Summer business and email leaks highlight Arsenal’s inferiority complex

I’m sure by now you’ve seen the contents of David Ornstein’s Tweet about Arsenal’s summer, what happened, and how it all went down. If not, you can read it in full here. It’s a perfect illustration of how context is so important. It’s not just what happens, but how it happens. The club’s insistence that it has ‘improved the quality and depth of our squad’, as per the leaked Gazidis email, might have held some water if you viewed things in perfect isolation. Breaking the club’s transfer record? Good. Bringing in an excellent looking left sided defender for free? Good. Keeping Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil? Good. Shifting some, if not all, of the players we wanted to get rid of? Good. Except we know there’s more to it. Throughout there’s example after example of muddled thinking, and the absolute mess of the final days showed that once more there’s nothing that will spark the people who run this club into life more than panic. Forget strategy, a couple of things going wrong makes them run around like headless chickens. The Alexis thing I’ve covered in more detail on this blog and in a piece for the Independent, but then the inability to get the Lemar deal over the line compounded that flip-flop and the central midfield revelation made my head hurt. It’s the area of the pitch I wanted us to make a signing this summer. I think it was obvious to most people that we needed to add both quality and attributes this team does not possess, but not the manager unfortunately. From the piece: There is certainly internal concern that central midfield went unaddressed – and I understand that in the days leading up to the deadline Wenger did look at rectifying this, though it was too late – but generally the hierarchy claim they were happy with the window and optimistic for the campaign. It’s almost as if a key area of the pitch and the spine of the team was little more than an afterthought. So the positive things happened during the window get obliterated by the other stuff. The signings because they happened so early in the summer the goodwill didn’t last, and keeping Sanchez and Ozil was not the triumph it’s made out to be because we tried to sell the former and seemed open to offers for the latter. The way we dealt with the Oxlade-Chamberlain thing as well put a dent in the manager’s reputation too, having said in July, “100% I expect him to stay. There is no speculation. No matter what happens he will stay.” He did not stay.  Now, I’m not overly fussed about him going, and I understand the football world is one in which things can change very quickly, it’s little wonder people get cheesed off when we say one thing so often and then do another just weeks later. The other thing that wound me up a bit was the line about how they align themselves more with the success of Leicester City than our supposed title rivals: They know they cannot compete financially with the Manchester clubs and Chelsea, but point to Leicester as an example of success being achieved without exorbitant spending. It is an example, but it’s also a fluke the likes of which the Premier League will never see again. The stars aligned for Leicester that season and they brilliantly took advantage of it, but the idea that this should be used as some kind of model for success is ludicrous beyond belief. And it’s not the first time they, and in particular Gazidis, have trotted out this line. Remember in 2013 when the chief executive of the biggest football club in London, said this?
We should be able to compete at a level like a club such as Bayern Munich. I’m not saying we are there by any means, we have a way to go before we can put ourselves on that level. But this whole journey over the past ten years really has been with that goal in mind which is why I say that this is an extraordinarily ambitious club.
By summer 2017, his tune had changed considerably:
I think a lot of the inspiration successful stories in football over the last few years have actually been clubs who aren’t the big money spenders. Leicester City, how they did what they did. Monaco, moving away from a big spending policy towards youth and producing one of the most exciting teams in Europe last year. Other stories, Sevilla, Atletico Madrid, Dortmund, Red Bull Leipzig – these clubs have been fantastic inspirations.
If you want you can see the logic in the comparisons with a couple of those teams, but Leicester again. This is their mantra now, so it’s worth remembering what the reason for the move to the Emirates Stadium was supposed to be about. Here’s the then Chief Executive Keith Edelman talking about why we left our old home for our new one:
Our aim is to be a leading European club and, once we get into the new stadium, we will be in that position. It is very income-generous to us.
Of course, the football world has changed. The decision to move came at a time before oligarchs and nation states and investment funds owning football clubs, so it’s fair to say that the landscape is quite different. I don’t understand why that should change our ambition though, and we seem to have just settled for the fact that we can’t compete financially therefore we can’t compete on the pitch and have thrown in our lot with clubs below the top tier. I genuinely believe that the fact people like Gazidis and Kroenke came along after all the hard work had been done has had an impact on the direction of Arsenal. The only person of any real influence left at the club since then is Arsene Wenger. The directors, bar Ken Friar, who worked to make it happen and understood the magnitude of the project are all gone. The current chief executive has known nothing but this huge luxury stadium full of people, and it was that which tempted the majority shareholder to get involved in the first place. It has always been like this for them so they don’t know any different and don’t realise what it meant to leave Highbury. Because it was a wrench, and it hurt, but you could see the ambition behind the decision and that’s something fans could get behind. And here we are 11 years pointing at a club like Leicester City as an example of how we might be successful at some point. How sad is that? For me it’s made even more hard to take by the obvious potential we have, or have had. The biggest club in the biggest city in Europe; a great stadium; incredible infrastructure and resources; a huge fanbase domestically and abroad; a great reputation (sadly now dwindling); and one of the top clubs in the richest league in the world. All the ingredients are there for Arsenal to be competitive at the top of the game. Instead we’re watching a club diminish before our eyes, on the pitch and off it. The team has its flaws as we know, but there are good players around whom we should have built a much more robust side but failed to invest properly. Gazidis, as chief executive, is presiding over stagnant commercial revenue and slow business growth, and the owner is the far side of the Atlantic trying to figure out which of his sports franchises he gives the least shit about. It’s Arsenal, by the way. An inferiority complex has taken hold, and unless something changes soon – and I don’t mean simply the manager – it will become very difficult to ever shake off. — Finally for today, if you want to know what’s going on at youth level, check out yesterday’s podcast with the man who knows what’s what at that level, @jeorgebird. News throughout the day on Arseblog News, more from me tomorrow.

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Tactics Column: Xhaka and Arsenal’s separate flaws a recipe for disaster

We have a week of distance from that debacle at Anfield, the melee of the transfer window is slowly beginning to fade into the distance and the end of the first intrusive international break of the season is almost upon us. With all that in mind, it seems to be a good time to look over the start to the season and assess what the hell was up with Arsenal. Ah yes, Arsenal. You’d allowed yourself to forget for a second, hadn’t you? Sorry but Arsenal are not finished yet, the season is only just underway and a trip to Stamford Bridge is just around the corner. Triggered yet? Good. Now you have something in common with Granit Xhaka. There has not been much to enjoy from Arsenal’s first few performances of the new season. There’s been plenty wrong with each of those performances and Xhaka has, unfortunately, stuck out badly. That, along with the stat below, is what I decided to have a look at. Arsenal seem to have found a new way to frustrate us: conceding immediately after giving the ball away. It’s no news that counter-attacks are dangerous and Arsenal being susceptible to them is certainly not something alien to us. It is, however, something the back three (or five) was supposed to help us manage a bit better. “They leave [Shkodran] Mustafi and Gabriel really exposed. Monreal and Bellerin play like right and left wingers. The wingers come inside with the centre forward, and [the centre backs] are just left on their own. So if you can get at them you can get into the box and make chances,” said Sam Allardyce after Crystal Palace humiliated us in March. That was the last time Arsenal started a game with four at the back. With the new formation, Arsenal have three defenders back at all times but it isn’t enough of a solution. It isn’t about numbers, rather about space and how Arsenal are playing with possession of the ball. Over and over again Aaron Ramsey’s positioning is highlighted but it’s a (seemingly outdated) ploy from Arsene Wenger, an attempt to draw opposition sides out before sucker-punching them. The problem here is teams have become much more savvy in recent years. Sides are better at pressing, they’re better at pouncing on mistakes, and they’re better at exploiting spaces. I say exploiting because you don’t even have to worry about creating the space, Arsenal’s unorthodox approach in possession does that for you. Just to prove Ramsey’s positioning doesn’t have to be so destined to fail, here’s an example from the Stoke game where Arsenal actually created a great chance after initially losing the ball. Ramsey (circled) has made a ‘risky’ run but Danny Welbeck and Alexandre Lacazette are deeper than one would expect. The pair, along with Hector Bellerin, instantly press a lose ball and recover possession before releasing the dangerously-positioned Ramsey. We almost scored. Now look at the difference when Arsenal played a long ball from deeper at Anfield. Arsenal are playing from left to right and there’s a decent chance Alberto Moreno will win the header. For some reason, though, nobody is standing where that ball would land. Look how close Liverpool’s midfield and back-line are to each other, just in case the ball lands between them. Then contrast it to the gaping chasm between Arsenal’s defence and midfield, if you can call it that. Of course, the ball landed exactly where you think. From a goal kick Arsenal are instantly defending a dangerous attack because the gap between the defence and midfield is absolutely monstrous. Seriously, you could park 2010 Sol Campbell’s backside in there. Twice. If the Arsenal midfield is going to be so spread out, the very least the back-line has to do is get as high up the field as possible and squeeze the space. If they don’t trust themselves to deal with the pace and movement of Liverpool that way, abandon all plans to press the opposition. The issues with the pressing (and there are oh so many) are for another day and I don’t want to waste too much time here when I think Arsenal will almost certainly abandon the back three in the near future anyway. Instead, it seems like a good time to around this off by turning attention to Granit Xhaka and an obvious weakness in his game. I should say this firstly: I think Xhaka is a very accomplished footballer. An excellent passer and a much better defender than he given credit for. It’s generally enjoyable watching him play football for my club. He’s very good at the base of midfield … until he loses the ball. When Arsenal give the ball away and have to transition, Granit Xhaka is terrible and his flaws are exacerbated by the way the team plays. For anyone who doesn’t know what I mean by transition, here’s a handy outline showing the four phases of a football match. ⁃ You don’t have possession of the ball ⁃ You win the ball (and transition from defence to attack) ⁃ You have possession of the ball ⁃ You lose the ball (and transition from attack to defence) It’s that last one, transitioning from attack to defence, where Arsenal are really bad. Grant Xhaka is particularly bad, especially when he’s the player who loses the ball. So, Arsenal have conceded three times immediately after Xhaka has given the ball away this season. Let’s look at the incident against Stoke City. Xhaka lost the ball with an overhit pass from the halfway line. This should not be a big deal at all. Arsenal are pretty comfortable, actually. The entire back five is behind the ball, so is Xhaka. Mesut Ozil is too but the ball will come past him as he’s off balance, that’s no big deal. Xhaka is right in front of that defence and as long as he stays right there we can’t really be exploi…..WHERE ARE YOU GOING GRANIT?! One simple pass beyond the onrushing Swiss and Stoke are bearing down on our entire defence with half a pitch to make clever runs into and pull a makeshift back three every which way they like. That is, of course, exactly what happened. Two Stoke midfielders were suddenly in behind Xhaka and running at the back-line because he had an inexplicable rush of blood to the head. This gap between defence and midfield, this is where Arsenal are so weak, and it’s so easy to get there because it’s bloody massive. The very same gap was seen in pre-season too, and not only when Ramsey was on the pitch. A completely flat pairing is just as bad, drawing individual defenders into uncomfortable compromised positions between the lines. It’s something Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal are (fortunately) excellent at but even in moments we thankfully forget, moments of improvisation serve to excuse Arsenal’s shoddy defensive organisation. For some reason, Xhaka is constantly involved in these situations. He can’t help himself. Instead of pushing a player wide, defending by backing off and slowing up the play while team-mates chase back, he dives in. It works sometimes – sure it does – but others it is completely costly and his position is not one where high risk/high reward is the order of the day. Not only do these moments of madness expose the defence, but they can go horribly wrong and see Xhaka punished by the referee. We’ve certainly seen that. I am genuinely unsure whether it’s panic or a lack of understanding, but the midfielder’s tendency to bust a gut every time he loses the ball sees him either easily passed or sent off pretty much every week. Chris Foy doesn’t need an invitation to send you off, stop giving him one. The worst part of all this is I really like Granit Xhaka. I think he’s excellent, certainly as a passer of the ball. He’s also a very good defender when Arsenal are sitting deep. With more time to think he fills up spaces excellently, blocks passing lanes and sniffs out danger. Unfortunately, Arsenal keep trying to defend on the front foot. It’s something the team struggles with and Xhaka is the most guilty, as well as being the player asked to do the most as he is the one exposed by those around him on the ball. Due to the nature of Xhaka’s position and the way Arsene Wenger has everyone else abandoning him on the ball, this doesn’t look like a problem that will go away any time soon. Maybe a return to the back four will see a more restrained midfield partnership with Aaron Ramsey (or whoever else Xhaka is paired with) in future. For the time being, though, we’ll just have to hope the team spots the issues among themselves and plays in a tighter shape. Brilliant improvisation and the reliance on it will remain the saviour and downfall of Arsenal for a little while yet.   The post Tactics Column: Xhaka and Arsenal’s separate flaws a recipe for disaster appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Wenger says he hesitated over new contract, so why did he stay?

Morning, welcome to a new week, the Interlull is still upon us, but over the weekend Arsene Wenger provided some titbits in an interview with Telefoot. He spoke about the bid for Thomas Lemar, confirmed we’d offered €100m and said we’d try again for him at some point in the future. Most interestingly though, he spoke about his decision to stay with the club, and revealed he’d had doubts. He said:
Yes, I hesitated to extend for personal reasons. I’ve been at Arsenal for 20 years, and I’m always wondering if I should continue to lead the club. We were doing quite badly last season.
People will have their own views on why he decided to extend his contract. For some it’s because he can’t walk away from Arsenal, because his whole life is consumed by the club and football. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable position, we know what a workaholic he is, and how much of his life revolves around his job. Some will say it’s money, the big salary is a lure, and maybe there’s something in that, but Wenger has never particularly struck me as a man motivated by money or the trappings of it. There’s a story – perhaps apocryphal – that many years after he’d first joined the club and been given a then top of the range car, people at the club suggested to him that it wasn’t a good look for the manager of Arsenal to be driving around in a now fairly worn 17 year old Mercedes. Either way, while I’m sure the money is nice, I don’t think that’s his be all and end all, especially as he could have found another job pretty easily. My own theory, such as it is, is that he’s a stubborn man who wants for his team to be successful. He’s desperately trying as hard as he can to recapture the real glory days, when he was an inspiring, revolutionary coach and manager who transformed this club and English football to an extent. He still believes he can lead this team to the title, or wants to prove that he can – even if there’s part of him that must have doubts. He is battling the march of time though, and although he works harder and harder, things continue to get more difficult. The obstinate streak in Wenger is such that he can’t, or won’t, accept the reality. That he’s a man who was once a truly great coach and whose powers have diminished. There’s also nobody around him who will tell him that, or nobody at Arsenal willing to tell him that. The perfect moment to do it was after the FA Cup final, but once more the culture the club as set out by Stan Kroenke won out. The easy option was to renew Wenger, so that’s what we did. Rather than face that difficult moment where you have to tell a man his time is up after so many years, that the quality of his work is in marked decline, we took the path of least resistance. And here we are. I also wonder if there’s a bit of Wenger that looks at the club, and looks at the people at board level, and he feels like is, in some ways, the last real football man at the club. The owner is an absentee landlord who, by his own admission, has no real knowledge or insight of the game. There’s his son who has no background in football, and the fact that the relationship between the manager and Chief Executive is basically dysfunctional is no secret. When you look at what Ivan Gazidis said in an email to staff that was subsequently leaked, you can understand if he feels a sense of responsibility to be a guardian of sorts. Even if the message was meant to be inspirational or positive, all it did was highlight how disconnected from reality he is. The flip-side of that, however, is that Wenger is also complicit in many ways. He has full responsibility over the footballing decisions at the club, yet has done little to make changes and improvements in key areas. For many years there have been serious questions about the scouting department, yet no significant change has taken place there. Doubts over the quality of some of the coaching staff have been spoken about on countless occasions, and their contracts are tied to his. When his was renewed, it would have been the perfect moment to say thanks for your service, but we need some fresh blood. But, like the club’s decision to keep the manager, he decided to keep all of them. Change came in the addition of Jens Lehmann who, I’m hoping, will at least try and shake things up. How much influence he can have, or is allowed to have, is the big question, but if he can add some edge to things I don’t believe it would be a bad thing overall. It’s asking a lot of one man though, and it’s obvious the issues at Arsenal go way beyond what a single coach can do. Overall, it just feels like a very unhealthy place right now, on many levels, and ultimately Wenger is the only doctor that can provide the medicine for the time being. Let’s hope he can administer some of the good stuff, because the sugar pills aren’t working any more. — There’s not going to be an Arsecast Extra today because James got married on Saturday, so congratulations to him, but he’s off doing ‘just married’ stuff and I think he and his new wife deserve a few days away from Arsenal and all the associated guff. I am hoping to have some kind of podcast for you though, but still working on a few details. Finger crossed on that though, and if there is one it’ll probably be after lunch at some point. There’s a tactics column up later too, and I’ll be back tomorrow with more.   The post Wenger says he hesitated over new contract, so why did he stay? appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Georgia play mean tricks on Ireland, Ozil takes a pop at critics

Happy Sunday to you all. We’re right in the thick of the Interlull, and yesterday I watched Ireland play Georgia for a bit. I did not realise that Georgia were actually Brazil. At least I think that’s what happened, because they were doing this crazy thing with the football. What they did was, and this might be hard to get your head around, was pass it to one another repeatedly. Over and over again. They kept possession, they moved around the pitch creating space for another pass, and at one point they opened up the packed Irish defence beautifully and scored an equaliser (I missed the Irish goal). This was in stark contrast to the Irish players who must have been told that being in the vicinity of the ball for any longer than 2 seconds would give them a bell’s palsy and make their mickeys fall off. So, every time they got it they would look worried for a couple of seconds then hoof the ball as far up the field as they could, at which point the Georgians would do that mean trick of passing it around and looking like competent professional footballers. I found myself actually getting a bit angry that Ireland were so incapable of the basics before I realised that I already have enough football things to get worried and unhappy about, so I turned it off. Then a bit later I turned it back on again (glutton for punishment) to watch James McClean miss a great chance to win it either side of him clumping into the opposition with one of his trademark ‘hard but fair but probably not that fair because he knows what he’s doing’ challenges. Then I went out and drank quite a lot of beer. And here we are. So, what’s going on? Well, Mesut Ozil has marked the fourth anniversary of his signing for the club by taking a pop at former players over criticism aimed at him and the team. He says:
Too expensive, too greedy, bad body language, and lacking fight – this is what people have said about me. Some of these comments are made by those who do not know me, some are made by former players – both successful and unsuccessful during their time here at the club. Although criticism is something that all football players have to deal with, I nevertheless expected legends to behave like legends – my advice to these former Gunners is stop talking and start supporting.
I think criticism of Ozil this season has been a bit over the top, especially when it’s so clear how fundamental the issues of this team are and how deep they lie. To single him out when he’s far from the root cause of our problems has been strange to me, but then he’s an easy target. A slighty fey foreign player whose style lends itself to criticism because he’s not as rough and tumble as people would like. At this point anyone with expectations of Ozil being a hustler, a tackler, and getting stuck in is always going to be disappointed. That’s not to say he couldn’t do a bit more but then he’s far from alone in that when you look at how this team has played this season. For me the main issue is our willful refusal to bring in the kind of player who can offset some of Ozil’s weaknesses, and who could enable him to become more effective (this is a central midfield player by the way, the one we should have signed this summer but couldn’t be arsed). Basically, I think criticism of individuals at this point is more or less redundant. It’s systemic, it’s how we’re coached, how the team is set up, and how the team is selected that are the main issues. That said, I don’t think it’s incumbent on former players whose job it is to analyse the team to ignore the problems just because they once played for us. Have a soft spot, by all means, everyone can understand that, but they have to address the issues that are so patently obvious to everyone. They are paid to be pundits, not cheerleaders. I don’t always/often agree with what they say, and sometimes how they say it, but it’s their job to do it. I’m not sure what exactly Ozil hoped to achieve with this message, but I suspect it might well be counter-productive as he’s well and truly turned the spotlight on himself. I guess the best answer to any criticism is to deliver on the pitch, create those chances, hope that one of our feckless eejits up front can put them away, and people will have a lot less to say about him. He also had some nice to things to say about his time at the club too, but said his future remains unclear as he heads into the final year of his contract. Again there are wider issues, but when you’re in this situation people will question your commitment at every opportunity, so let’s hope Ozil can back up what’s he’s said on social media when we see him back out there on the pitch, in what’s almost certainly his last season at the club. It’s a miserable day here, so I’m going to spend it cooking and eating. Have a nice Sunday.   The post Georgia play mean tricks on Ireland, Ozil takes a pop at critics appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Ramsey – We have to say sorry to the fans

After the game, Aaron Ramsey spoke to the media. This is what he said:

on the game…
We’re very disappointed with the way we performed but we have to accept it. We’re sorry to the fans that came up – it’s not good enough and we have to do something about it.

on how they can change it…
I don’t know, we’ll have to review it and hopefully move on.

on if there were any positives…
No I don’t think so. We’re going to have to change something if we’re to compete this year. That wasn’t good enough. Liverpool showed what it’s going to have to take to compete for the Premier League and we’re going to have to do something about it if we’re going to do that.

on international break…
Most of the squad go away now, so when we get back we’ll have to review that and hopefully we can move on and sort it out.

Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/ramsey-we-have-say-sorry-fans#QLsq8b71FyAbo2vC.99

‘One game’ opens up old wounds as Wenger’s decisions are hard to understand

The Stoke result continues to loom large, with Arsene Wenger urging some calm after just the second game of the season. He says:
Let’s not go overboard. We lost one game. I can understand that but overall I believe there were a lot of positives in the game as well because we created many chances. We had great domination and unfortunately we dropped three points.
It’s true. It is only one game. We did have a lot of chances. We enjoyed ‘great domination’ and on another day, if we get that penalty in the first half for the foul on Hector Bellerin, and Alexandre Lacazette isn’t given offside then things could be very different. Except we didn’t, and they’re not, and one game has illustrated the gossamer nature of the material that was used to paper over the cracks for some people. We’re 180 minutes into the new campaign and we’re already firefighting, dealing with Wenger Out hashtags, and I suppose it’s only a matter of time before we have more concerted efforts to highlight people’s unhappiness with the manager. If we were working off a blank slate it’d be considered ridiculous for such an outpouring of anger after just the second game of the season, but this is far from a blank slate. This is more of the same which was more of the previous same which was more of the same that came before that. The club must have known that it would take very little to pick away at the scabs and open up fresh wounds. The Stoke game showed that, and I don’t know what anyone can do about it now. This is the Arsenal world that we live in, like it or not. A new manager, a different manager, would likely get a bit more patience after just 180 minutes of football, but watching the same man in charge as we lose so needlessly and carelessly to Stoke is going to push some people’s buttons. It was worrying, let’s not beat around the bush. The individual mistakes were costly but we were supposed to learn from the ones of last weekend against Leicester; and while Arsene Wenger’s team selections have left us scratching our heads in the past, there’s usually some fundamental logic to them. The team he selected at Stoke, and the changes he made, were not easy to understand at all. I say this with the caveat that he knows his players better than anyone else, he sees them training of course, and is aware of underlying fitness issues that we’re not privy to. Yet I can’t fathom the reasons for leaving Per Mertesacker on the bench. Stoke away is basically the perfect game for him, and the way that game played out was evidence of it. They had little to trouble us, the team would have been better balanced with Monreal and Kolasinac shifting over and one of Bellerin or Oxlade-Chamberlain on the right hand side. Would Mertesacker’s presence have improved us from an attacking point of view? Probably not, but I think experience and leadership at the back might well have helped prevent the kind of carelessness that led to the goal. Then the substitutions, and Arsene Wenger explained his thinking with regards the introduction of Theo Walcott, saying:
I wanted to put Walcott on because he can cross for Giroud.
Quite why he thought this, I have no idea. Theo Walcott had two assists last season. One was at Burnley, when he nodded the ball across for Koscielny to the bundle it in with his hand; the other at Watford when Alexis Sanchez just about got the ball over the line after a cross from the right hand side. The last time Walcott assisted a Giroud goal was March 2016 in the FA Cup against Hull (4-0). You have to go back to September 2013 to find Walcott’s last assist for Giroud in the Premier League, this was in a North London derby again Sp*rs at the Emirates. All that aside, we already had Oxlade-Chamberlain slinging in crosses from that side, and the sum total of Walcott’s contribution was three short passes in the 15 minutes or so that he was on the pitch. If you really wanted good balls into Giroud, you leave Xhaka on who provided two assists against Leicester because he’s involved in the game (even if it wasn’t his best performance and I can understand why the manager might have been frustrated by elements of it). It felt like a substitution that was more about taking a player off than it was about introducing someone who could make an impact. And while Xhaka has got to smarten up when it comes to his passing, because his mistakes are being punished severely, he’s far more likely to create something than a player like Walcott whose main quality is his pace and ability to get behind a defence that is pushing up, not one that has parked the bus. As with team selection it felt like muddled thinking, and there’s no doubt in my mind it stifled the momentum we had in the final stages of the game. Even the explanation over the wing-backs sounds strange, when asked about Bellerin being deployed on the left:
He can play there, I play him or Chamberlain there, and Chamberlain on the right looks good as well. Both of them are more right-sided players, I agree, and depending on the game I choose sometimes right and sometimes left.
Of course it is only the second game of the season, and there’s plenty of time to recover, but worries about the way we’re set up and the way we play are understandable too. With a trip to Anfield next weekend there’s a lot to work on between now and then. Based on what we’ve seen from both sides thus far, it seems likely this is a game that will be decided on firepower rather than defensive strength, but unless we find some balance at the back and some composure in midfield it’s going to be tougher than it should be. Right, James and I will be here this morning with an Arsecast Extra, so if you have any topics for discussion or questions you’d like answered, send to @gunnerblog and @arseblog on Twitter with the hashtag #arsecastextra. We’ll have that for you around lunchtime. Until then.   The post ‘One game’ opens up old wounds as Wenger’s decisions are hard to understand appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Stoke 1-0 Arsenal: Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before

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It’s unusual to open a blog with a song, but this morning this one is going around in my head and it seems particularly apt. Nothing’s changed I still love you, oh, I still love you Only slightly, only slightly less than I used to, my love To be fair, there was at least some variation in that we continued our fun experiment of playing a back three almost devoid of central defenders. With Per Mertesacker, Shkodran Mustafi, Rob Holding and Calum Chambers to choose from, Arsene Wenger plumped for Mustafi, Monreal and Kolasinac, flanked by Bellerin on the left and Oxlade-Chamberlain on the right. Now, I like Monreal, and I think he works very well in a back three, but not as the anchor man in that system. We bought Kolasinac to add power and physicality to our left but instead played a right back, who should have been on the right, in that position, with Mertesacker on the bench and Holding, off the back of one dodgy game, left out of the squad altogether. You wonder what that will do to his confidence. Amazingly, having picked what was essentially a mismatched, hotchpotch, ramshackle back three, Arsene Wenger then bemoaned their lack of cohesion post-game, saying:
You need to improve the connections with the players but I was not convinced by our central defence today.
Crazy idea, but how about playing some actual central defenders in central defence and see if that makes things any better? As it was, the defence wasn’t entirely culpable for what turned out to be the winner, but its shortcomings were most definitely exposed, and the story of the game felt oh so familiar. Arsenal spurning chances to score, yet concede a thoroughly avoidable, feeble goal then spend the rest of the game huffing and puffing and failing to blow the house down. The goal itself came when Granit Xhaka, whose radar seemed off all day, made a mess of a short pass in midfield allowing Stoke to break. Monreal’s hesitation was critical when the ball was slipped through to Jese and the former Real Madrid man made no mistake with a close range finish. Like last week against Leicester the problems were primarily of our own making, but this time there was to be no dramatic rescue. In that Leicester game the manager’s substitutions worked brilliantly with Ramsey and then Giroud scoring the goals we needed, but yesterday they basically made things worse. I understand introducing Giroud, but I’m not sure Kolasinac was the man to take off. I would have preferred to see him move to left back as we settled into a back four, with Bellerin shifted back over to the right where he belongs leaving Oxlade-Chamberlain to make way. Whatever about the efficacy of that move, it’s hard to understand exactly what the thinking behind the Iwobi and Walcott changes were about, beyond shoehorning as many attacking players onto the pitch as possible. When you’re chasing a game like this, against a team like Stoke who are sitting as deep as they did and packing their area, the qualities Walcott in particular possesses are basically useless and he barely had a kick when he came on. And while I think Xhaka had a poor day by his standards, when you bring on Giroud you need players who can provide him the kind of service he needs, and taking the Swiss international off robbed us of one of the key proponents of that. The Frenchman had one chance, late on from a Monreal cross, and that was it. In some ways it was illustrative of our day in general. The initial team selection was wrong, you just can’t play that many players out of position and hope to be cohesive as a team, and the substitutions – rather than changing the dynamic of the game – made us worse at a time when we were playing well enough to believe a goal wasn’t out of the question. Indeed, we scored one, Lacazette’s effort was ruled out for offside – wrongly in my opinion – yet the manager’s response to that was to take off the man who had blasted the ball into the top corner, showcasing his finishing skills while others around him fluffed their lines when chances did present themselves. His decisions from start to finish were baffling, and ultimately costly. I think it’s fair to point out that as well as the disallowed effort we should have had a penalty in the first half. I thought the two handballs were purely accidental, and would have been unhappy if we’d been penalised for those, but the one where Bellerin is clearly taken out by the defender is a shocking oversight by Andre Marriner, and in close games such decisions can be pivotal. That would certainly have changed the trajectory of the game, but at the same time it doesn’t excuse our own shortcomings. Afterwards, Arsene Wenger bemoaned the offside decision, calling it ‘100% onside’, but said the result was of our making:
In football, when you don’t win, you can only look at yourself. Other teams might take points here that we have dropped today. Today I would say that we can look at ourselves and we are 100 per cent guilty on the goal we conceded.
The line about other team stands-out because he’s absolutely right. Stoke were pretty poor all round, far from the relentless threat they have been to us in the past, but they took their big chance and we failed to make the most of our domination of the ball. We had 77.3% possession, yet still managed to lose. This is a team that badly needs some balance, because without it we’re going to struggle. It’s impossible to play football the way you want to with so many players in unfamiliar positions, and it wouldn’t surprise me very much if Arsene Wenger ditched the three at the back in the not too distant future. I mean, he could make it better by playing centre-halves there, and with Koscielny back next week we’ve got more chance of doing that, but I’m not sure he’s ever been truly convinced by it. One of the other things that struck me yesterday was how deep Mesut Ozil was playing, dropping back to try and make things happen, and at times he and Xhaka were almost under each other’s feet. They’re both capable of picking a pass, but when they’re that close together they seemed to cancel each other out at times. I maintain this team is in need of a central midfield player who can help glue all our distinct parts together, because right now that area of the pitch as still not functioning the way it should. So, our first tricky away game of the season and we come unstuck. If we need to get back on that horse straight away then a trip to Anfield next weekend should do nicely, but unless we sort out this team from a positional point of view, it’s hard to see how we’re going to avoid the same kind of result. More on this tomorrow in the Arsecast Extra, in the meantime have a good Sunday. The post Stoke 1-0 Arsenal: Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Arsenal Dominate Galatasaray Thanks to Ramsey Wonder Goal

Arsenal travelled to Galatasaray and swept the Turkish giant aside with a scintillating 4-1 win that included a goal of the season contender from Aaron Ramsey. The game encapsulated the enigma of this Arsenal team, able to lose so timidly to Stoke last weekend, but with the ability to visit one of the harshest cauldrons in world football and dominate the match.

It was a dead rubber game as the Gunners were already through to the next round, while Galatasaray’s Champions League season was coming to a close. However, Arsenal could have topped the group with a win, so the team threw caution to the wind and put in a memorable performance. As it was, top spot proved elusive as Borussia Dortmund drew at Anderlecht to ensure they held the position.

Arsene Wenger opted to travel without important figures such as Alexis Sanchez, Olivier Giroud, Santi Cazorla, Danny Welbeck and Laurent Koscielny. With several other players missing through injury, this was very much a second string Arsenal line up, with only a couple of regular starters. Yet it was enough to get the job done and in the third minute some neat build up play by Alex Oxlad-Chamberlain and the impressive Ramsey released Lukas Podolski. The German international fired his shot into the roof of the net to give the visitors the lead.

The advantage was doubled in the eleventh minute as Ramsey collected an Oxlade-Chamberlain pass and kept his composure to score past Sinan Bolat for 2-0. Galatasaray were providing the odd threat, but so far the Turkish powerhouse had been kept quiet and in the 29th minute the home fans were left shell shocked by one of the season’s wonder goals.

Joel Campbell’s corner was cleared out of the Gala area, but Ramsey was on hand to smash a left footed volley from 30 yards. Like a tomahawk missile, the volley arrowed straight into the top corner and was a sensational way to give Arsenal a 3-0 halftime lead.

Ramsey and Mathieu Flamini were replaced at halftime by Gedion Zelalem and Ainsley Maitland-Niles as Wenger opted to shuffle the pack and rest key men. The switch broke Arsenal’s rhythm temporarily and Galatasaray capitalized through Wesley Sneijder’s curled trademark free kick that sailed into the goal to make 3-1.

The rally from the home team was brief as Arsenal continued to control the game for the remainder of the second half. In the dying embers of the contest Podolski arrived with his second and the Gunners’ fourth as he nestled the ball into the net from just inside the penalty area, taking advantage of a Yaya Sanogo pass.

Stoke Curse Hits Again for Arsenal

Arsenal’s frailties were shown again on Saturday and it is no irony that it was Stoke City that highlighted how the Gunners are still vulnerable against teams willing to dig their heels in and make the game a scrap. The Potters outdid Arsenal over 90 minutes to send the North London club packing from the Britannica Stadium pointless, with the hosts winning 3-2.

That Arsenal had only won a single game in their last eight attempts against Stoke showed that this would be no easy clash, but once again Stoke revealed why. It has become almost cliché that Stoke City are the team that expose Arsene Wenger’s newer teams with rough and tumble football, but it was painful reality again on Saturday.

Wenger said afterwards that his team had been dominated, and in the first half that was certainly the case as Stoke raced into a 3-0 lead. Peter Crouch opened the scoring in the first minute when he latched on to a Steven Nzonzi centre to tap the ball past Arsenal stopper Emiliano Martinez, after 19 seconds the Gunners were against the wall.

The home team doubled their lead after 35 minutes after dominating much of the first half. Bojan had been causing plenty of problems as a creative foil for Crouch, but he got his own rewards when he coolly finished a Jonathan Walters cross. Arsenal’s task had just got tougher, but it became all but impossible ten minutes later.

Bojan’s curled corner was guided to the free Walters by the head of Peter Crouch and he wasted no time in putting the ball into the net. It was Walters’ 100th club goal and Arsenal had been thoroughly punished in the first half.

The Gunners emerged in slightly better touch in the second half, with the newly introduced Danny Welbeck providing more impetus in attack. The action became more open as Alexis Sanchez hit the post after being clean through and Bojan scored only to be ruled offside. Arsenal’s breakthrough finally came in 68th minute when they were awarded a penalty which was converted by Santi Cazorla.

Two minutes later and the visitors made it a one goal game as Aaron Ramsey scored at the back post from a Sanchez corner. Arsenal pressed for the final twenty minutes, but Stoke remained in control while also providing plenty of threat and the Gunners could not find the breakthrough.