Ally
Active Member
The numerous problems of Arsenal FC
With all the bemusing oxymoron-ish mish-mash of hype, praise, “can't be called a great team”, superlatives and waiting for us to finally fail that surrounds Arsenal in this day and age, it's easy to get complacent. A lot of people (well, me at least) have completely run out of ideas for stuff to write about – Arsenal. Are. A. Very. Very. Good. Football. Team. We're London Calling to everyone else's Be Here Now, Ealing Studios to Coronation Street, old gold to suspiciously invisible grey. In amongst all of this justifiable fawning, something has got to be wrong.
As fans, we instinctively want to point out the good, unless you're one of those interminable moaning types (“We should have signed Kezman!!!!”) – if there's something seriously wrong, that will be up for discussion too, but just now, there is quite clearly nothing 'seriously wrong' at this football club. We've dropped our first points, but then again nobody ever said anything about winning every game. Going unbeaten was the previous impossibility, but it hardly needs saying that maintaining a 100% record over thirty-eight games is, perhaps, maybe, pushing things a wee bit. So what flaws are we left with to deal with?
The contrast to this time last year is all black and white on one hand, and distinctly blurry on the other. Inter Milan at Highbury divided this website in the days afterwards – they were ridiculously good on the night, we were to put it bluntly, crap, and Robert Pires got the lions share of the blame. This time round, PSV try a similar stifling tactic, only this time blatantly lacking the players with the rudimentary skill necessary to carry it off with any sort of panache; but that doesn't make them any less difficult to break down. The fact that we did break them down, and the possible connotations of us being able to do so, has been discussed elsewhere, but all that remains to be seen is if we can repeat the trick against better opposition, and until then, I personally don't see the worth in over-analysing the PSV match. It is encouraging, of course it is, but as awkward as these teams may be to play against, let us not forget that the Champions League is now proliferated with teams who, and let's be honest here, Arsenal should not have the merest hint of a problem dealing with. Let's just wait til the opportunity to take on an AC Milan, a Juve or, especially, a Barcelona.
This isn't a flaw obviously, it's just a (yes, self-created, but the past is in the past, and that's not what we need to be worrying about) limited experience of teams who we'll have to play sooner or later. Who says that's a flaw? We don't really have a clue how we'll do consistently at this level. Doesn't mean we can't hack it. Away from home we tend to be awesome, and again, the counter-attack philosophy has been done to death so little remains to be said.
You see what I was getting at? What is there left to debate, argue over? Our 'tactics' (which don't necessarily rely on the opposition playing any particular type of football) are universal, are effective against almost anyone. The exception being those packed European midfields and defences. This wasn't anywhere near to being rectified last time this happened either, as Man Utd's gameplan in the FA Cup Semi was pure Continental perfection. It still nags me that Jeremie Aliadiere started that game when painfully not up to the task, but that's not an excuse, it was just a bad management decision and we've lived with it alright I reckon. Man Utd deserved to win that day, and deployed exactly the same style as Roma, Ajax, Valencia et. al when they have come to Highbury in the past. In a way, it was interesting to watch – Ferguson out-managing Wenger as opposed to overpowering him with stronger players on the day, which is usually the method behind the madness when they get a result out of us. We got properly done that day though, and while I'd hesitate to make any sort of claim about lessons being learned when we've yet to see conclusive and ongoing proof that they have, I would like to think last Tuesday might have been the start of an acceptance that the gameplan needs adjusting.
People will never be satisfied until (/if?) we win the damn thing anyway, so this is a topic that has been rumbling on for years now, and to be fair it's all a little tiresome now, so let's move on.
Topic of relative discontentment number two – team selection. Now, take 2002/03. In the first five league games, there was a reasonable amount of team-switching for a team who was defending a double – the addition of Gilberto meant some initial tinkering with a typical midfield combo of two of Vieira/Edu/Parlour/Gilberto – Edu played most of his football on the left wing while Wiltord occupied the right. Vieira alternated his starting partner in the middle as follows – Parlour/Parlour/Gilberto/Parlour/Gilberto. It was only after his suspension after the Stamford Bridge debacle and his, in hindsight very amusing, pretend fracas with D'Urso that the first choice Silva started playing every game on a regular basis with him.
This was all enforced – Pires didn't return until it was almost November and never really got going until well into that month. Edu on the left immediately cuts down the width and pace available there, and substitions involving putting a raw, offensive-minded Toure and even one rare sighting of Jermaine 'twinkletoes' Pennant at Upton Park perhaps exposed a very, very defensively-minded midfield. Wiltord was the only one really driving play on. And at the time I was honestly puzzled as to how we couldn't get back in the game against Auxerre at home.
Now – well, there's Pires or Reyes on the left, Freddie Ljungberg or even [sigh] Pennant on the right, and with Fabregas ready to step into the middle as yet another attacking option, the balance was reversed, which accounts equally for al the goals we scored and all the ones we conceded too. Blame Jens all ya want for Quedrue's long ranger, and yes he has to accept his part, but the space afforded to the Frenchman in midfield on the tight N5 park was absolutely horrific. Now, Vieira is back to even everything out. And soon, Campbell will be back and will hopefully silence everyone who bleats on about Cygan for a little while.
So is there even much competition for places? Nah, I don't think so really. That's a double edger mind – it could be fantastic that such a solid consistent, ever present line-up takes the field each game, or it could be encouraging complacency, if you're one of the serial moaners. But then again, unless there's an injury, will Clichy consistently perform better than Cole? Cesc Fabregas is a wonderful, wonderful footballer, but he's still got lots to learn – is there any particular need for us to toss aside Vieira or Gilberto?
A lot of hypothesising goes on about certain positions – if Taylor or Almunia would do a better job than Jens, has Henry got issues about the way Reyes plays the game up front, meaning that Bergkamp should be involved, or if we'd benefit from Pennant's supposed varied delivery from out on the right as opposed to Fred's power play there.
But hypothesising is the key word, because that's all such talk is. If some select people were to, say, win the chance to manage Arsenal for the day, I wouldn't be overly surprised if a team looking not unlike the following were to run out -
Almunia
Hoyte Campbell Toure Cole
Pennant Fabregas Vieira Pires
Henry Reyes
Not too dissimilar of course, and a team any other club would kill for, but in calling for the youngsters to be thrown in, people are missing the point that it is already quite apparent to everyone that the back-up Arsène has at his disposal is absolutely **** hot. That includes the current first teamers.
The only two positions over the summer where there wasn't serious competition were, in my opinion, Vieira's slot in central midfield and the goalie. Almunia was specifically brought in to challenge, and understood fine well that was his brief. It's not particle physics than Jens knows that fine well too. Will he pay the price for a dodgy game against Bolton? I doubt it – who wasn't dodgy on Saturday? Will he pay the price if there's a repeat of all the uncertainty and flapping? Why not?
The facts are that the kids are there if we need them. Which we don't at present. When there's an injury, we have high class, talented back-up to come in and do more than cover; Fabregas is one of the most accomplished players in the Premiership on the ball. He'll be needed later. But at the moment, there is absolutely plenty he can learn just by sitting and watching. When he starts putting that into practice and integrating it with his own game will be the time to pay special attention.
And you know what the best part of all this is? I haven't even mentioned Robin van Persie. Not once.
I'm trying to think what else needs improving – our set-pieces are still absolutely horrendous, but then again Edu is just back so we haven't had that extra option. Reyes' corners already look a vast improvement on the dross that was getting delivered last season. Henry can still be a lazy sod a lot of the time, but is evolving steadily into this weird amalgamation of artistic set up man-slash-box poacher. He's been credited with seven assists already which tells it's own story well enough, and he's scoring uncomplicated goals from within the box. As frustrating as he can be at times, I rather doubt that any aspect of having Henry in your team qualifies as a flaw somehow.
One thing that does worry me is the, now fashionable, writing off of Man Utd. Man Utd are not a great team. They're probably not a fifth of what they were not too long ago. But that doesn't mean they aren't still pretty dangerous; the two aren't mutually exclusive at all. This doesn't mean to say I think they'll get anywhere much at all this season, but they'll still always be there or thereabouts.
We will lose sometime as well – big deal. Wasn't it Alex Ferguson who was attributed with a quote in 1991 along the lines of “Christ, they only lost one game! When was the last time that was done?” which makes warm reading especially now and after his analysis of our abysmal league form last time out.
I see that I have completely failed to enhance the sum of human knowledge with all this, so I'll finish up now. Ah well - all of this is just indicative of a healthy football club, which is such a bloody bland statement to end any kind of contribution to an independent football site with, but anyone who wants to disagree can go on 6-0-6 and use the phrase “Tottenham are a big club” at some stage. We haven't got any controversy, any failed key signings, any fundamental discontentment (does anyone actually still rate Real Madrid by the way?). I'm certainly not about to say we need a setback ala Inter, but come on.....it would be interesting to see what happens and who gets the blame, right? Football's such a fickle business after all....
Ally Winford
With all the bemusing oxymoron-ish mish-mash of hype, praise, “can't be called a great team”, superlatives and waiting for us to finally fail that surrounds Arsenal in this day and age, it's easy to get complacent. A lot of people (well, me at least) have completely run out of ideas for stuff to write about – Arsenal. Are. A. Very. Very. Good. Football. Team. We're London Calling to everyone else's Be Here Now, Ealing Studios to Coronation Street, old gold to suspiciously invisible grey. In amongst all of this justifiable fawning, something has got to be wrong.
As fans, we instinctively want to point out the good, unless you're one of those interminable moaning types (“We should have signed Kezman!!!!”) – if there's something seriously wrong, that will be up for discussion too, but just now, there is quite clearly nothing 'seriously wrong' at this football club. We've dropped our first points, but then again nobody ever said anything about winning every game. Going unbeaten was the previous impossibility, but it hardly needs saying that maintaining a 100% record over thirty-eight games is, perhaps, maybe, pushing things a wee bit. So what flaws are we left with to deal with?
The contrast to this time last year is all black and white on one hand, and distinctly blurry on the other. Inter Milan at Highbury divided this website in the days afterwards – they were ridiculously good on the night, we were to put it bluntly, crap, and Robert Pires got the lions share of the blame. This time round, PSV try a similar stifling tactic, only this time blatantly lacking the players with the rudimentary skill necessary to carry it off with any sort of panache; but that doesn't make them any less difficult to break down. The fact that we did break them down, and the possible connotations of us being able to do so, has been discussed elsewhere, but all that remains to be seen is if we can repeat the trick against better opposition, and until then, I personally don't see the worth in over-analysing the PSV match. It is encouraging, of course it is, but as awkward as these teams may be to play against, let us not forget that the Champions League is now proliferated with teams who, and let's be honest here, Arsenal should not have the merest hint of a problem dealing with. Let's just wait til the opportunity to take on an AC Milan, a Juve or, especially, a Barcelona.
This isn't a flaw obviously, it's just a (yes, self-created, but the past is in the past, and that's not what we need to be worrying about) limited experience of teams who we'll have to play sooner or later. Who says that's a flaw? We don't really have a clue how we'll do consistently at this level. Doesn't mean we can't hack it. Away from home we tend to be awesome, and again, the counter-attack philosophy has been done to death so little remains to be said.
You see what I was getting at? What is there left to debate, argue over? Our 'tactics' (which don't necessarily rely on the opposition playing any particular type of football) are universal, are effective against almost anyone. The exception being those packed European midfields and defences. This wasn't anywhere near to being rectified last time this happened either, as Man Utd's gameplan in the FA Cup Semi was pure Continental perfection. It still nags me that Jeremie Aliadiere started that game when painfully not up to the task, but that's not an excuse, it was just a bad management decision and we've lived with it alright I reckon. Man Utd deserved to win that day, and deployed exactly the same style as Roma, Ajax, Valencia et. al when they have come to Highbury in the past. In a way, it was interesting to watch – Ferguson out-managing Wenger as opposed to overpowering him with stronger players on the day, which is usually the method behind the madness when they get a result out of us. We got properly done that day though, and while I'd hesitate to make any sort of claim about lessons being learned when we've yet to see conclusive and ongoing proof that they have, I would like to think last Tuesday might have been the start of an acceptance that the gameplan needs adjusting.
People will never be satisfied until (/if?) we win the damn thing anyway, so this is a topic that has been rumbling on for years now, and to be fair it's all a little tiresome now, so let's move on.
Topic of relative discontentment number two – team selection. Now, take 2002/03. In the first five league games, there was a reasonable amount of team-switching for a team who was defending a double – the addition of Gilberto meant some initial tinkering with a typical midfield combo of two of Vieira/Edu/Parlour/Gilberto – Edu played most of his football on the left wing while Wiltord occupied the right. Vieira alternated his starting partner in the middle as follows – Parlour/Parlour/Gilberto/Parlour/Gilberto. It was only after his suspension after the Stamford Bridge debacle and his, in hindsight very amusing, pretend fracas with D'Urso that the first choice Silva started playing every game on a regular basis with him.
This was all enforced – Pires didn't return until it was almost November and never really got going until well into that month. Edu on the left immediately cuts down the width and pace available there, and substitions involving putting a raw, offensive-minded Toure and even one rare sighting of Jermaine 'twinkletoes' Pennant at Upton Park perhaps exposed a very, very defensively-minded midfield. Wiltord was the only one really driving play on. And at the time I was honestly puzzled as to how we couldn't get back in the game against Auxerre at home.
Now – well, there's Pires or Reyes on the left, Freddie Ljungberg or even [sigh] Pennant on the right, and with Fabregas ready to step into the middle as yet another attacking option, the balance was reversed, which accounts equally for al the goals we scored and all the ones we conceded too. Blame Jens all ya want for Quedrue's long ranger, and yes he has to accept his part, but the space afforded to the Frenchman in midfield on the tight N5 park was absolutely horrific. Now, Vieira is back to even everything out. And soon, Campbell will be back and will hopefully silence everyone who bleats on about Cygan for a little while.
So is there even much competition for places? Nah, I don't think so really. That's a double edger mind – it could be fantastic that such a solid consistent, ever present line-up takes the field each game, or it could be encouraging complacency, if you're one of the serial moaners. But then again, unless there's an injury, will Clichy consistently perform better than Cole? Cesc Fabregas is a wonderful, wonderful footballer, but he's still got lots to learn – is there any particular need for us to toss aside Vieira or Gilberto?
A lot of hypothesising goes on about certain positions – if Taylor or Almunia would do a better job than Jens, has Henry got issues about the way Reyes plays the game up front, meaning that Bergkamp should be involved, or if we'd benefit from Pennant's supposed varied delivery from out on the right as opposed to Fred's power play there.
But hypothesising is the key word, because that's all such talk is. If some select people were to, say, win the chance to manage Arsenal for the day, I wouldn't be overly surprised if a team looking not unlike the following were to run out -
Almunia
Hoyte Campbell Toure Cole
Pennant Fabregas Vieira Pires
Henry Reyes
Not too dissimilar of course, and a team any other club would kill for, but in calling for the youngsters to be thrown in, people are missing the point that it is already quite apparent to everyone that the back-up Arsène has at his disposal is absolutely **** hot. That includes the current first teamers.
The only two positions over the summer where there wasn't serious competition were, in my opinion, Vieira's slot in central midfield and the goalie. Almunia was specifically brought in to challenge, and understood fine well that was his brief. It's not particle physics than Jens knows that fine well too. Will he pay the price for a dodgy game against Bolton? I doubt it – who wasn't dodgy on Saturday? Will he pay the price if there's a repeat of all the uncertainty and flapping? Why not?
The facts are that the kids are there if we need them. Which we don't at present. When there's an injury, we have high class, talented back-up to come in and do more than cover; Fabregas is one of the most accomplished players in the Premiership on the ball. He'll be needed later. But at the moment, there is absolutely plenty he can learn just by sitting and watching. When he starts putting that into practice and integrating it with his own game will be the time to pay special attention.
And you know what the best part of all this is? I haven't even mentioned Robin van Persie. Not once.
I'm trying to think what else needs improving – our set-pieces are still absolutely horrendous, but then again Edu is just back so we haven't had that extra option. Reyes' corners already look a vast improvement on the dross that was getting delivered last season. Henry can still be a lazy sod a lot of the time, but is evolving steadily into this weird amalgamation of artistic set up man-slash-box poacher. He's been credited with seven assists already which tells it's own story well enough, and he's scoring uncomplicated goals from within the box. As frustrating as he can be at times, I rather doubt that any aspect of having Henry in your team qualifies as a flaw somehow.
One thing that does worry me is the, now fashionable, writing off of Man Utd. Man Utd are not a great team. They're probably not a fifth of what they were not too long ago. But that doesn't mean they aren't still pretty dangerous; the two aren't mutually exclusive at all. This doesn't mean to say I think they'll get anywhere much at all this season, but they'll still always be there or thereabouts.
We will lose sometime as well – big deal. Wasn't it Alex Ferguson who was attributed with a quote in 1991 along the lines of “Christ, they only lost one game! When was the last time that was done?” which makes warm reading especially now and after his analysis of our abysmal league form last time out.
I see that I have completely failed to enhance the sum of human knowledge with all this, so I'll finish up now. Ah well - all of this is just indicative of a healthy football club, which is such a bloody bland statement to end any kind of contribution to an independent football site with, but anyone who wants to disagree can go on 6-0-6 and use the phrase “Tottenham are a big club” at some stage. We haven't got any controversy, any failed key signings, any fundamental discontentment (does anyone actually still rate Real Madrid by the way?). I'm certainly not about to say we need a setback ala Inter, but come on.....it would be interesting to see what happens and who gets the blame, right? Football's such a fickle business after all....
Ally Winford
:wink: 
