in the attic, don’t they, because to throw away one or two chances to nail this consolation prize is regrettable, but to blow the final chance would be unforgivable.
Luckily, there is a blueprint for success, and it involves a more disciplined approach to defending – throughout the side – combined with the kind of attacking verve that suddenly and belatedly exploded us into life in the second half on Saturday. A verve that even seeped into the pores of Gervinho. Anonymous in the first half, he was like a slippery eel in the second.
Slippery eels – we need more of them.
One further thought: I think it’s probably better that we’re playing our last game away from home. I’ve had a feeling, since we ballsed up the home game at Wigan, that the understandable frustrations of the crowd (long-standing, often just under the surface) would be sensed and mirrored by the players, and maybe that’s another factor in the tepid performances that have followed. Not that I’m trying to defend them, but maybe it’s something to add into the mix.
But anyway, here we still are with a decent shout for third. 47 goals conceded, ten defeats, three points from 12 – and yet, still our destiny is in our hands.
What we need though, to end this on an upbeat note, are some positive stats, not negative ones. So before I bid you a happy bank holiday Monday, I shall leave you with this note of optimism.
THREE GAMES UNBEATEN.
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One more thing: My scientific poll has ended, results below. The conclusion: We are all losing our minds.
Tags: complacency, gervinho, last-chance saloon, wenger
Just as my own blogging season was in danger of fizzling out, I’ve decided to rouse myself for one last push. Two more blog posts and I might just totter over the line. Why haven’t I sealed this sooner though? I can only think it’s a confidence thing.
Since I last dipped in here we have drawn at Stoke, a result that is far from calamitous at any stage of any season, but coming after a loss and a goalless draw it was a result that hardly kick-started the kind of swashbuckling tone for the rest of the season that I had hoped for. Why have the goals dried up a bit? “Maybe it is linked with belief” said Wenger, which is not really what you want to read, is it? Anyway, here we all are and we are pretty clear what Arsenal need to do to drag themselves over the line.
Of course, you have to assume the worst and expect our rivals to take full points. That makes our task very straightforward, on paper if not on grass – two wins. But depending on results on Wednesday, it could make Norwich on Saturday, and indeed West Brom’s Hodgson valete the following week, far more stressful than you might want.
How we could do with our new signing Lukas Podolski for the last two games. With 18 goals from 28 games this season, plus six assists, we are talking about a man at the top of his game and for Arsenal to sew this one up so soon is admirable business indeed. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect us to dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s of our summer business before the Euros – there’ll a lot of shop windowing going on – but this lays down a marker and continues the recent policy of mixing raw youth (Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jenkinson) with proper experience (Mertesacker, Arteta). There’s also plenty of sense in getting as much of your incoming business done soon so that the club can work hard on trimming the squad down.
Podolski will of course be desperate for Arsenal to make the Champions League – he can join the queue, right behind the shuffling army of accountants – and will be forced to look on agonisingly from afar as we complete the season. There isn’t a lot he can do of course, but it would be nice to think that this ambitious early signal from the club might have an effect on the current players as they strive for the sunlit uplands of third – for those who will be competing for places against him, for those whose futures are undecided and for those committed for the long term but ambitious for more.
And on an unrelated note, good luck to Roy Hodgson. A decent man, he’s well travelled and well respected. And whatever happens, surely it can’t be any worse than South Africa in 2010?
All the best, Roy.
Arsenal 0-0 Chelsea
One point from six now, and yet we remain in charge of our own destiny – just about – thanks to our twelfth man, ‘results elsewhere’. God bless Results Elsewhere and all who sail in her!
That our closest rivals now – or at least, for now – are not from London but from Newcastle will perhaps be as much as surprise to them as it is to everyone else. The Geordies are on cracking form.
The whiff of tottering-over-the-line is in the air though after another strangely listless performance from us. The dreaded handbrake (the on one, not the off one) made a reappearance in Wenger’s post-match interview, which probably tells you all you need to know. In fact, it’s is one-word match report, isn’t it?
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Arsenal Match Report
By East Lower at the EmiratesHandbrake.
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On the face of it, these were two teams that were so far from home and dry in the race for Champions League qualification that they were still gulping seawater, and yet the game was tight, slow and cautious. Chelsea made wholesale changes, came for a point and sat on the game accordingly.
Ultimately, I think it was a game that both teams were too scared to lose, and it showed.
Not that we couldn’t have won it. Early on, van Persie hit the upright from a Walcott free kick, and in our best period of the match, just before half time, Koscielny hit the bar himself and van Persie fired straight at Cech. In the end though, the final whistle came as a blessing. It was pretty turgid stuff.
At times, the ball was like a hot potato for Arsenal. Our passing was poor and lacked invention. Ramsey was willing but wayward, Rosicky out of fizz and only really Song shone in the middle. Without the metronomic and underrated Mikel Arteta, and with both Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain completely shackled, getting through was our main problem.
I lost count of the number of times Arsenal players on the ball shrugged their shoulders in frustration at the lack of options in front of them – symptomatic of the difficulties we were having creating space and opportunities.
All our substitutions came in the middle of the field in an attempt to remedy things, and our last throw of the dice was introducing a left-back for a winger. Despite van Persie looking off the pace – it was his 50th game of the season – there was still no room for Chamakh. As an indictment on our forward options, that’s about all you need to know.
The fact is, van Persie needs a rest but we have nobody else that offers a goal threat in his position. It should never have come to this. That we remain third with only one operational striker is a miracle.
Now, it’s all about dragging ourselves over the line, but we’ll have to do that without Walcott, hamstrung yesterday and out for the season. A good opportunity for Gervinho, and indeed for the returning Diaby, so where one door closes, etc.
Our last three games are winnable ones, but only if we rediscover some spark and more energy.
I’ve a bit run out of battle cries though. Final word goes to my cousin Capability Mike, who texted me this last night:
“I think if the league finished today we’d all be happy”.
Yep.
Tags: cautious, diaby, slow, stale, tight, van Persie, walcott
Those were the exact words from Mrs Lower when I came home last night and she asked me what the score was (she’s not into this football thing you see, and at times like this, I can’t say I blame her).
It was indeed vintage poor defending that got us into another fine mess, and vintage park-on-the-edge-of-the-area, out-of-ideas stuff that made for a second half of infuriating frustration.
Then in a year of handbrakes on and being too much in the wanting zone came There Wasn’t Enough Petrol in the Tank.
It would certainly explain our second half performance, which was as flat as a pancake. Instead of fizzing with energy and guile and determination – which we had done when we found ourselves two goals down after six minutes in the first half – we ran worryingly out of steam.
Wigan, spurred on by a miniscule band of fans – easily the smallest away section I have ever seen at the Emirates, let’s call it an away slice – were absolutely terrific though. If you take away the persistent time-wasting and the lighter-than-air toppling to the ground, which the referee largely either let go until it was too late, or fell for, they were a menace all night. They caused us constant problems defensively, where without Koscielny and Gibbs – 50% of our first choice back four – we looked ragged.
For the first goal we were well and truly suckered on the counter following a misplaced Sagna header. The second looked to me like Szczesny could have done better, but equally true, we were down to ten men as Arteta had hobbled off. Either way, it was a disastrous start.
The rest of the half was as you’d expect – Arsenal wounded and furious. Benny had two excellent headers acrobatically saved, Vermaelen scored a lovely header and it looked for all the world, if we could keep it up, that the game could yet be salvaged.
That we couldn’t keep it up and in fact fizzled out at such an important time is a cause for worry. “We didn’t see anyone who could make a difference”, said Wenger after the game, “…We have given a lot over the past two or three months and we were not sharp. Is it mental or physical? It is hard to know why.”
I think we missed the invention and calm of Arteta more than we think, and the worry is that we might now be missing that for the rest of the season – as indeed, it has been confirmed, we will be missing Wilshere.
That’s now ten league defeats – a tally that makes it slightly miraculous we are chasing third at all. I’m not sure we could have timed it worse, throwing the door for third and fourth open again once more rather than slamming it shut.
But again, well done Wigan – it was a well deserved win and we were, in the end, well beaten.
And who’s next? Chelsea at home and our old friends Stoke away.
Time to wheel out Djourou online for some damage limitation.
Tags: handbrake, petrol crisis, wanting zone
Wolves 0-3 Arsenal
A fine win, but one I followed only via the Opta messages on the notification screen of my phone. I like to experience new matchday experiences, you see. It was a bit underwhelming if I’m honest.
Unlike the game itself, which from an Arsenal perspective at least was entirely whelming. Losing a man for most of the game was the last thing Wolves needed but it did us a favour. I’ve always thought a red card and a penalty is a bit harsh, double-punishing the offending side as it does. So that was 1-0 and once Theo lashed in the second moments later, it was an Everest-sized mountain to climb for Wolves.
Benny’s resurgence is interesting though, isn’t it? Perhaps cocking an eye at the marvellous form of Tomas Rosicky, he’s rolled his sleeves up and his high-energy approach is just what we need. It helps that the team is playing well and it helps that he’s getting minutes on the pitch (two starts in a row), but if we need a bit-part benchmark then Benny fits that bill. He warms the bench a lot and can’t last 90 minutes, but he’s rarely let us down when called upon and never moans.
Plenty of Arsenal fans have remarked over the course of this season about squad depth and the depth of talent behind the first XI, but surely Benayoun is precisely the kind of squad player we need? Experienced and often effective.
A few months ago, if I thought about summer ins and outs (which I like to do from time to time – who doesn’t?), I’d have consigned both Rosicky and Benayoun to the Arsenal scrapheap. The former has already unscrapheaped himself spectacularly, and now I’m increasingly seeing the benefits of Benayoun – Benayfits? – as a more than useful squad player. Would he be prepared to play a lesser role on a permanent basis? He’s started eleven games and come on as a sub in another ten. That’s not bad for someone who will be 32 in a month.
If he is, the boss might just take a punt and sign him full time.
Tags: benayoun, van Persie, walcott
Arsenal 1-0 Manchester City
One-nil to the Arsenal, and as one goal wins go, that one was as sweet as it was deserved.
Sweet because we needed a win and we needed a performance after that baffling foot-off-the-pedal defeat at QPR. Wenger said it was a blip and that yesterday we’d see the real Arsenal back – the one utterly reinvigorated since February – and he was right.
And sweet because, well, it’s Man City isn’t it – the gaudily assembled team who have for several years now covetously eyed our players, and if you believe everything you read, continue to do so.
Toure and Adebayor, Clichy and Nasri – good players all but do we now miss any of them? We do not.
£72m.
And deserved because only one team made any real running at all. We started and ended the game so hungrily, retaining the ball well, always looking to pass, pass, pass and eager to win it back when we did lose it. Although it looked towards the end that we’d pay the price for hitting the post twice and somehow clearing a nailed-on van Persie goal off our own line, sheer persistence had its reward with Arteta’s late thunderclapping howitzer.
How it remained XI v XI as long as it did shall remain one of life’s mysteries, right up there with Why Do My Headphone Cables Always Entwine Within Five Seconds Of Being In My Pocket. (The status of Where Are All The Baby Pigeons has since been set to: resolved).
Balotelli may well be a nice fella and he’s definitely richly talented, but he’s bafflingly brainless too and his knee-high studs-up tackle on Song was a red card about twice over. (On that subject, I did enjoy Arseblog News’ By the Numbers this morning). That Song – who was magnificent all afternoon – was not badly hurt is a big relief.
There were some impressive performances across the pitch and good though Song was, he wasn’t the only one worth praising. Rosicky and Arteta were excellent, Benayoun was tigerish and defensively we were excellent. It’s a shame that Gibbs retired hurt but Santos is a tidy replacement indeed. The other downside was Koscielny’s yellow, his tenth of the season, which rules him out for a few games.
Back into third we go, two points clear, but the battle for third and fourth remains immense and the difference between all four teams just five points.
There’s a long way to go.
QPR 2-1 Arsenal
Like most Arsenal fans, I expect, I wasn’t naïve enough to anticipate a serene run of victories that would enable us to sail through to the end of the season unhindered. I expected a blip, but I didn’t really expect that blip yesterday. Maybe the players didn’t, either, and therein lies the rub.
It’s not easy to sound authoritative about a game based solely on Match of the Day highlights, so I won’t even try. From what I can glean, defensively it looked like a bad day at the office, with the usually towering Vermaelen in particular having one to forget. Hats off to QPR of course for taking the game to Arsenal – I’m sure that this morning that nobody at Arsenal will need reminding (or re-reminding, ha) that relegation-threatened sides are often like wounded animals. Underestimate them at your peril.
Wenger was pretty honest about our defeat – he’s been doing this a lot this season after we lose, and losing is something we have now done nine times.
“What we produced on the day was not good enough… subconsciously something was missing today. If you miss something on the commitment front you are beaten. That is what happened today”.
So he admitted that we simply weren’t as committed as we should have been, a bit complacent, which kind of makes me want to bash my head against a wall. If there’s one thing he’s been preaching – as have the players – it’s the need to not let the foot off the gas, take each game at a time and blah blah blah.
Of course, winning seven consecutive games is special, and maybe that focus and tempo simply gets harder and harder to maintain. And like I said, it’s not realistic to expect us to turn up and snaffle each and every three points.
Ramsey as a winger was a mysterious move, given we have two much more suitable options there in the shape of Gervinho and Oxlade-Chamberlain. As much as I cannot fathom that, I doubt that was what lost us the game. We just weren’t at the races enough.
It’s a jolt back to reality and a reminder that a top-four finish is going to be a proper slog. A reminder too that for all the invention and spirit shown since February, this Arsenal side is not good enough to turn up and bully teams when not playing at 100%. If Spurs win today – and they will not lack for motivation now – the difference between us returns to being razor-thin. Chelsea are only five points behind. Frankly, with seven games left, third place remains anyone’s to win and lose.
Next up, Manchester City.
Tags: commitment, complacent, defence, ramsey, vermaelen, wenger
Arsenal 3-0 Aston Villa
Here I am again, fashionably late. A little bit like Arteta’s free-kick then, which will have been missed by hordes of Arsenal fans who’d upped sticks and begun their homeward journey already.
Among these I count the remaining members of the merry throng I sit with, including Brother Wimbledon, Snowboard Rob and the Shedman, who had moments earlier slipped away to the pub. The latter is the same man who pre-match had ordered himself an additional pint at seven minutes to three. Well, it was a hot day.
Obviously, leaving early is not the kind of behaviour I countenance (unlike the pint at 2:53pm, which is to be admired), but if you were to offer excuses, it was already a rubber of the deadest proportions. Almost the exact opposite to the previous home game, of course.
The question is: would you prefer nailbiting edge-of-seat late-in-the-day wins or something that draws to a rather more sedate conclusion? I’d take the latter anyday, unless you could magically foretell the future of course, which with the best will in the world, I can’t.
We will of course face far greater tests in our battle to finish the season on a high – something that has eluded us two seasons running – but it was a joy to see such an assured and confident performance. And to see more scorers come out the woodwork – they’re coming from the defence and from the midfield all of a sudden. That’s confidence for you.
Rammed
Given @arseblog was over for his traditional Arseblog 5-a-side shindig, I had wended my way to the usual watering hole to say hello prior to the game. The sun was out and to say the place was chocker would be the understatement that broke the camel’s back [rework this one – Ed]. The ratio of incomers to those leaving was about fifteen to one, all of which meant I never even got as far as the inner bowels. Instead I loitered aimlessly by the door, though it didn’t stop me from bumping into @gingers4limpar, @gunnerblog and @HayleyWright. Good fun all round and top people all.
“Stop waffling, man”.
Ok.
Tags: 2:53pm, accomplished, arteta, beer, confident
Everton 0-1 Arsenal
Immediately after snaffling all three points against Newcastle by the whiskers on our Jimmy Hill, I was full of the joys of spring and confident that we could push on.
Then came a nine-day siesta and things wore off a bit. I looked over at Stamford Bridge, sniffed the pungent whiff of a mini revival, then looked at our fixtures and started fretting. Sorry, but that’s just the way I work, and besides – elephants never forget. I mean, have you seen us this season? I suspect you have.
“What we need”, I said to myself, “is three points at Goodison, with the other teams around us tripping up on their shoelaces”, before gruffling into my breakfast.
And Lo! It came to pass!
There was though, and remains, good reason for tempering my excitement: there’s a hell of a long way to go before this season can be stamped and filed away as a success. But if we make the Champions League – in third or fourth – then it will rank bang up there with anything. From staggering around punch drunk, riddled with injury and seemingly devoid of organisation, to finding the form, order, precision, spirit and passion needed to go on a run to confound the ghost of Collaps-o-Arsenal™, well that would be incredible. Not a trophy, of course, but an amazing achievement nonetheless.
Last night was another step in the right direction with a performance that was pure current Arsenal – part swashbuckling and part backs-to-the-wall defiance.
We started like a train, scoring early and missing a few other decent chances to make it 2-0. When Everton started getting back into things, I could not see one goal being anything like enough, but with a bit of luck and some refereeing going our way, it ended up being just that. If there is often a lot to admire about our forward play, then there is increasingly a lot to admire about our defensive resilience. Yes, we still make mistakes – we’ve had to come from behind to win four times in a row, after all – but you can’t overstate the effect that having a settled back four, playing in their correct positions, has had on us.
A while back I wheeled out a stat that I read in the Independent about the amount of defensive partnerships and centre-back pairings we’ve had this season – it was 26 different starting back four combinations in 47 matches, involving 14 different players and nine different centre back pairings – so to have now played the same back four for five matches is a rare pleasure. They are perhaps not surprisingly getting better and better with each passing match.
So a good night all round, and we find ourselves sitting in third. Staying there will be hard and you won’t find any gloating or over-confidence from me, but there is much to admire about the way we are trying to do it.
It’s one game at a time territory – bring on the Villa on Saturday.
Tags: defence, resilience, settled, vermaelen
