Arsenal

[wev]

A sensible and less defensive statement than I'd of expected to be honest, although the reasons for Chamberlain's substitution still feel like a man looking for an excuse.

[Rocafella]

That's because they've omitted the defensive jibes he made.

Edit: "You have an 18-year-old kid making his first Premier League start and a player who's captain of his country and they are querying the substitution? Let's be serious."

"I've been a manager for 30 years and have made 50,000 subs. I do not have to justify every decision I make. I stand up for it."

[wev]

That's because they've omitted the defensive jibes he made.

You could say that Arsene is weak in Defence...

[Rev]

I raised it in passing in an earlier post, but does anyone think we might get better results if Wenger got a nice coat?

Vs.

There was only going to be one winner. We can bang on about Meerkats as much as we like, but to me this is the most crucial factor and something that needs to be looked at in the transfer window.

(Unless he's already got a nice overcoat and it's just at the dry cleaners for slightly longer than he was expecting, but it's due back any time now and when it does come back it'll be just like a new coat. Seems possible.)

[Daley]

My mate was absolutely furious that Wenger wore a tracksuit and trainers at the Swansea game last week.

[humdrum]

Nobody is really saying that. The manager made a shit sub, we are struggling to finish in the top four and the team could do with a (some?) fresh faces.

Is that so outrageous?

The thing I don't get is Wenger is getting all this shit for taking OX off after we got back in the game, yet isn;t getting any for subbing off DJ which stopped man utd ripping or right side apart, which I actually think got us back in the game in the first place. (so its not like all the subs he has made where terrible.)

Eh? Other teams dropping points was a chance for us to narrow the gap but instead we fucked it up. It was nothing short of a very bad loss for the club. There are no positives to take from it.

Why are you talking about Spurs? Spurs can do whatever they want, we won't get near them this season so whatever they (or Man City) do is of no consequence to us. Our aim is 4th and the clubs we are competing for 4th are Liverpool & Chelsea. With them both dropping some points it was essential we won yesterday.

And yes we do need to spend millions of pounds. The squad must be competitive again.

We are 10 points off them with 16 games to play.

[The Grand Pursuivant]

Wenger only owns three sets of clothes. Sportswear for training, a puffy bomber jacket for when it's cold and he's up North, and an ill-fitting suit for every other occasion.

[Steve007]

an ill-fitting suit for every other occasion.

[Daley]

Twitter delivers.

Amazing scenes in Southwark this morning as Harry Redknapp drives his car into the courtroom and begins giving evidence through the window.

[BlinkyBear]

Russian football expert on talkSPORT right now saying Arshavin was finished 2 years ago and should return to Russia as he's not upto the pace of the Premier League

For Russian football expert, read "anyone who's watched him in the last 2 years."

[Daley]

[Dude Ranch]

I know a lot has been said over the past couple of days but to cheer myself up I was thinking about our possible best team (IMO).

Chez

Sagna Vermaelen Koscielny Santos

Gervinho Song Wilshere Arteta Chamberlain

van Persie

You have to say that it looks strong. I think we'd have definitely won all three of our last games if we could have put out something close to that team.

Injuries always cost us and in that respect I really feel for Arsene. He's constantly robbed of his best team, I don't think he ever gets to play a first choice XI. I'm not sure you can blame anyone for that, and God knows I've tried.

[hercules]

walcott and Ramsey have both been really poor for well over a month now and i personally blame wenger for this. With all our injuries surely a 4-4-2 would benefit the team a hell of alot more and would give walcott the chance to finally play where he is supposed to! I have said this for a very long time now that walcott's strengths are gettin in behind players but our passing from midfield had been way too slow since fabregas left. There is no guarentee regardless of how good wilshere is that he is going to step right into Cesc's shoes, just as Ramsey hasn't.

Sadly i went to the game yest (it was my Gf's first arsenal game) and i am as bemused as everyone else as to why wenger took off the Ox who was clearly our most dangerous player. Considering the discontent that was echoeing from the stadium i'm suprised and shocked wenger thought it would be a good idea when it would have clearly been better to sub off either Walcott or Ramsey and play 4-4-2 as we were on the up. That said Utd slowed the game right down when Nani layed down for around 4 mins just as we were looking like snatching a win. I would have also liked to have seen park on before Arshavin as lets face it, he will never be good for us again! those first 6months was a long time ago now...

[BlinkyBear]

[Rocafella]

I don't think we'd get out of our half if we played Theo up front. He struggles enough holding the ball up out on the wing. Imagine what he would be like up against a pair of centre backs.

[Daley]

Great headline.

[Rev]

I don't think we'd get out of our half if we played Theo up front. He struggles enough holding the ball up out on the wing. Imagine what he would be like up against a pair of centre backs.

I'd fancy his chances, especially if he's coming on with fresh legs after 65 minutes. With a great pass from Arteta and he'd not even have to go near a defender, let alone fight them off. Every single dodgy cross he makes at the moment could be a dodgy shot instead and you're much more likely to get goals that way, even if a fair few do get squandered.

I'm 100% in favour of letting him play as a striker.

[JamesTW]

Wenger comes across a bit mad, on the day he is told to leave he will probably be gripping table edges and door frames in his office, I think he will have to be removed physically.

[Daley]

I'd fancy his chances, especially if he's coming on with fresh legs after 65 minutes. With a great pass from Arteta and he'd not even have to go near a defender, let alone fight them off. Every single dodgy cross he makes at the moment could be a dodgy shot instead and you're much more likely to get goals that way, even if a fair few do get squandered.

I'm 100% in favour of letting him play as a striker.

He'd basically be from the Defoe/Bent/Owen school of strikers. Only he's not as good a finisher. I think you are right though, that would be his best position. Unfortunately Wenger doesn't like players like that (score and do bugger all if they don't score) so we are stuck with him out wide.

Plus he isn't changing this formation anytime soon.

Villa/Sunderland/Everton/somewhere with a British manager is where Walcott will end up playing in that position.

[Daley]

Early leak of next season's away kit? Seems a bit too red so may be a third kit but I prefer it to the blue shit rag we wear this season.

[Rev]

He'd basically be from the Defoe/Bent/Owen school of strikers. Only he's not as good a finisher. I think you are right though, that would be his best position. Unfortunately Wenger doesn't like players like that (score and do bugger all if they don't score) so we are stuck with him out wide.

Plus he isn't changing this formation anytime soon.

Villa/Sunderland/Everton/somehwere with a British manager is where Walcott will end up playing in that position.

I'm sure he's worse than Bent and Owen, but I don't think he's worse than Defoe. And he's more likely to get away from the last defender than any of them.

Pretty sure you're right about the rest of it though.

[Mars]

Early leak of next season's away kit? Seems a bit too red so may be a third kit but I prefer it to the blue shit rag we wear this season.

[Steve007]

Early leak of next season's away kit? Seems a bit too red so may be a third kit but I prefer it to the blue shit rag we wear this season.

Bloody awful. Arsenal's away shirt should be yellow.

[JDubYes]

Villa/Sunderland/Everton/somewhere with a British manager is where Walcott will end up playing in that position.

I'd be happy with that, so long as they gave us money for him and we signed a replacemeohwait.

I've been a staunch supporter of Walcott's for some time, but have utterly lost patience with him. The biggest issue I have with him at the moment is his attitude though, if I'm honest. He's taken the 14 shirt from Henry and promptly started acting similarly to him at his most petulant, berating team-mates* and generally being a bit twattish, whilst seemingly making less of an effort to boot. Considering that I never liked it when Henry did it (and could rarely if ever fault his effort), but could at least ignore it on the basis that Thierry was one of the best five players in the world and our Captain, whereas is Theo is only one of the five best right wingers in the Premiership on a good day.

I can understand the calls for him to be made a striker, too, but disagree, and always have, despite always preferring us to have some pace in our team so we have an outlet if we're under pressure (I always used to facepalm if we were defending a lead and took off Anelka/Henry/Reyes/etc for a slower player/defender with 5-10 minutes left.) He's not smart enough**, and though he'd get released for one-on-ones every now and again if we got posession back from the other team and released him on the break, there are a few problems with that theory - we're normally the team with the ball, and even if he did get sent through against a team dominating posession and stupid enough to play a high line against him, you're still relying on the touch, speed on the ball and finishing of Theo Walcott.

Play up up front against actual defenders in a game we're dominating and where he has no space and I think he'd get the odd goal on the basis that he'd actually shoot (unlike some Arsenal players), but I still don't see it being a roaring success. It may be his best position, but I still don't see it as a good fit for us, and at present I spend most of my time hoping that he stays out wide and comes good there.

No, sadly I'm rapidly of the opinion that he's another that, in an ideal world, we should probably offload and move on without, along with Arshavin, Squillaci, Almunia and Chamakh***.

* I enjoyed it far, far too much earlier in the season when he decided to lay into Jenkinson for having the temerity to run past him on the overlap (or somesuch), obviously meaning that Theo had had to defend, and Jenkinson, an 18-year-old making one of his first appearances, just told him to fuck off.

** Watching him against Swansea at the Emirates was one of the most soul-destroying things I've seen. It took him a solid hour to realise (while at this point playing high on the right while they were in the ascendancy) that he could just kick the ball one side of his (slower) defender and then run the other side to get round him and alleviate the pressure we were under. If you can run the 100m in under 11 seconds but don't realise that speed is your biggest asset then I'm not trusting you to stay onside and make incisive runs whilst playing upfront.

*** bizarrely, I'm less keen to offload Rosicky and Diaby. Rosicky still looks decent a lot of the time, and still has that wonderful ability to create space with just a little feint that I've always admired, and I'd just love Diaby to finally come good Edu-style even after all these injury problems. I wouldn't want them as anything other than squad players, but they're fine as that. Right up until it becomes obvious that we're not signing anybody better/less brittle purely because they're still here, anyway.

[The Fox]

Nice post. I agree that if played up front, Walcott would likely be a striker in the Defoe/Owen 'nippy little goalscorer' mould, which seems to be something of a relic in modern football. The problems with that, as pointed out, seem twofold: first is that Walcott certainly does not have the intelligence and ability of a young Owen; and second that Arsenal don't play like that anymore, for whatever reason.

As for some other points, Rosicky just slows things down too much IMO. We look so laborious with him in the side. Arteta and Wilshere play that role and keep things ticking over nicely, but Sicky cant seem to do it effectively.

And I'm sure we'd all like Diaby to come good. No one wants to see him fighting to save his career because of some no mark clogger cunt who now works in a call centre. But you can't persevere forever. He's earning a decent wage I'd imagine and has contributed pretty much nothing for a long, long time now.

[Daley]

And I'm sure we'd all like Diaby to come good. No one wants to see him fighting to save his career because of some no mark clogger cunt who now works in a call centre. But you can't persevere forever. He's earning a decent wage I'd imagine and has contributed pretty much nothing for a long, long time now.

I agree. I have nothing but best wishes for Diaby now and would love to see him suddenly become the player he has sometimes promised to be but I don't think we can offer him another contract if things continue like this. It's sad.

[wev]

Didn't he only sign an extension last season?

[Daley]

Didn't he only sign an extension last season?

All I could find was this from two years ago.

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/diaby-signs-new-long-term-contract-at-arsenal

[wev]

Thats probably the one I was thinking of then...

[JDubYes]

I thought that was only last year too. I would have no qualms about Arsenal letting Diaby see out that contract and then not offering him another if he has no more to offer, though knowing our luck he'll finally come good in the final year or two of this contract and then go elsewhere and be a revelation.

Rosicky is a tricky one. The last time I think I was genuinely happy with our midfield it was Hleb, Flamini (there's one I wish had never left), Fabregas and him, but then he had his three-week-going-on-13 month injury and by the time he seemed to be back two of those players were gone and he wasn't first choice any more. The team he'd been a part of had pace and purpose, and had (other) players that liked to hold onto the ball until such a time as they could play the right pass to a teammate on the move, but that team isn't here anymore.

Watching him in a recent game (Newcastle, possibly) I was struck by the fact that he was actually playing quite well, but it seemed all for naught. It's partially that he's lost some pace, so that when he drives forward in posession he's not doing so so rapidly (or unduly troubling the opposition in doing so) and partially because of the movement around him, I think. He's still doing good things on the ball, but because no-one's making runs in front of him he's just just holding onto it before realising there's very little on and then making the same sideways pass that Arteta* or Ramsey would've made without moving with the ball first. The limited movement of his teammates, be it because we're playing centre-backs instead of full-backs**, or because Walcott's a bit slow, van Persie's not really that kind of player, or Gervinho (who I really like, incidentally) is so unpredictable I don't even think he knows what he's going to do...

On that basis, I think perhaps some of his issues stem from some of the limitations of this current Arsenal team. Not only are they not as good at holding on to possession under pressure as some of the recent sides, but most also aren't blessed with so much intelligence or pace (and few, if any, have both) and don't move as often/effectively without the ball. They also play too often as though they think keeping possession is the endgame, almost without realising that the point of having that possession is to create chances and score goals, and when they do finally realise there's little evidence of the guile that Bergkamp, Henry, Pires and Cesc used to show in unlocking a defence, and certainly no-one bombing into the area to receive a ball like Freddie used to.

Our profligacy used to annoy me, like when we'd dominate a team like Fulham and have 30 shots on goal with maybe only the odd goal to show for it, and their goalkeeper would get man of the match. Seems like such a nice problem to have now.

Sorry, got sidetracked... Oh yes, Rosicky. I still think he's decent, and would keep him around unless we can get a decent price for him. While I wouldn't be offering him a new contract, I wouldn't be in a rush to offload him along with some of the others either, as he may still have something to offer one of these days, even if it's just cover in an (all-too-frequent) injury crisis or an old head to play in with the kids on a Tuesday night in the Cup.

* someone has made the complaint of Arteta that he's making sideways passes all the time, but I think that's partially because that's all his teammates are giving him. He can make those through-balls (see his ball to Ramsey in the first few minutes of the aforementioned Swansea game) but he's been asked to sit deeper and keep the posession game ticking over, and he's been doing a fine job (which has been even more apparent in his absence.)

** say what you want about some of the defensive lapses in Miquel's performance against Swansea, but it was so nice watching him actually get forward to support the attack (and stay on the wing, unlike Vermaelen) to decent effect. We've missed that with Santos, Gibbs, Sagna and Jenkinson out.