LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE

Wining the 'rematch'

Knock Liverpool out of the FA cup in, what is almost a rematch and, given that one of Chelsea & Man City will exit this weekend, the Cup may very well be up for...well you know the rest of that oft quoted adage. Beat Manchester United on Wednesday and we can confirm that this team has the ability to bounce back consistently, and apply some pressure on our competitors while psychologically brushing aside the club that, under Ferguson, were our long term nemesis and putting another nail in what many see as United's current coffin of broken dreams. The Bayern fixture? who knows but I maintain that at present, the Champions League is beyond us, therefore this game is something of a barometer.

Which brings us to Saturday afternoon's debacle: many have summed things up far more eloquently, and others with extreme hysteria but what is undeniable is that for Liverpool that first 20 minutes could not have been better. Team selection prior to the game showed a distinct disregard of Liverpool's qualities, substitutions during the game highlighted those errors in selection. Yes we had (as always seems to be the case) injuries that restricted us somewhat but with Flamini's suspension it seemed obvious that energy was needed centrally.

Putting another nail in the coffin

We lost, we move on. My view on the manager's part in this loss can wait for another day but I think it's fair to say that a tactical approach has never been in Arsene's armoury and in that fact lies our problems against the teams with which we are contesting the title. If Manchester City and Chelsea have better squads, and of course given their expenditure they should have, a tactical approach is needed to nullify their quality and options: defying the odds if you will. Same for when playing a good team on form with a World class striker away from home, but our way is to play our game and not concern ourselves overly with cancelling out the opposition.

I guess my bottom line is that I don't think this approach works when it comes to the crunch fixtures.

To borrow from Boxing: a fighter who is out fought can often win by ensuring their opponent is out thought.

Defying the odds

Comments

Reasons to be cheerful?

So November arrives with cold weather and grey skies. Arsenal sit in 2 nd place with a great chance to make progress in the Carling Cup with a home draw against wigan Athletic. Poised to win our Champions league group and with six months of the season left have 3 of our five tougher away fixtures out of the way, having taken a respectable 4 from 9. I say respectable as, the Man City away trip aside the draw at Anfield on the occasion of Hodgson’s first game was a good result and the Chelsea game I don’t think anyone can really speak of any injustice. That leaves away games at Old Trafford and Sp*rs (who as we know raise their game for this fixture). With injured players gradually returning and the Polish goalkeepers showing signs of optimism, we’re in relatively good shape. Or so you’d think. Yesterday at the Emirates West Ham were put to the sword late on after some stout defending, a good performance from Robert Green and a couple of missed opportunities. The level of indign...

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark

A number of blogs are pointing out what was evident to me yesterday; as a season ticket holder and Silver member i like thousands of others made plans to purchase an additional ticket for the Barcelona game using the frustrating and irritating online service, but guess what? no joy, just lots of waiting finger tapping and watching the dreaded 'loading' bar (to make matters worse I had asked my missus to do this as I was doing training). But no one got these additional tickets, that is no supporters judging by the general feedback! It seems to me that the additional seats will have probably gone to customers of a corporate nature. Ultimately for such a marquee (to use an American commercialism term) game I suspect that the club where never going to sell to supporters of the club, there is clearly a undercurrent at the Emirates that the club wants to have the stadium full of customers ie; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ognvWIwjKTQ The Emirates of the future? It will be interesti...

PERSONALITY TEST

Played 23, 10 defeats, 4 draws and 9 victories; that's the factual bit out of the way. What does that tell us? I guess it is a set of statistics that reasonably reflect a mid table team. How we got here is something that countless column inches and hours of debate have gone into. How we move forward is the bigger question. Naturally, learning from past mistakes is a key element to moving forward but have Arsenal Football Club done that? Have Arsenal Football Club realised that a clear vision and plan is needed? When you look at the current squad its relatively easy to see where the strenghts are, and the weaknesses. The manager too, has strengths and weaknesses but one thing that is intangible is the personality of the club. Not so much "where are we" as "what are we?" To know what the club is is to know what the upper echelons think, what their plan and philosophy is and how the manager processes that information. We can assume that the club decision makers wa...

ARSENALISM©

Search This Blog