Alex Song roaring in Ghana

Cameroon has made it to the final of the African Nations where they are expected to play Côte D'Ivoire or Egypt after beating hosts Ghana 0-1 in the semi-finals.

Alex Song predictably was on the bench for Cameroon's first game against Egypt in the group stages being a young player who is not in the first team at his club. However, Cameroon leaked 4 goals against Egypt in that game. Most notably in that game was the fire counter-attacking by Egypt that led to swift goals.

Cameroon's midfield was incapable of stopping the flow of Egypt in that game. Being a proud footballing nation, there was a lot of discontent in the Cameroon media leading to some changes in the second game.

Alex was promoted and has played a defensive midfield role for Cameroon for the last 4 games. He has been widely seen in Cameroon as their best performer in the tournament. Alex is a conservative player like Gilberto and Marc Vivien Foe whose position he has taken in Cameroon. He mops up and rarely gets involved in anything else.

However, during the quarter-finals against Tunisia he had clearly gained enough confidence in himself and from the team to start going forward a little. He also seemed the only person in the Cameroon midfield that could combine well with Eto'o. He set-up a goal with a cross for his second assist in the tournament against Tunisia and has grown in confidence since.

In today's game against Ghana I was looking forward to seeing how he would cope against Essien to assess his level. Unfortunately, Essien had to play in centre-back for Ghana but Alex stood out in his maturity, tackling, understanding and one-touch passing.

Cameroon played with dreadfully boring long balls so the Cameroon midfield was rarely involved in creative play but were constantly required for defensive situations and Alex was very impressive.

I was kind of hoping Cameroon would lose so he could come back and support Arsenal's depleted midfield but it will be a good test for him against either the Ivorian or Egyptian midfield.

As I said before, Alex is much more like Gilberto than Flamini. Arsenal's style is better adapted for Flamini at the moment because the team defends as a whole and attacks together. Flamini is as involved in attack as he is with closing down defensively. In addition, Arsène Wenger has been trying Alex at centre-back so maybe Wenger believes his long term-future is at centre-back.

He has good qualities for a defensive midfielder and a centre-back. He has very good positional sense; he rarely goes to ground when tackling and he closes players out to stop opposition momentum rather than tackle them and tackles them only if he thinks he will be beaten.

So he is very much like Gilberto – he gives fouls away without getting a yellow card and usually not in dangerous positions. He makes sure the tackle or closing down happens before it gets to a dangerous position – I must say he has to improve this part of his game.

It may yet happen that he plays at centre-back in the final since Andre Bikey of Reading who plays centre-back for Cameroon was sent off during the Ghana game. I also noticed that Alex was limping at the final whistle so we have to wait and see.

I look forward to him coming back. This may be one case where the African Nations Cup has helped Arsenal give a player good playing time.

User Comments

geoj

Posted on 8 Feb, 2008 at 06:06 PM - Reply

Have to admit that I haven't seen any of Cameroon's games, but am glad for the guy........... after a terrible game against Fulham last season I thought it was curtains for Song.
He has stayed loyal however, and AW has remained loyal to him - clearly seeing something in the boy that the rest of us haven't, in the rare occasions when he gets to play first team football.
He has done well at centre half when he has played there this year, and I'm glad he's made it to the final - although I tend to think they are going to get stuffed by Egypt (again).

1980

Posted on 8 Feb, 2008 at 10:21 AM - Reply

Alex hurt his knee in the final minutes of last night's game. He was in real pain after the final whistle. It was a strong knock that he took just below the knee, so it's uncertain as to how fit he'll be for friday. Given Cameroon's 1st half performance without him in their first game, I think if he's not fit, they won't win.

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