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Jenkinson and Coquelin have shown enough hunger and style to replace Djourou (as second right back) and Frimpong / Ramsey in midfield. Alex (AOC) made a very strong and authoritative impression against Shrewsbury.
It is hard to find anything to be happy about at Arsenal right now but one should remember that not everything at Arsenal is broken. Stepping back from the Blackburn game which I re-watched with considerable pain last night, I have to say that Blackburn were so lucky. They would have been lucky to finish the game with one point. That they left with three points was a jackpot winner’s luck.
That game was closer to 3-1 than it was to 2-2 by the time the first half finished. One offside goal and two own-goals was very unlucky. But the reason fans got pissed off even though many of them saw the terrible luck was because all fans are fed up with excuses of any kind. No fan wants to hear excuses of luck, injuries, referees etc anymore. They have made and heard those excuses enough.
A big part of losing that game was Djourou. Djourou has a terrible habit of leaving things to other people. I think Vermaelen and Koscielny are top defenders. I think Sagna is world class. I can’t think of anyone better in that position. But Arsenal’s formation is very good at exposing defenders very easily if the team is not defending as a unit. Our style requires team defending because our defenders and midfield are involved in build up play to create the 4th man in midfield and attack. When we lose the ball, they are almost out of position so every single player has to make the right defensive decision starting with the strikers, midfield and then defenders as we try to recover. It requires having a world class thinking from everyone because one mistake is usually enough to expose us fully. Barcelona are a great example here. Arsenal is very poor at it. We leave defending to defenders. That will never work with our style and our formation.
At Blackburn Djourou made the mistakes that killed the game. Djourou still doesn’t deal with a ball that is not directly in his path because he thinks someone else will. I watched him at the Carling Cup running back during a counter-attack and affording himself the luxury to look round instead of focusing on the ball and running to deal with it. When he turn his head round again, Shrewsbury had delivered a dangerous ball in the box and he was miles behind. (if you have Arsenal player check out Djourou on 39:35 in the first half). He didn’t jump for the first goal either, assuming Miguel was going to. Djourou is being the weak link that Eboué was. It took Wenger years to solve it. Now we are doing the same with Djourou. If a defender doesn’t have concentration that it is an incredible uphill battle to train him even if he has everything else.
Jenkinson on the other hand has concentration. You can see it straight off and I am glad he is fit. I assume it was a medical problem that stopped him replacing Sagna at Blackburn. I have been extremely impressed with Jenkinson. He is a proper defender. I have had enough of multi-position players, converted midfielders or defenders. We need a few specialists especially in defence. He is also the best crosser of the ball at Arsenal by a long long way!
Frimpong was impressive in pre-season last season when I saw him but after returning from injury, I am a lot less impressed. Frimpong is not urgent. The biggest improvement in Alex Song’s game is knowing where to be and being urgent about it. Frimpong is strong and has a decent technique but neither knows where he should be nor is urgent about it. Frimpong, crucially for a 4-3-3 team, cannot connect with players in attack.
Then Ramsey seems to be struggling too. He doesn’t transform from attack to defence fast enough. What Fabregas was very good at knowing when to follow up his run with authority and when to sit back and cover. Song, Wilshere and Fabregas have that sense but every other player in midfield from Diaby, Arteta, Ramsey, Benayoun, Frimpong doesn’t have the right sense or the urgency. Wenger made the point about urgency after the Blackburn game. We have a problem where the majority of our midfielders are not good at 4-3-3. Nobody has criticised Ramsey so far because he is a good player that works hard but I can’t see that the formation gets the best out of him.
Arsenal’s attack is poor when Arsenal’s midfield is poor. Wenger insists on playing through midfield even when it is weak and imbalanced. He took a depleted midfield – on that must have been the weakest, newest and thinnest midfield in the premiership – to Old Trafford and tried to play the Champions of England through midfield!!
I have, however, been impressed with what I have seen of Coquelin. Here is a player that is playing with a body language that is screaming “please pick me!” He is good on the ball, he is urgent and he has beefed up a little even though he is still not as strong as Frimpong. Crucially, he can pass the ball and can connect with players. Coquelin is the only midfielder right now (not seen that Arteta yet) that can place a long pass accurately the way Cesc used to. Check out Coquelin from 40:30 in the Shrewsbury game. That is the kind of pass that Man Utd use to avoid a crowded midfield. That’s what Cesc used to do. Song and Coquelin may be the closest thing we can have to Song and Wilshere till Wilshere is fit.
Playing the two of them is better than playing Song and Frimpong. Frimpong is so often out of position that Song ends up trying to cover all midfield, gets burned out and then starts failing. Without a good passing and connect capability, Frimpong has to go through Song for all moves forward which makes it easy for teams to win the ball from us in midfield. I am hoping that Song/Coquelin could take defensive responsibility from Arteta and allow him to work exclusively on his understanding of strikers and wingers and find and join attacks. Arteta can score great goals like we forget from the Blackburn game.
AOC looks authoritative. It would be interesting to see how he works against tougher opponents. I love his audacity and the fact that unlike Walcott he seems to have a dribbling ability that is not built exclusively on speed. He also has what Rooney has – if cannot beat you with skill he will use force and battle. If Rooney loses the ball to a defender, he is on top of the defender in a flash. AOC seems to do that. When Walcott loses the ball, he does so at speed so he cannot challenge immediately. In addition, I love his distance shooting. That is one thing that I hope doesn’t get Arsenalised-out of him.
I look forward to Bolton for redemption. We really need to turn the corner. I really hope we can show players like Koscielny that the fans have confidence in him. The last thing we need is a jittery criticized defence that is too scared to play. I hope I can see Coquelin in that game too.
