We have lacked creativity throughout this season and that is very unArsenal like under Arsene Wenger. In the past even if we leaked goals we would have sufficient attacking options to outscore the opposition.
We have to be honest though. Any team would miss players like Fabregas, Rosicky, Walcott and Eduardo for as long as we have. Fabregas and Walcott have missed long periods of the season while Rosicky and Eduardo obviously haven't featured at all.
These players are crucial to Arsenal's style of pass and move and without them we have struggled. Hopefully these players will soon be featuring in the Arsenal first team again shortly, and when they do, alongside new signing Arshavin, Arsenal I'm sure will far more potent in attack than we have been this campaign.
I'm looking forward to seeing Fabregas, Walcott, Arshavin, Rosicky and of course Eduardo in the Arsenal team. It could be very exciting. Lately Arsenal have been far from exciting. You could say boring. I'm not going to bore you with statistics but everyone can see with their own eyes.
However, despite being boring I welcome the new found defensive stability at the club. We have looked very solid at the back and that is a good foundation to build upon for the rest of the season.
Gallas has had a lot of criticism in the past but I hope people realise the good job he is doing for Arsenal. Since the captaincy has been taken off him he has played really well and deserves credit for keeping his head down and getting on with the job. It must have been hard for him but he has proved he isn't fragile in the mind as some would say.
We have been on a long unbeaten run now and the fact we are more defensively sound obviously is no coincidence with this run. All we need is to give someone a hiding and I really believe with the amount of talent coming into the side, Arsenal can finish this season on a high.
It's only a matter of time until Arsenal give a team a real beating. I can't remember the last! Despite this, Arsenal could be ready to explode and with the final furlong of the season coming up there is no better time to do so.
Keep it Goonerish..............
32 comments:
Nice positive post mate.
I just cant wait to see Arshavin in the shirt!
i agree 800% on every point u made.
gallas has been superb since he lost his captaincy, hes gotta be one of the best center backs in the country if not the world, i just think the pressure of being a captain of a club in england with all the scummy newspapers that look for any opportunity to drag a foreigner down was just too much for him.
and i also agree that its only a matter of time when all our creative players are back and we tear a team apart like we all expect from the mighty arsenal. i have a feeling it will have to be a CL team tho becuause they wont park a bus infront of the goal like most prem teams do.
you fail to mention our defensive stability solely due to the talents of Alex Song!
also, song has been superb the last few games that he has played, i hate people who know nothing that slag him off when he is a very good player. they alwaqs slag off about how we need a new defensive midfielder to protect the back four, you cant get much better of a defence record than what we have got already to be fair, apart from man utd but even they have admitted they have focussed more on defense recently so van der twat can get his record.
song is shite
he is too lazy he dont run around he waddles
for someone who plays football every day he missed a sitter against spurs
diabys our best dm but too inconsistent
The last time Arsenal's first team gave another team a good drubbing was Porto in the Champions League, at the Emirates. The score was 4-0.
A lot of people were asking why we needed to buy Arshavin. I just wonder if it might be because Wenger has seen that Adebayor is very limited when it comes to the basic skills of a striker and he is looking for someone to load the bullets for Eduardo. Arshavin is as good as any player at picking out a pass in a crowded penalty area and Eduardo is as good as any player at potting any half-chance into the onion bag. I think the Arshavin/Eduardo/Van Persie combination could be lethal.
diabys our best dm but too inconsistent
No he is'nt ! He's not a defensive player. If anything he's a box to box man but for every good thing he does he manages to come up with a bad one to compensate.
Hi Wrighty.. I cannot argue with your post mate.. let's get back to playing some serious wengerball..
Agreed Anon, Song is the Worst DM in the EPL, Fucking lazy never puts his foot in and when he does it tends to go pear, Vs Cardiff did a Song Watch 4 tackles 2 free kicks awarded to Cardiff, Poor Poor stuff indeed.
i still feel that the team are lacking top quality experiened players in a number of areas,i feel that wenger still needs a top class centre foward,ade is far to inconsistant,vela,wilcatt and bretna are good upcomming players,i also feel delinson,song,and diaby still need time we need to class dm player,i dont we have enough topclass defenders either gallas is by far our best,dj still needs time to devolop but toure i dont rate at all and silvestor is mearly a sqaud player,no ithink 2 defenders are needed
Just because Song looks like he waddles when he runs does mean he is lazy. Yes he is not as naturally quick as other and his running style looks awkward but that doesn't mean he doesn't run about a lot. But he also has strength and lots of it. Give the guy some credit people, especially after how far he has come since that fulham game a few years back.
I wouldn't agree with some of you that the defensive stability is solely down to Song. Gallas has been awesome and sagna is coming back to form. Djourou has been good when he has stepped in and clichy has been well...clichy, even when he has a bad game and decides to set up the opposition he is still 10 times better than most other full backs in the league. Kolo has...well been ok...I wish that guy could head the ball somewhere other than straight up in the air.
Also Eboue adds some defesive steel in midfield (lol, just tw@t baiting).
After all the fussing and angst about Arsenal this season, isn't it just so nice to think that we ARE going to have one amazing line-up for the 09/10 season :)
I agree with you completely, when Arsenal have all their players back we will start seeing scores like 6-0 or 4-0 regularly and 2-0 in the first 20 minutes, like Arsenal tend to do in the near past, and then continue exhibiting our football skills to pleases our fans.
I don't know why, but I think Wenger will play with a lone striker, one time with Van Persie, the Eduardo, Although it would be nice to have the two together, I don't think the balance would be right.
Wenger will have a lot of skillful players to choose from, players will have to understand that Wenger will rotate and the better will play more.
No more shit from Adebayore, he wouldn't be even close to play, even from the bench, as he is moody player, who thinks he is Henry or Eto and doesn't realize they worked hard for a long time to have the status that they have now, in Adebayore's case he needs to work 3 times harder to be anything near them.
Forget this dig at Adebayore.
What about this formation:
Almunia
Sagna Toure Gallas Clichy
Diaby
Arshavine Fabregas Nasri Rosicky
Eduardo or Van Persie
or in an ideal world:
Almunia
Walcot Toure Gallas Clichy
Fabregas
Arshavine Van Persie Nasri Rosicky
Eduardo
Although the second one doesn't seems balanced, but it gives the manager options when he sees things aren't working and we need to score urgently.
Even Barcelona would be scared to play against the mighty gooners.
But this is closer to playing fantasy football.
I bet no one could predict the correct team line up for 2 matches in a row even without suspensions or injuries, just due to our big pool of talents that are eager to have a place in the team.
Agree mostly with what you say Wrighty, however, Eduardo and Rosicky were known injuries before start of the season.
The fact that no one was brought in to cover for their injuries and the lack of replacements for Diarra, Flamini, Hleib, Silva and Lehman has resulted in a thin squad, quality wise, which could not afford any injuries.
Bringing in Arshavin in this transfer window is merely masking the root of the problem, it being that the squad quality was not good enough at the start of the season.
Wenger made a huge gamble that untested, unproven, young players could make the difference and obviously, his gamble has failed miserably.
It's actually really simple -
Central Midfield:
Denilson + Fabregas:
--------------------
lots of creativity, lots of chances, lots of goals
+
poor defensive cover, defense under pressure, team leaks goals.
Denilson + Song:
----------------
lack of creativity, few chances, few goals
+
decent defensive cover, defence under less pressure, good defensive record.
The difficult part is getting the balance.
Fabregas + Song?
yes it is true that we haven't conceded too many goals of late and we do look pretty solid defensively but that is only because we play with 2 defensive midfielders most of the times - denilson and song. we used to have 5 defensive players and 5 offensive players in a match but now we only have 4 offensive players with 6 defensive players. even when fabregas is playing, he is spending much of the time shielding the back 4 or going very very deep to bring the ball up. neither denilson nor song is good enough as a defensive midfielder yet that is why they can't operate alone and that is also why wenger was looking to buy a defensive midfielder in january. i have seen inler a couple of times and he looked really really good, extremely high work rates. he would have had no problem holding down a place in the starting XI but i do not understand why he doesn't want to come. some people just make very strange decision.
Sagna Gallas Toure Clichy
Arshavin Song Nasri Vela
RVP Eduardo
That lineup could score some points I'm thinking.
I hate to go against all the positivity here but Wenger has lost it. I have been his biggest supporter but i cant make out what he is doing lately.
1. Eboue has been an accident waiting to happen and yet he persists with him. Seriously, he cant make a single pass yet he lets him on the field. Then we played so long with 10 men against spurs and he refused to use the fresh legs on the bench.
2.And then again he claims he didnt see eboue incident. Maybe thats why he cant see how utterly shit eboue is. Worst Arsenal player since Stepenovs.
3.We have absolutely no width. Nasri keeps cutting inside. Switch Nasri to the middle instead of Denilson and put some speed that scares defences with Vela on the left. We have Vela and wilshere on the bench, real creativity, which we lack.
4. Denilson!! Wenger says he is underated and brilliant. no. Denilson and diaby are utterly utterly shit.
Things will only get better when diaby, denilson and eboue are not in the team.
An orgasmic explosion of attacking talent of monolithic proportions
Wrighty, hope you are right, right, right.
However, the team looks more likely to implode rather than explode.
Also when people say "some team is going to get a beating soon" it's usually because we are creating lots of chances but not taking them. The current Arsenal team isn't creating chances hence the goal drought of recent games.
We really need Arshavin and Eduardo to hit the ground running.
sorry for being a spoilsport..though the team has defended well it is also true that song denielson diaby and eboue are better at holding the ball than our more attacking players..so the reason for a our newfound defensive stability might be that we aren't attacking enough..
We gave a hiding to Porto this season ans Fenebache, and also the Kids gave a hiding to Sheffield Utd and Wigan remember?
But the last hiding we gave to ateam in the Prem, must have been Everton, I think it was 3 or 4 years ago, remember that 7-0?
Wrighty 7, this is my first ever post on a blog, and i want to say that you've been a consistent source of good reads for quite a long time. If it's ok with urself, i'd like some advice with regards to setting up a blog. Cheers and keep up the splendid work!!
it's nice to see some positives in arsenal blogs. cant wait for them to kick into gear, is it too late. doubt it. champs league, fa, outsiders for the pl. luv it.
absolute joke of a blog..
dont want to bring too much of a downer to the party but if I remember rightly we haven't really seen Eduardo much in an Arsenal shirt. Every one is making out that he was some kind of world super star when infact for long spells he wouldn't even start a game.
Again alot of pressure on him because Ade & Bendtner have been unbelievably poor this season and we dont have alot else.
By far Eduardo is the most natural finisher and I hope he comes good for us if given the chance. Knowing Wenger he will make him wait even though Bendtner as been poor.
I agree Gallas has been superb and I really like his pairing with Djourou. Toure has not been at his top form for a while although he has some good games but can be erratic. My memory is not fantastic and I don't consider myself very knowlegable on pairings but Kolo always seems eager to go forward and I seem to remember that he didn't begin football as a defender. Have we ever played him as a DM? I'd be intersested to hear what peolpe think. Would he be better than Song at present?
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