Five thoughts pre Arsenal-Chelsea

Jack Wilshere is an idiot
It wasn't so long ago that Arsenal fans were bemoaning Jack Wilshere's prolonged absence, expecting his return to catalyse an often ponderous Arsenal team to improved performances. Certainly Wilshere has suffered from a weight of expectation - not helped by the club giving him the famous number 10 shirt while he was out injured - but to a large extent, he has also just not played at the same level since returning from injury.

This is entirely understandable: although there's a tendency amongst Arsenal fans to always need to have someone to criticise, I think it's natural that a young player coming back from a serious injury would need some time to bed back into the team. With the signings of Ozil, Cazorla and Flamini, as well as the improved performances of Aaron Ramsey, Wilshere's position in the team has gone from assured to under threat.

This lengthy preamble is intended to contextualise Wilshere's place at Arsenal. If you're performing brilliantly, you can get away with picking up a two-match ban for no reason whatsoever a lot more easily. Where once I thought of him as "a cunt but our cunt", now I really don't know what to think of him. I found the response from Arsenal fans to him being banned utterly bizarre. Whether it should be a one-match ban or a two-match ban is irrelevant to the greater issue of why he was behaving in a way that would inevitably see him punished post-hoc. Poor performances I can deal with - the talent is there and has been on show at times this season. So I can cope with how poor Wilshere was against Man City. What I can't abide - and frankly, there should have been a lot more opprobrium thrown towards Wilshere's proverbial door - is getting yourself unnecessarily banned before a series of three matches in five and a half days. The boy needs to learn.

Defeat to Chelsea would not be a disaster
Given Chelsea's patchy form and dodgy defensive record, this is certainly a chance to get an important win in a big game that would also re-enforce Arsenal's emerging confidence. But it is by no means a must-win game.

I've seen it mentioned all over Twitter that defeat would leave Arsenal fourth in the table. What's not been mentioned is that first to fourth would then be separated by one point.

After this game, there'll be 21 games left. Keep up the sensational form in so-called 'smaller' fixtures and it will all be moot.

It's a tough Christmas fixture list
Maybe it's because I've been convinced for a week now that West Ham will beat Arsenal on Boxing Day, but regardless, I'm worried about these Christmas fixtures. I can see Chelsea grinding out a win and going away to Newcastle, one of the most in-form teams in the League will be far from easy.

It's a strange one: there's no necessity to be Chelsea, but the momentum would be very useful before a couple more tough games in very quick succession.

Maybe Tim Sherwood isn't such an idiot after all
I was discussing Spurs' tactics against Southampton with my brother and he convinced me that Tim Sherwood has probably been a victim of a media narrative, or at least has taken unfair stick.

Whether AVB deserved to be sacked or not, it's clear he was trying to pick the best players in the squad, irrespective of whether they had actually gelled into a team, rather than picking players who could play together. Spurs have many players who are probably not quite good enough to propel them to fourth, but are still pretty decent players. Against a Southampton team riddled with injuries, perhaps it makes sense to forgo the defensive solidity of playing a double pivot and attempting to play to the strengths of your side.

It's a little disingenuous to dismiss him as a tactical neanderthal on the basis of one game, where the tactics actually seemed to work out pretty well. I think it's a nonsense to praise him for playing in 'the Spurs way' when this actually just seems to mean scoring goals in big games but ultimately losing, but equally, it's also a nonsense to simply dismiss 4-4-2 out of hand.

Maybe this is me being a simpleton, but I always feel that you pick a team to try and beat your opponents, and as Southampton are riddled with defensive injuries, trying to get at them seems quite a good idea.

For all the merriment and mirth generated by Spurs' heavy defeats to Liverpool and City, they're only six points off the top of the table. Everything is very constrained, and if they can get (some of) their summer signings working effectively, there's a lot to be optimistic about at Spurs. Alas.

The League table has now taken shape
That Spurs remain so close to the top of the table underscores what a tight season this is proving to be. Even so, I'd be shocked if any team currently in the top eight ends up outside the top eight. Beyond that, it's difficult to say what's going to happen.

Chelsea have done okay without performing especially well but I've seen nothing to suggest that they can put together a string of eight wins to go and win the League. They've averaged 70 points over the last two seasons, and it's going to take a considerable improvement on that to win the League.

For the top four, I genuinely do wonder whether United will make it. Suarez is inspiring Liverpool, Spurs aren't at all bad, and City, Chelsea and Arsenal all look to have better teams. One thing's for sure: the standard's the highest it has been for several seasons, and the next few months should prove very exciting.

Keep the faith.

Six thoughts on Manchester City 6 Arsenal 3

This was very unlike Arsenal this season
Since March, there's been a clear tactical shift from Arsenal from a possession-based game to more of a late 1990s swift counter-attacking style. For the first time in a number of years, the team has been happy to surrender possession in return for a good defensive shape and a tight backline.

Which is why I found the tactics today very odd. Without dominating possession like they used to, Arsenal still allowed the game to be very open. There was very little cover offered to the full-backs and this was compounded by giving the ball away in dangerous areas.

Normally, you might be able to moan about a team scoring six goals from seven shots on target but it's not as if Szczesny had a bad game - City repeatedly cut Arsenal open, leaving the goalscorers easy finishes. It was even worse after Flamini was withdrawn. There was no link play to get the ball to the attackers and Arsenal were even more under pressure.

Given City's obvious attacking strength, it would have made far more sense to keep it tight, as Arsenal ended up playing a very different style from how they've played this season. Unsurprisingly, they payed the price.

There will doubtless be a gross over-reaction to this result
It's not just that much of the Arsenal eleven played in Napoli on Wednesday night. It's that - like in so many of these games which finish with comedy scorelines - City scored two goals between the 88th minute and the end of the game. What made Spurs' defeat here so extraordinary was that they were 5-0 down after 55 minutes.

The implications for Arsenal's title challenge
With a tough and relentless run of games coming up, Arsenal are now one injury away from Bacary Sagna at centre back and Jenkinson at right-back. It's not good. I felt at the beginning of the season the squad was a defender light and a lack of injuries in that area has gone some way to covering that up.

More generally, this was certainly the hardest game of the season. If City can play like this away from home they will win the League - but they haven't managed that all season.

Removing Flamini was a terrible substitution
It's often easy to criticise these things with hindsight but I did actually comment at the time that it was an odd change. If you're being over-run in midfield with scant protection for the defence, removing the only protection they do have is just strange.

In a very similar situation in Manchester two years ago, Wenger removed a French holding midfielder for a winger and it ended 8-2. The way City dominated after Flamini went off, they could have scored even more.

If you're struggling because of a lack of defensive protection, all-out-attack is an odd response. It certainly didn't work.

Olivier Giroud is knackered
I don't expect him to be a brilliant finisher - he's not. I'm doubtful he ever will be. But Giroud's defensive work, off-the-ball and hold-up play was the worst I've seen it all season today. The guy's biggest asset is that he is a brilliant defensive striker, but that requires enormous energy, something he simply didn't have. He desperately needs a rest: I don't need the stats to tell you he is in the famous red-zone.

Mertesacker was in the wrong
You can debate at length whether players should go and applaud the away fans. I tend to think that even if it's a token gesture it requires very little effort and the reaction to not doing it makes it worthwhile.

But I think it's comparatively a lot worse to see two senior players having an angry argument on the pitch. It's the very opposite of what Arsenal have been about all season: a team with an enormous sense of unity. It brought back memories of Adebayor and Bendtner at White Hart Lane in 2009 and it gives people the impression there are divisions in the camp.

Perhaps Mertesacker was right. If he was, he should have told Ozil in the dressing room - there's no reason to air your dirty laundry in public.

Keep the faith.

Arsenal have improved. Deal with it.

There is a bizarre fascination in the media with pointing out that Arsenal have taken fewer points and scored fewer goals than in the corresponding 14 League games from last season and therefore, nobody quite knows what. But it's important dammit and they're going to keep on saying it to make it more true, even though having dropped points against West Brom and Villa, it would have taken an unlikely result at Old Trafford to stop this stat remaining true for several weeks.

Leaving aside how fixtures are obviously not directly comparable year-on-year (squad turnover, refereeing decisions, the rarity of goals within the course of a football match), it is just cognitive dissonance at its finest.

Are we supposed to have watched Arsenal this season and think the team look poor? Presumably. It's certainly the conclusion I would draw from harping on about this statistic, devoid of any further context.

It might have been an interesting stat after five or six games because of a lack of a sample size this season, but after twelve it's pretty fair to say Arsenal have improved. The other reason it's entirely meaningless, is that seven of the twelve games being compared year-on-year were played from February 2013 onwards. Nobody disputes Arsenal improved in the last third of last season, so comparing those fixtures is even more pointless. Given Arsenal had the best League form of anybody in the last third of the season, it's probably quite good to be about on a par with that so far - it signifies a title challenge which is all anybody who supports Arsenal has been speaking of.

Seriously, I am genuinely confused. Presumably what they're trying to show is that Arsenal are not as good as Chelsea or Manchester City. But I don't - and I think almost all Gooners - don't dispute that. The media have not so much destroyed their own straw man as utterly obliterated it into a ball of anti-Arsenal flames.

And what happens if Arsenal beat Man City or Chelsea or even both? Then we'll be told there's still half the season left. It's an odd attack on a much-improved team to say "well they're not the best yet so we're not going to give them any praise at all". Having lost to United, a quirk of the fixture list means Arsenal need to wait until the 8th of December (a month on) to try and improve our year-on-year record, and meanwhile the press can wheel this largely pointless statistic out to prove what? That Arsenal aren't top of the League? They are. I promise.

It's particularly odd as there are legitimate statistical points to be raised with this Arsenal team: the number of shots on target they've been allowing is worrying, for example, but that's not even brought up.

All a team can do is beat the teams they face. If it's a quirk of the fixture list that they don't face the two best teams until fifteen games into the season, what are we supposed to do? Have some sort of amnesty on proffering any opinions on Arsenal until they've played them? I remain confused.

Keep the faith.

On nuance or why you don't need a strong opinion on everything

Modern society seems to have mutated into some crazy arena where not only are we expected to have a view on everything, but that view needs to be exceptionally strong, usually based on limited evidence and strong rhetoric. Let me put my cards on the table and concede that I've certainly been guilty of this at times.

It leads to a society where rather than saying "the referee made a mistake, easily done at that speed" you start saying things like "it was an absolutely outrageous decision to make, completely despicable and it highlights a culture in which match-fixing is rife and bias among referees is common" and people don't even find this particularly outlandish. I digress.

Carl Jenkinson's form for Arsenal has not been brilliant of late. This is partly true but the negative view of it has been exacerbated by people taking an overly positive view of his performances last season, leaving him further to fall. He made plenty of mistakes last season - he had a habit of passing the ball inside and nearly giving the ball away - but as they did not lead to goals, nobody really noticed.

Do I believe a 21-year-old going through a shaky patch is a big deal? No. For one thing, he's played eight times this season and last night was - as far as I can remember - the first time he's made a mistake which led to a goal. But more importantly, it's normal for young players to be inconsistent. This is nothing new.

But what I'm really getting at is that after loads of people called Jenkinson shit on Twitter, you then get the inevitable backlash of people saying he must be brilliant because he was given a new contract and Wenger trusts him.

Like with most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle: he's not good enough for the Arsenal first team at the moment but there's no reason to believe he couldn't be in the future.

It's similar with Thomas Vermaelen: the way people talk about him you'd think he's one of the worst players EVAH EVAH EVAH. Whereas in reality, he's not as good as Koscielny or Mertesacker but not a bad player. It's interesting that although ostensibly Koscielny played Mertesacker's position last night, Vermaelen is blamed for any defensive instability. As a wise man once said, hmmmm.

The truth is that having incredibly strong opinions just to stand out is rather silly. Most players have negatives but also some positives. That's why after extensive scouting they were bought by Arsenal.

Keep the faith.

Arsenal are the new Backstreet Boys

...In that they're back. Hopefully this time it's for good.

What I watched on Tuesday night was the finest performance from Arsenal in several seasons. No longer can the recent run simply be attributed to playing not particularly good teams. Napoli are a very good team who out-classed BVB on Matchday One but who were simply no match for Arsenal.

I saw some people claiming that Napoli struggled because they insisted on taking pot-shots from 25 yards but that was the outcome, rather than the symptom. Napoli were forced into taking long shots because of Arsenal's intelligent pressing and defensive shape. In football, when you have the ball you have three choices: run, pass or shoot. At the point the first two of those are repeatedly made impossible, you have to resort to shooting from distance. That this happened means Arsenal deserve a lot of credit.

And it's probably the best thing to watch about this current Arsenal team. People used to mock Arsenal fans for getting jittery when a team came back from 2-0 to 2-1 but it was precisely because Arsenal had a history of letting leads slip and never seemed especially comfortable trying to hold a lead rather than adding to it. From the back-end of last season onwards, Arsenal's defensive positioning and shape has been much better with the team genuinely defending as a team.

The tangible benefits of this are huge. Because even when you are slightly profligate in your attacking play - like against Napoli - if you're comfortable at the back, it doesn't tend to matter. Every time I see Arsenal defending a one-goal lead late on now, I'm very confident they'll hold it.

I've been made to look foolish in the past, but the signs are incredibly encouraging for this team. Finally, the shadow of the twin departures of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri has lifted. I no longer need to bemoan them leaving because the team can compete again. I said at the beginning of the season that the fixture list was very kind to Arsenal until November - but the team still needed to take advantage of that, and has. And whatever question marks remain over whether they can keep it up in the Premier League, it's six points from six in the elite competition in which Arsenal were supposedly 'dead'.

Keep the faith.

Five thoughts on Swansea 1 Arsenal 2

Ramsey's goals could inspire a title challenge
The clamour for signing a striker over the summer was driven by a legitimate concern about the number of goals in the team. I felt Arsenal scored 10-15 less League goals than they needed to last season, which was almost entirely because of a lack of goals from midfield. Arteta, Ramsey and Wilshere played 76 games between them and scored just seven goals, a figure made all the more damning when you realise that Arteta also took Arsenal's penalties last season. I appreciate Cazorla scored plenty of goals but as a total, the number of goals from midfield was not high enough. In addition, with van Persie, Adebayor, Henry and Ian Wright, Arsenal fans had become used to seeing the team's striker score 20 goals a season, something Giroud never came close to threatening last season, increasing the dependancy on goals from midfield.

This is why Aaron Ramsey's revelation in front of goal is so important. Of course he will not keep up this sort of run of scoring throughout the season (he has been scoring with around 80% of hit shots on target, an incredible statistic) but if he could score 12 League goals, that could be the difference between Arsenal challenging for the League and not. It's worth noting that on the last three occasions Arsenal challenged for/won the title - 2004, 2008 and 2010, there have been goals from midfield. In 2010, Diaby (!), Denilson, Ramsey and Rosicky all supplemented Fabregas' 15 goals; in 2008, Rosicky and Fabregas were to the fore; and in 2004, Robert Pires was still scoring for fun.

The curious case of Arsenal fans and Kieran Gibbs
It has been quite something to read so many people on Twitter saying of Kieran Gibbs "he's a hugely improved player this season" or words to that effect, given that I was mocked for saying Gibbs wasn't especially good last season. Now I'm no philosopher, but presumably for him to be much-improved there would need to be areas for improvement, and given that he's still not a brilliant player after this improvement, this implies he wasn't that good before.

Anyway, I digress. Gibbs has improved but he still needs to improve his anticipation. One of the reasons I rate two of Swansea's defenders - Chico and Angel Rangel - is that they have very high average interceptions per game, which I consider a good measure of defender's ability. On Saturday, much of what Gibbs did that was praised by the commentators was in effect making last-ditch tackles because he was out of position originally. This might look good on TV, but it's not conducive to good football, or in aiding the team in quick transitions and counter-attacking football. It might seem perverse to slate Gibbs given his form has improved, but he's still (in my opinion) the weakest player in the starting eleven and now aged 24, he can't really be classed as 'up-and-coming' anymore.

Michael Laudrup is a class act
Even if he were not a brilliant former player and an astute manager, I would like Michael Laudrup for not wearing a tie. I am of the opinion that ties were a terrible invention and you will rarely see me wear one (the collars on most of my shirts being too small is but an incidental factor in this). But in addition to his cravat eschewal, Laudrup is a very good manager.

When he went to Swansea, his managerial reputation was very much up in the air - he made Getafe play terrific football but was sacked by Spartak Moscow and struggled at Mallorca. I was not alone in pondering whether Swansea could be relegated last season. That they were not even in the relegation mix was partly down to some terrific form at the beginning of last season, partly down to some well-chosen signings (O HAI MICHU) but mainly a result of Laudrup coaching the team to play a distinctive style which really works for them. Listening to his post-match interview, you could tell this was somebody who really understood how football works - his comments about Swansea's positioning immediately after the first Arsenal goal and how they went for it too much there and then were particularly interesting. He's certainly somebody I'd consider as a successor to Arsene Wenger.

Crisis Crisis Crisis!
There are lists of funny Arsene Wenger quotes that are occasionally shared, but on the anniversary of his having joined Arsenal, Wenger made one of his shrewdest comments in a long time: "these days if you lose one match it is a crisis".

That's not a quote that will be joining lists, but it is a good summary of what is so frustrating about 24/7 media coverage of football. The puerile conniptions thrown by the media every time a top team loses to a lesser team is exceptionally trying and exceptionally boring. I always thought the beauty of football compared to tennis is that there's a much larger chance of Arsenal losing to a team from the bottom of the Premier League than there is of the world number one tennis player being beaten by a player ranked 30th in the world, and that was part of football's allure and what made it exciting. But apparently instead we just have to hear the word 'crisis' mis-used. If it were banned from the lexicon, few tears would be shed.

Napoli will be a major test
Next up for the Arsenal is Napoli at home. Much attention will understandably be on Gonzalo Higuain, but their other signing from Real Madrid, Raul Albiol, intrigues me more. A terrifically talented player, he is somebody I am convinced Arsenal made a mistake in not moving for and Ozil will need to be at his best to help us get the better of Albiol and Napoli.

Napoli are a major class above any team Arsenal have faced this season. This will be a real test and the true calibre of this nascent Arsenal team will soon be a lot clearer.

Keep the faith.

The Boy Ain't Bad or How I Learnt To Love Theo Walcott

Anybody who decides to delve into the archives of this blog may find a brobdingnagian amount of abuse aimed at Theo Walcott, much of which I would probably stand by. When I used to write match reports between 2008 and 2010, Walcott didn't even manage to look good in a team containing Fabregas, Nasri, an on-song Arshavin and van Persie. In fact, let's not beat around the bush: he didn't just not look good, he was often absolutely terrible.

It's one of the reasons I find Twitter so trying currently. At least 20% of tweets seem to be people digging out old tweets from people and shouting "HYPOCRITE HYPOCRITE" like it is somehow a bad thing to be able to change your mind. At risk of stating the obvious, changing your mind tends to show reflection and that you're actually watching what is going on.

That rather large digression is intended to head off any idiots who respond to this post and say "but you used to say Walcott was rubbish". I did, I now think he's a wonderful footballer.

In fact, what drove me to write this post was people slagging Walcott off for what I felt was one mediocre performance against Sunderland.

A few things about Theo:

1) His post-match interviews are almost as exciting as watching grass grow.
2) His goals+assists stat clearly suggests he is a better player than he is.
3) He has an infuriating habit of missing one-on-ones which does not befit a player of his calibre.

But so what. If you want me to tell you that Walcott is a better winger than Angel di Maria or whoever because he scores more goals than that player I'm not going to. What I will say though is that he's better than almost anybody in his position in the Premier League: better than Aaron Lennon, better than Young or Valencia, better than Jesus Navas and better than Samir Nasri.

And he's improved enormously as a footballer. When Walcott used to be picked as an impact sub it was because his runs in behind were poor, and so he was only any use with the ball played into his feet. This meant he needed defences to be tired in order to be effective. Now, his runs off the ball are exceptionally good, so much so that together with his pace he often gets one-on-one with goalkeepers. Does he miss more chances than perhaps he should? Yes, absolutely, but his return is still very good and he has scored both big goals and goals in big games.

Plus, just because he missed some chances against Sunderland, that doesn't mean he's not getting better all the time. It's been noticeable so far this season that his first touch is enormously improved, and that can only be down to hard work in training. With Ozil and Cazorla ready to spot Theo's runs, this could be a brilliant season for Walcott, with 20 Premier League goals an attainable goal.

That's doable partly because he's a player who helps to turn the screw against poor teams. For some reason, this is viewed as a bad thing by many people but scoring two or three goals against a bad team is a good way to get the game over early and avoid the players over-exerting themselves. There's a reasonable argument that what undermined Arsenal's title chase in spring 2011 was that almost every game was close in the last ten minutes, meaning the players ended up more and more tired. If players score goals, I am happy. To be particularly reductive, goals are good.

There are still issues with Walcott: he doesn't offer as much protection for his full-back as he should do and his crossing still isn't that great, but the reality is it's very hard to view his contribution as anything other than positive.

I'm happy to hold my hands up: I was wrong about Theo.

Keep the faith.