Five thoughts on Fulham 1 Arsenal 3 and the remainder of the transfer window

We had two centre backs available
I read several blogs in the run-up to the game about how we only had one centre-back available and that this was a dereliction of duty from the manager and the club blah blah blah. This wasn't true.

I think it's fair to say that given Sagna played centre back in pre-season and has spoken about training in this position, him playing this position was something under consideration before Koscielny was sent off against Aston Villa and suspended for this game. Whether it's a good thing is another question.

There seems to be a trend among Arsenal fans online that everybody needs to have a very strong opinion on everything. On this one I don't, really. I think having Sagna as in effect our fourth choice centre back still leaves us one player short at the back, but more than that, I think it leaves us little cover for Mertesacker with the other three centre backs all playing a similar style. Still, it's hard to believe that this is anything other than a short-term solution. Seven defenders seems one too few to last an entire season while attempting to compete for four trophies.

The strange case of Lukas Podolski
The weirdest thing about the general bemoaning of Arsenal missing out on Higuain was the focus on his chance conversion rate. This seems a strange stat to look at in isolation without looking at a player's game. For example, a player like Olivier Giroud is never going to have the highest chance conversion rate in the Premier League because many of his chances are headers which are harder to aim in such a way as to guarantee a goal. (For more of the same, witness how Mignolet's high save percentage at Sunderland does not mean he is a very good goalkeeper).

And it's in this light that I view Podolski. Podolski is a bit like a less good version of Higuain. Good against small teams and with an excellent chance conversion rate, but mainly because he shoots from realistic positions where you would regularly expect a goal. That's not meant to be a slight on Poldi, but it does show that if people are frustrated by Poldi, they would have felt the same way about Higuain. After all, it has gone somewhat overlooked that Podolski had the third best chance conversion rate in the Premier League last season.

All this said, he's clearly an excellent player who we can expect more from in his second season. I was discussing Podolski with fans of other clubs this week and they thought my valuation of Podolski at minimum 20 million Euros was crazy. As I said to them, how much less than this would be a reasonable price? Quite.

Should Yaya Sanogo be playing for the first team?
I'll caveat this by saying that I'm fully aware that Sanogo only had 10-15 minutes on Saturday. However, in this time he seemed very ponderous, with poor anticipation and positioning, hampered by seeming quite static. This is to be expected: he is young, has played relatively few senior games, and is in his first season in a new country.

But there was a part of me that wondered whether Wenger subbed him on to show that we have a summer signing who is of high calibre. All summer Wenger has re-iterated that we've signed Sanogo in all his press conferences but he didn't strike me as being nearly ready for the first team. If Le Boss was trying to prove a point, I wasn't convinced.

Turning to Premier League players as transfer targets
It's striking that many players from across Europe have opted to turn down the Premier League this summer, in favour of either staying put or moving to another country. I say this, because it's the only sensible explanation of Arsenal reportedly targeting multiple Premier League players - supposedly Begovic or Krul, Cabaye and Mata.

In the case of Suarez it was different (the apparent clause rendered him good value) but generally, Arsenal under Wenger haven't signed Premier League players for serious money. The only real example of us doing so is Mikel Arteta. Put simply, it's because Premier League players tend to be seriously over-priced due to the 'guarantees' you get when signing them. So if we do move for multiple players who are already based in England, it's a concrete acknowledgment that players based overseas are not interested in moving to England.

What happens in the remaining seven days of the transfer window?
To what extent clubs are posturing when they say they won't sell beyond a certain date (i.e. before deadline day) remains to be seen. It's never struck me that clubs have acted like this in the past, but it's entirely possible they may actually behave this way - as a way of trying to have a successful football club, it makes sense.

Assuming they are and Arsenal still want top players, it's a case of looking at top clubs who are over-stocked with players. The two who stand out to me are Real Madrid and Chelsea. With the arrivals of Isco and Bale, Özil and Di Maria must feel their places are under threat. Chelsea have continued with their strategy of signing ALL the midfielders the summer and reportedly Juan Mata is available. It's hard to believe that Chelsea will sell to Arsenal having finished just five points ahead last season, but Real could well need money to finance their summer business.

My main conclusion from Wenger's messaging in today's press conference when he speaks of "special" signings is that there will be at least one highly impressive signing. But he has been saying similar things for two months. We'll just have to wait and see.

Keep the faith.

This wasn't the chickens coming home to roost. Villa match report and thoughts.

Arsenal 1 Aston Villa 3



To quote Rudyard Kipling, "if you can keep your head when all about you are losing their and blaming it on you […] you'll be a man". The reaction to yesterday's Arsenal match has been so over-the-top you'd think we'd lost our first ten games of the season, not one match. Fortunately, we have a manager who doesn't view one match as season-defining.

If you predicted us picking up three injuries in one match and the ref having an absolutely appalling game then perhaps this was a case of the chickens coming home to roost and the summer having been mis-managed to the nth degree.

Otherwise, you can look back on a football match in which we utterly dominated for the first quarter, gave away a soft penalty and two enforced substitutions left us relatively few options to change it from the bench when the game slipped away from us in the second half. In addition, a match in which the referee not only gave Koscielny a second booking for what was frankly a complete dive from Andreas Weimann, but also consistently let Villa's persistent fouling go, despite it completely disrupting our rhythm. It wasn't just a case of Anthony Taylor getting the big decisions wrong; it was also a case of him getting the small decisions wrong over and over again. He had no idea what was a foul, let alone what was a yellow card. To my eyes, he completely lost control of the game and we're unlikely to see a worse refereeing performance at the Emirates this season.

And that's the crucial point. You can talk about signings as much as you want, but Arsenal were 2/5 with the bookies to win the match yesterday (implying a 70% chance of victory) and most people expected Arsenal to win.

That's the problem with results-based thinking. The squad needs strengthening. But it needed strengthening irrespective of the result yesterday, and there's no doubt that the team that was put out there was good enough to win the game.

As to why the squad hasn't been strengthened until now, there seems to be a large proportion of the fan-base who genuinely believe that Wenger doesn't want to spend any money so he can wallpaper the walls of the training ground with fifty-pound notes, completely ignoring what has gone on this summer.

I don't view our transfer window as a success, but I don't view it as the unequivocal failure most people seem to. There's a hell of a lot of people who'd be happier if Yaya Sanogo had cost 10 million pounds so they can say we've spent some money.

But if you look at the players we've actually bid for - Suarez, Rooney, Bender, Fabregas - a clear pattern emerges. What the club have tried to do this summer is sign players who could make us challenge for the League once again. Amidst all the talk of how Arsenal regularly come either 3rd or 4th, what's overlooked is that in both 2008 and 2010, we had strong challenges for the title, something we haven't been near for the previous two years.

Of course we could have gone out and bought players of the calibre Spurs have bought this summer - Capoue, Soldado etc - and consolidated the squad to a position where it could definitely achieve fourth place, but the impression I had from almost everybody who I spoke to was that they were tired of not winning things every season and wanted to strengthen to the point we could challenge for the title and maybe even the Champions League.

If another week or so passes and we still haven't signed anybody except Sanogo, I expect the the proverbial net to widen, as the need to sign players who would keep us above Spurs, rather than challenge Chelsea and City increases. But I have enormous sympathy with the club: when Fabregas left Arsenal it was on the 14th of August; when Nasri left Arsenal it was on the 24th of August; when van Persie signed for United, it was on the 15th of August; when Song signed for Barcelona it was on the 20th of August. What all of these deals have in common is that they went through towards the end of the transfer window. When you're signing one of the best players from a club, and the player is going to be in the Champions League anyway, it takes a while for these deals to go through. People talk about parsimony as if it's a good idea to spend more if you can spend less. We can't force deals through with huge money as Man City do, because we don't have that much money.

For sure, Arsenal can afford to spend some money this summer - but it's not worth buying assets who will rapidly lose value while being on high wages, meaning we''ll struggle to make top signings in 2014 and 2015. There's an important middle ground to be struck, which I'm confident the club have tried to find.

So, yes, we could sign players like Ashley Williams and Michu and guarantee 4th place once again, but I applaud the club's strategy of aiming higher than that. People need to be a little more detached from individual results and look at the bigger picture.

Keep the faith.

Stop worrying about transfers and enjoy the summer.

In general, there's something particularly odd about spending your days arguing on the internet, normally with strangers.

But that reaches a whole new level of odd, when you're spending your days arguing about something you know nothing about, with other people who also know nothing.

The endless, pointless dissection of transfer rumours has to stop. If your only interest is football, find another one. Tweet me and I'll recommend you some books to read; alternatively, go to the pub or take up swimming. I think you get the point.

Aside from my holier than thou attitude that people shouldn't care this much about football, the point is that your arguing achieves nothing. I was at the Emirates in May to hear the MD of our football club say that the club wanted to spend money this summer, a line several of the squad have repeated since. There's two options here: one, the club are telling bare-faced lies, in which case getting upset achieves nothing because they clearly don't care about mis-leading fans. Or two, the club are trying to sign players.

If it's the second one, arguing about the club's inaction so far, when there's four weeks until the start of the season and you have no knowledge of what's gone on thus far seems utterly bizarre.

The only line I keep on hearing is that the club has a history of messing up transfers. By all accounts this is true. But that was also when they were penny-pinching. Judging by what we've heard from Arsenal, that's no longer the case. So to pretend the two situations are analogous is just ridiculous. It would be akin to us drawing Real Madrid in the Champions League and saying we have a great record against them, despite the squad having changed completely since we last played them.

But even if the club are going to do nothing and we start the season with the squad as it stands, I don't think arguing with fellow fans achieves anything. People (I included) spend enough time when the season is ongoing arguing about something they can see with their own eyes - the team on the pitch - that arguing about something when you have no idea what's happening is patently absurd.

You have three months off from football every year. It's a rare hot British summer. Enjoy it.

Seven things the Pope's resignation can teach Arsenal

If you actually thought I would write a post about the Pope and Arsenal, you are a fucking idiot.

Five thoughts on Arsenal's form

Theo Walcott's importance to this team misses the point...
Anybody who knows me or who has read this blog knows that I am far from a Theo Walcott fanboy. Yet even I, in the giddy aftermath of the North London Derby was moved to declare that he had improved a great deal.

This is true. He is playing at a consistently higher level than ever before. He has also hit a purple patch of form and been particularly good for the past couple of months. Even so, it only takes those of us with a memory longer than eight weeks to remember just how appalling he was in his substitute appearance vs Chelsea.

But the truth is he's been good. The issue is he's been no more than that; his importance to the team is more an indictment on our general attacking play. So sure, give him a new contract - but that shouldn't be mutually exclusive with serious attacking reinforcements. And if it is a choice of one or the other, I would choose the new signings; even in his purple patch, Theo has continued to be a flat-track bully with his poorer performances coming against the better teams we've faced.

There's a legitimate case for Arsène Wenger to go…
But unfortunately, it's being made by the wrong people. And in the wrong way.

That Arsenal did not win anything between 2005 and 2011 is of very little bearing to me. I did not believe Arsene Wenger should go then because the team was competitive. So banging a drum about how we've won nothing for seven years and therefore he should go is absurd.

At the beginning of 2007/08, we went on a 22 game unbeaten run. We were a win at Old Trafford away from winning the Premier League and a couple of very dodgy decisions away from a winnable Champions League semi-final against a Chelsea side managed by Avram Grant. That team wasn't rubbish; that team didn't merit the sack.

Even as recently as April 2011, it's worth questioning what happens if Eboue doesn't bundle Lucas over in the 101st minute? Would we have gone on to win the title? Probably not, but maybe. So I don't accept the idea that Wenger's failings are long-term.

The current team is pretty bad. Since Clichy, Fabregas, Nasri and latterly Van Persie left, we are quite clearly a much weaker team. I'm inclined to agree with the manager that third was about as well as the team could hope to have done last season - but I'm also quite happy to hold him responsible for that. He signed the players; the poverty of the squad is largely his fault. I think he's slightly unlikely that the current generation of youngsters (Jack apart) aren't up to much, but he should probably have done something to counter-act that.

As far as I'm concerned, he should stay because no manager could make drastic changes to the playing staff until the summer - but then his position should be seriously considered.

What to say about the lack of saves from our keepers?
It is very hard to work out exactly what is going on in goal. When you concede a lot of shots from outside the box, is it fair to criticise the goalkeeper, the defence, or both? And if both, to what extent is each culpable?

I'm prepared to believe that the skill of our defence means that opposition chances (when they do occur) are of a higher quality because they come from a mistake by one of our players - but that does not excuse our keepers saving nothing.

When there was speculation a couple of years back about Szczesny's contract, everyone wondered what Wenger's issue was; it's pretty obvious now.

It's pretty much impossible to win with substitutions…
I remember when I used to complain when Wenger used to bring on striker after striker in search of victory that it was a move bereft of any real tactical nous, and doesn't really help if you're trying to create chances.

But then, if you bring on a winger for a winger, it's termed 'like for like' and therefore not changing the game. And, if heaven forbid you bring on a defensive player when chasing the game, you are clearly a complete buffoon who hasn't got a clue.

The truth about substitutions is that unless the substitute quite clearly wins the game, it's very hard to evaluate them. In pretty much all football analysis, the importance given to them is grossly disproportionate to their actual importance.

The great irony in all this…
Is that after the press went on and on and on and on about how we've won nothing for seven years, we're 2/1 to win the Carling Cup with this team. If Thomas does lift the trophy, no doubt we'll hear about how it's not a real trophy. Them's the breaks.

Keep the faith.

Some opinions presented as facts. What's going on at Arsenal?

- It is profoundly odd to argue this Arsenal team is not a mediocre Arsenal team. That we were an incredibly poor side in the 1950s and 60s somewhat misses the point, for two reasons: it's not short-term thinking to compare the team with the last 20 years - that's a reasonable data-set - and this is the worst Arsenal side in that period, at least on form.

But more importantly, the mediocrity needs to be viewed in context: when you have the fourth largest wage bill in the League, the team should be performing much better.

- That said, the argument going around at the moment that we cannot hold a lead is patently false: it is unfortunate to blow a two goal lead twice in a week. The fact remains though that the only other time this season we have been pegged back after taking the lead was the ridiculous match against Reading. It is simply untrue to say we cannot hold a lead.

- Explaining the lack of defensive stability is difficult. It's easy to blame the goalkeeper but he was in goal at the beginning of the season when we were more solid. Certainly, losing Gibbs to injury has not helped, and Thomas Vermaelen has not played well this season, but the biggest issue has been losing Abou Diaby.

Diaby would sit in front of the defence and contest all the aerial balls, meaning that Koscielny/Vermaelen/Mertesacker could do what they do well - mopping up all the loose balls and winning the ball on the ground. Mikel Arteta, for his many strengths, cannot do that and what the table below shows is that although we're conceding maybe one more shot on target per game than when Diaby was fit, a much higher proportion are going in.

It's a little simplistic to blame it solely on Diaby's injury - Mannone has made some clangers and there's been a series of defensive mistakes - but teams have been getting chances which are easier to convert and that's certainly partly because we're not competing in the air; it's also shown by us repeatedly conceding from set pieces since he went off injured against Chelsea.

- Even so, before this week, nobody would really have accused this Arsenal team of leaking goals. At current rates, we're projected to concede about 38 goals this seasons, which whilst nowhere near good enough to win the League would be a staunch improvement on last season. The problems with the defence have been over-hyped - get Szczesny, a keeper the defence trust, back in goal and the players in front of him will play better and the keeper will also save more of the shots on target.

Obviously we're a much stronger team when Diaby plays - but that's a bit like saying we would have scored more goals in the last six seasons if Van Persie had always been fit. It's true, but completely irrelevant, because neither Diaby or Van Persie are players whose fitness can be relied upon.

- So what's the problem? It's basically the midfield and attack. Not exactly a small problem then.

All the midfield players are too similar, which puts a massive onus on Cazorla to create chances. When Wilshere and Rosicky are back playing properly that will be less of an issue, but the lack of another player who can create chances is an enormous problem. It's why - I suspect - Wenger persists with picking Aaron Ramsey: at least he tries to create chances. For all we mocked Alex Song and his chipped through balls, he still had the most assists at the club last season - and that from what was ostensibly the holding midfield role. Compare and contrast with Mikel Arteta.

Our forwards' conversion rates are not bad, but we don't create enough for them.

It's especially galling because one of the reasons we're weak defensively is that Walcott and Podolski don't defend anywhere near as much as they should do. In theory, this should mean they're in great positions for counter-attacks but it's just not happening. That particularly irritates me because Andrey Arshavin does create chances (where Podolski doesn't) but isn't allowed to play because of his supposed lack of defensive nous.

The wingers just aren't particularly good players - Chamberlain's done nothing all season, Gervinho couldn't cross a ball if he was paid to (oh wait, he is), Walcott's decision-making is awful and his new thing is shooting when he should cross to prove he should play up front, and I'm very confused as to what Lukas Podolski actually does.

I like Olivier Giroud but even Robin van Persie - the best player in the League last season - struggled with this motley bunch, so he's not exactly in an easy situation.

- This really hits at the key problem at Arsenal - and why so many fans are unhappy. Yeah, the ticket prices are high but London is one of the most expensive cities in the world and ticket prices are also high at Chelsea and Tottenham and it's a complete straw man to keep on bringing up ticket prices as a reason the fans are unhappy, not least because the stadium is (still) consistently sold out.

It's inconsistent to complain about the club not extracting enough from sponsorship deals and then complaining about the tickets being overpriced: the club does not care about the individual supporter and no Premier League club does - when you're turning over tens or hundreds of millions of pounds, one fan not spending a thousand pounds is unimportant.

As long as the stadium remains full, the board - rightly - will not care about ticket prices.

But the real problem is then not spending the money from the gate receipts on players: when we challenged for the League in 2010 we had Nasri, Fabregas, Song and Van Persie; instead, we now have Podolski, Cazorla, Arteta and Giroud - not bad footballers, but nowhere near as good as their predecessors who (lest we forget) didn't manage to win anything. So where we needed to move forward, we've actually regressed.

And alongside them, there's a series of very average players - Vermaelen, Ramsey, Chamberlain, Coquelin, Walcott - and some absolute dross.

The great irony is that a few years back we were praising the medium-priced players Wenger was signing (Eduardo, Sagna, Nasri, Arshavin) and asking for more of them. The difference then was the quality of the young players coming through was much higher - people of the calibre of Clichy, Song, Fabregas (and the slightly older) Van Persie came through to play for the first team and were key players.

Because these days the young players are nowhere near as good, the need to go out and spend on the top young players - like, for example, Juan Mata - is tremendous, but the board/the manager appear to be ignoring it. And therefore, we will only challenge for the top four, if we're lucky.

- To come full circle and go back to the original point about the wage bill, there's an argument often made that the only reason teams want our top players is because they're very talented.

That's true. But the reason teams don't want our squad players - despite them being quite talented - is because of their wages. It's something which needs to be sorted out, because although our wage bill is large, it's artificially large as it doesn't represent the strength of the squad. And that's the reason we may well finish outside the top four.

Keep the faith.

Here's the big test: Manchester City preview.

Since Man City became a top team, a trip to Eastlands has become a real acid test. Arsenal's 3-0 win at Eastlands in October 2010 was impressive in its own right, but it's particularly noteworthy in light of the series of close results between the two teams since. City dropped just two points at home last season and to pick up a positive result on Sunday would be particularly impressive.

There's certainly a case to be made that Arsenal have performed roughly to expectations so far for a team which will finish in the top four, if you look at the results from last season. Dropping points at home to Sunderland was two points dropped compared to the previous campaign, but a win against Southampton was better than two points dropped against Wolves.

In the world where Twitter seems to dictate the moods of many, three consecutive wins is a sign we can compete for the League, and a dodgy draw means sending messages to Aaron Ramsey telling him he's the worst player evah [sic].

In a sensible world, Arsenal have performed creditably in the last three games, but there was enough cause for concern in Montpellier, and the two previous games were against weak(ish) opposition. That's not to say the team hasn't looked good. Having a playmaker, particularly one as good as Cazorla, has improved the team immeasurably. 

Although the criticism that Arsenal were a one man team last year was false, we didn't create enough chances, which meant that there was a certain reliance on Van Persie to take those which fell his way, which he inevitably did. At least so far, the efficiency of our wingers seems enormously improved, which more than counteracts Van Persie's absence, and this is partly down to Cazorla putting them into better positions.

And so, to this particular fixture. In eight years at Arsenal, Van Persie managed one Premier League goal versus City, so it's not as if he has a great record against City for United fans to look forward to or for us to miss. That said, City haven't looked as fragile defensively in a long time as they have in their first few matches last season. For all of Sergio Aguero's goals, City won the League last season (in my eyes) by having the best defence. I would expect them to press us a lot more around the penalty area than they have in their last few matches, which means our players' first touches will need to be on song (yes, I'm looking at you Theo Walcott). 

The reality is that although City have started the season relatively poorly, they've still won both home games they've played, and it's not exactly embarrassing to lose in the Bernabeu. Without Wojciech Szczesny, Mannone will continue in goal, and although he's done well thus far, he hasn't really been tested. Having watched him play for the reserves multiple times over a few years, I've never been convinced that he's a good goalkeeper, and it's hard to think he won't face proper scrutiny on Sunday.

The other area to watch - for me - is central midfield. The one time we've beaten City in the last five attempts, Alex Song caught Yaya Toure on the knee early on, and Toure hobbled around for fifteen minutes before going off injured. Apart from his replacement failing to tackle Arteta before the winning goal, Toure is one of City's best players. Whilst we're certainly a better team without Song, we've lost his physicality, and much will depend on how Diaby and Toure match up.

Whatever happens, I think it will be an interesting and low-scoring game of football, and hopefully we can come out on top!

Keep the faith.