thoughts on our defeats this season

so, arsenal have lost seven games this season (so far!)...they are, in chronological order:

seville 3-1 arsenal (euro)
m'borough 2-1 arsenal (prem)
tottenham 5-1 arsenal (carling cup)
man u 4-0 arsenal (fa cup)
chelsea 2-1 arsenal (prem)
liverpool 4-2 arsenal (euro)
man u 2-1 arsenal (prem)

what conclusions can we draw from these defeats?

some simple observations are:
1) all of our defeats have been away from home at tough places.
2) all of our defeats (except middlesbrough) have been to big opponents.
3) most have occurred since the turn of the year.

some interesting appearance statistics:
1) phillipe senderos only started 2 of these games, yet he is taking much of the blame for arsenal's defensive frailties. wiliam gallas and kolo toure each played in 6 of these games, though toure played a couple games out of position. dare i say that gallas is our weak link and not senderos?
2) flamini started only 2 of these games, and went off injured in one of these. gilberto started 5 of these games and came on for the second half of another. it is obvious that flamini's presence brings wins and gilberto's presence brings losses. surely the old timer will be on his way in the summer.



what happened in these matches:

seville 3-1 arsenal
we had already qualified for the knockout stages of the champions league when we went to seville, and we had previously thrashed them 3-0, so while they had a point to prove we had no special motivation to match their fight. we also played a few of our second string players, while they were at full strength.

middlesbrough 2-1 arsenal
we were going through a bit of a poor patch at the time, and had lost some players to injury. fabregas, flamini and hleb were all too unfit to start. it was no coincidence that we were poor and uncoordinated that day, with an untried midfield of eboue, diarra, gilberto and rosicky failing to provide any impetus to the team.

tottenham 5-1 arsenal
there was an inevitability in the air that we were going to lose to tottenham in the carling cup as they were well up for it after our kids beat them last year. wenger was forced into playing unmotivated first-teamers for the game due to some carling cup regulars being unavailable. the awkward mix of not-so-bothered seniors who had bigger concerns and unconvincing youngsters missing important teammates was no match for a full strength tottenham team going all out.

man u 4-0 arsenal
our defeat to man u in the fa cup came shortly after we went 5 points clear in the league following man u's humiliating defeat at home to man city. like at white hart lane, perhaps understandably our players were nowhere near as pumped up as the opposition. our first team squad was quite injury hit at the time, and we had a big game against milan to think about. a lot of fans were upset with the performance, but wenger was probably wise to sacrifice the fa cup tie to a super aggressive united when we were so weak with injuries and had bigger games to plan for in the league and europe.

chelsea 2-1 arsenal
rather disappointingly this was a game that we really wanted and tried to win. we outplayed them in the first half and carved out a number of half chances. when we scored with an unlikely header, chelsea turned on the power, boxed us in to our own half and started to pile non-stop pressue on our defence. toure and gallas looked inept against drogba's power, and after we lost sagna to injury we eventually caved to a drogba brace. we had been on a poor run of games prior to this one, but we fielded a strong team for it and were surely capable of beating them.

liverpool 4-2 arsenal
this was another game we really wanted to win. after stunning liverpool and their fans for the opening 15 minutes with some galactico football the likes of which anfield has never seen, and after deservedly going 0-1 up, we then went down 2-1 after hyppia and torres both capitalised expertly on minor senderos errors. theo walcott's stunning run got us back to 2-2, which would have gotten us through on away goals, except that just after scoring we lost concentration, let liverpool pile forward and naively allowed babel to sithe through our defense twice to put the game beyond us. match of the season, but a devastating finish.

man u 2-1 arsenal
once again we started strong, passing the ball around and through man u with ease and pressing them well all over the pitch for the first half hour. the quality of our game had man u visibly nervous, and forced them back into their own half. after adebayor scored in the scrappy aftermath of a set piece, they threw players forward and started to apply direct pressure to our defence. once again, this simple pressure resulted in them scoring, first from a penalty conceded by gallas and then from a free kick conceded outside the box by gilberto.

what general conclusions can we draw from these games then?

our motivation was obviously poor in the games against sevilla, spurs and man u in the fa cup...but our motivation was not an issue against middlesbrough, chelsea, liverpool in europe or man u in the league. against middlesbrough our dependence on the fabregas-hleb-flamini axis was exposed. without these players we are not the same team. against chelsea, liverpool and man u defensively we were just not strong enough to withstand their heavy pressure. senderos, toure and especially gallas have all failed to assert their authority over the big powerful opposition forwards they have come up against in these important games. we outplayed chelsea, liverpool and man u but they are intelligent teams and they have clearly found a weakness to exploit.

great piece in the times

there is a great piece of commentary in the times on the way arsenal play...

"why wenger should be proud rather than cowed" by matthew khan

...if you need it, it does a good job of reminding you of how proud you should be of arsenal's style of football...

thoughts on the anti-eboue brigade

there seems to be a popular belief amongst arsenal fans that emmanuel eboue is not up to the demands of first team football at arsenal...is this a fair assessment?

eboue burst onto the first team scene two seasons ago when he came in midseason to cover an injured lauren at right back. he impressed immediately, looking assured and confident on the ball, defending well and surprising everyone with the boldness of his forward running. he was an everpresent in the knockout stages of our champions league campaign that year, playing througout our run to the final. he made a memorable impact there, diving to win the free kick that led to arsenal's opening goal, and keeping the best player in the world at the time in his pocket. his performances that season convinced arsene wenger to dispense with the services of lauren the following season, and had some commentators asking if wenger had uncovered the best young right back in the world.












last season his fortunes dipped somewhat. play acting and other unneccessary forms of clowning about started to feature more frequently in his game and he also picked up a couple of niggling injuries. he did chip in with a few crosses and assists over the season (remember henry's header in the last minute against man U at the emirates?) but all in all he was inconsistent and took a step backwards from his breakthrough season.

this season, perhaps acknowledging eboue's inconsistency as well as anticipating the disruption that would be caused to the defence when eboue went off to the african nations cup, wenger gave eboue's right back spot to bacary sagna, and chose to deploy eboue as a right winger. among arsenal fans it is generally agreed that his contribution this season from this position has been relatively poor. he has yet to weigh in with any goals, has not matched his tally of assists from last season, and inexplicably continues to clown about on the pitch, feigning injury and otherwise monkeying about like an idiot.

so should he be dropped for walcott as many fans seem to want? or sold? should he be relegated to being sagna's depute at right back? the answer to all of these suggestions is absolutely not.

while it is true his antics are an embarrassment, his behaviour on the pitch is the whole team's responsibiliy, not just his own. his manager and teammates should be chastising him whenver he stops playing to start clowning around. and while he has not contributed goals or assists, he does play his part in productive and threatening team play down the right hand side, and he has made several shooting opportunities for himself throughout the season. if he works on his finishing over the summer, he is guaranteed to convert some of the chances he makes for himself.

eboue can definitely improve a lot in his game, but he is young, fit, and is an undeniably talented strong runner with a great ability to dink past and accelerate away from players. he is a natural on the right wing, he can cross like a dream and has an absolute cannon of a shot in his right foot. with a bit of moral leadership from his teammates and manager and some shooting practice over the summer, he'll become hugely valuable for us.

2008/09 could be a long hard season for arsenal

given that arsenal looked to be heading for a table topping finish for most of the season, the thought of having to deal with the problem of champions league qualification never really occurred to anyone. but now that we have (let's be realistic) surrendered not only the title but also the runners-up spot, it looks like we'll need to come to terms with having to play a round of champions league qualifiers at the start of next season.

while negotiating the qualifiers themselves will probably not be beyond us, simply having to play them at all could cost us...

just imagine how knackered our players will be by the end of next season if, after they play euro 2008, their already short summer rest period is cut short even further by having to go through champions league qualifiers again. it pretty much means that most of arsenal's first team will not have had a proper break since summer 2007.

if you think that our current end-of-season slump is probably partially a consequence of us having to start this season early to qualify for the champions league, it's probably not too much to say that our ability to sustain a challenge through the whole of next season already looks seriously in doubt.

it depends though...having an exhauted squad next year is not inevitable...

wenger has relied too much on a handful of players to play almost every game this season. adebayor, flamini, hleb, fabregas, clichy and sagna have been the players of the season, but they have played non-stop, and have all begun to look jaded. if we are going to have a better finish to next season, these players will all need to be fresher for the run in. if wenger can demonstrate the trust that he says he has in players like alex song, denilson, diaby and bendtner by letting them play a bit more, then the first-teamers mentioned above can all get rested from time to time to stay fresh.

i've also assumed that wenger will not spend in the summer and that the squad will pretty much stay the same, minus the old farts lehmann and gilberto. but if wenger brings in a couple more players, maybe players who are already used to this league but who will not be at euro 2004, then who knows what we'll be able to do.

and we're off...

aesthetic appreciation society is up and running!