Since when did playing for a draw become the Arsenal way?

I said on twitter before the game that the ying of today would be Arshavin… but the yang would probably be Eboue starting instead of Vela…

I was wrong… but the premise of my idea still remained true. Arshavin started… but Wenger had to ruin it by playing Denilson and Song in the middle. If this season has taught us anything it’s that Song and Denilson are capable in the middle individually… on a good day… when there’s a south easterly breeze… but not together.

How many teams outside the top 6 put out a central midfield pairing that negative? Are we chasing 4th place or the longest, least successful stretch of games without a loss. Honestly… it’s like the opposite of the invincible’s… it’s like putting £80 into a fruit machine… and taking the same amount out every night… for 11 days solid! Being unbeaten is beautiful.. but not when you draw more than Clint Eastwood in dirty Harry…

What happened to the coach that used to play 4 up front to snatch a victory? What happened to Arsenal’s feared reputation as an attacking cavalier team who could punish a team at any moment? Where did our balls go?

I don’t know… we were ok today… but Sunderland never feared us. If I am brutally neutral… I’d say they created a fair few chances… and at a glance, due to their kit… sometimes their centre mid looked like Ronaldo running at us. How poor is that? I’m watching Sunderland carve us up , and my brain is telling me Ronaldo must be playing because he is making it look so easy!

Arshavin didn’t disappoint… big players never do, do they (Veron, Mutu, Crespo, Reyes)? He didn’t receive too much of the ball but when he did, he either tried to create or he had a shot. His first chance in an Arsenal shirt was an outside of the boot low pile driver that whistled just past the post… his second attempt came from good work out right, he cut in and rifled the ball towards the top corner, only to be denied by Fulop.

As first games go… I thought he was impressive. I said earlier in the month that I didn’t think he was what we needed… and I still maintain that to a certain degree… but great players lift the fans, the players and the management. He is going to be a shining light at Arsenal… no doubt about that.

Nasri was also pretty handy today… he and Arshavin swapped wings on a regular basis and it caused problems for Sunderland… but not enough for my liking… which leads me on nicely to…

…Song and Denilson. They were ok today… as ok as they could be. Neither gave the ball away a lot… both did their fair share of the donkey work… but they just lack something… I just can’t see them lifting major trophies for us. Will either of them ever match players like Petit, Gilberto or PV04? It’s highly unlikely…

Imagine a Monet painting… with a big black paint blob in the middle… you can see the beauty it could offer, but because it has a black blob of paint in the middle… it’s never going to win any awards… that is how I feel about the current Arsenal set up. We’re like a vandalised work of art… except this work of art has been vandalised in dry marker ink… and it would cost a minimal amount to clean it up and allow it to contend again. Why is it only me and 55,000 other gooners that can see that?


So what can we take from the game today?

Well… first up… we created a few chances. Well, Robin went close, but his chip flew just wide. Nik B went closer with a glancing header… Arshavin was denied twice with two shots from outside the box… and Robin missed a one on one late on. Vela also missed a chance that Ade may have buried… jeez… even Kolo forced a save!

We defended very well.

Yes, you heard it hear first… our back 4 looked pretty solid against one of the largest strikers known to man. Kenwyne Jones might have the work ethic of Adebayor on a lazy day… but he is still a handful. All of the back 5 can be proud of themselves. Especially Big Al who I thought was superb today.

Thirdly… well… I don’t have any more positives.

My negatives in alphabetical order.. go like this

Bringing on Carlos Vela for Arshavin made sense… the Russian was tired and it was obvious. However… with 15 minutes to go… what was Wenger thinking bringing on Eboue? Ok… you want stats… here they are…

Eboue: 18 games, 1 goal, 3 assists

Still unsure of how bad those stats are for a right midfielder… well, Eboue manages an assists every 0.16 games… that’s about 1 assist every 6 games. He manages one goal every 18 games and he manages something productive every 4.5 games.

Do those stats radiate game changing ability? Did anyone feel defensively threatened enough to bring on Eboue… even though he sat up front? I’ve got an alternative… he goes by the name of Jack Wilshere… what are his stats I hear you scream in a high pitched girly voice… well, they go a little something like this…

Jack Wilshere: 3 games, 1 assist, 1 goal

If you do the maths (Don’t check my figures), I calculate that if Jack had the same amount of games as Eboue he’d have 6 goals and 6 assists so far this year. If I can do the math on that one… why can’t Wenger? What was Eboue going to do for us? When has he ever changed a game…? Jack is the most promising youth prospect of his age group in Europe… surely he would cause more problems for Sunderland than Eboue? Not that Eboue did terribly… he did lay a nice ball off for Robin… but it’s not the point (If your aunty had bollocks she’d be your uncle, right?)… why is he offered up as our game changing solution?

Am I the only one who thinks along those Jacky boy lines? Am I the only one who remembers what it was like to be at 17… fit as a fiddle and desperate to play football at least 8 times a week?

I dunno… it’s just a bit disappointing that our manager has turned into Jose Mourinho… I thought Arsene was all about playing for the fans entertainment… a bit of risk…?

I’m not going to give any player ratings because to be honest… it was so average out there, I’d probably give them all a 6… but in conclusion, I do have something to say.

Our finishing is off key… and on another day, we may have won by 5 but how many times are we going to say somthing like that? When do you have to hold your hands up and perhaps say their is something fundamentally wrong with the team… because their always seems to be an excuse? I’m not scapegoating players… but when the middle of your team is slow and flat… that is a pretty huge indicator that days like this are going to be the norm opposed to the not so norm. Song and Denilson are not a winning combo and to be honest, the jury is out on whether they’d be a winning combo with Cesc or whoever else playing next to one of them. I’m just interested how far into this experiment we have to go before we say, shit… we’re playing Spurs in the Uefa cup next Thursday?

Pretty much the whole crowd booed after the game today… they are all fans, they all paid their money and they all went to today’s game with renewed optimism. It’s upsetting to see the coach play a negative team… especially when you are playing Sunderland and you’ve got form players from the previous game benched (and you’ve drawn 7 out of 12). What must Carlos think? No wonder he screwed his chance… it must feel like Wenger has no faith in him…

I hope no one says today was the right set up… our kids on their own were perfectly capably of smashing Wigan… who are arguably a much better team. oh well, I’ll continue to support the team, continue to not boo and I’ll continue to have my say when I think I’m being short changed.

Wenger said we’d ended a sad spell the other day… I just hope we’re not beginning one.

-- The Author

Good read.

The thing about Song & Denilson is,
Song-He is learning his ball winning skills, he can't pass the ball that great. He will improve with time.
Denilson-He can't tackle, he can't pass the ball that great. He just runs helplessly.
We lacked a ball winning midfielder the most this season, our defence has been put to a lot of pressure. Remember Viera, Gilberto or Flamini, they had the ball winning mentality & the skill to do that.


Don't you guys feel we force the teams to sit back? Because we never counterattack. No one touch football. No exquisite touches.

Over the past few months we have blamed teams to sit back etc, but seriously guys. Its the way we play, possession & more Possession that makes the opponent sit back.

So i guess we will continue with this tactics for the rest of the season to just keep the possession. It is good to know that we don't allow our opponent to score but if (God forbid) they score it applies too much pressure on us and we wont be able to cope with it, let alone score.

If we had guys who were having the ball winning mentality we need to think of developing our players for the same or else we can say good bye to any cups for these season.

I consider it to be our luck that we are at least going somewhere with the FA cup and Champions cup. But if we do not change our possession capability to making goals then we can forget about everything and sit at home watch other teams do better than us.