Missing Theo badly, but it was a Mata of class

By Michael Lee @michelplatinlee

Well I didn’t feel good going into Tuesday night’s game with Chelsea and I sure as hell didn’t feel any better afterwards. I don’t want to try and dissect the game too much as it really won’t do us any good now. To sum things up they have a better squad than us, and when you see those squad players are Samuel Eto’o, Willian, David Luiz and my favourite non arsenal player in the premier league – Juan Mata, then I couldn’t really expect more. I don’t really need to vindicate that statement because we all know what the Spaniard is capable of on the pitch, but if you see his post-match interview with sky sports you will see the guy just exudes class, he’s really not a Chelsea-esque player at all.

As the vigilante pointed out in yesterday’s post, individual errors proved costly again. Nicklas Bendtner did nothing out there, Ryo just is nowhere near ready for premier league football. In the middle of the park Jack and Aaron really tried to drive us forward but Chelsea where far too organised in the middle and shut us out with ease. Maybe with Flamini in there we could of pressed a bit harder and won the ball more and played with a higher tempo but I don’t think it would of made a great deal of difference on the night.

What I do feel would of made a great deal of difference on the night is having an outlet in the wide areas. It’s becoming more apparent with every passing game that we are missing that. At first we didn’t feel the full effects of Walcott’s absence as Serge Gnabry came in and did very well. He is a very similar player, lightning quick, playing off the shoulders of the opposing defenders with instinctive finishing ability. Since he last played, against Napoli I believe, the performances have been in gradual decline. While I maintain we have an embarrassment of riches in central midfield we do need this kind of outlet, a direct player to stretch a defense, or get in behind when the opposition defensive line plays high. And right now the four players we have who can effectively do that are all injured. When Podolski, The Ox, Gnabry, and most importantly Theo return to action we will have that option back as well as they goals they all contribute. In the meantime our highly talented and interchangeable midfield is just too easy to defend against and we are always likely to concede one. While we will get away with this against the lesser teams it’s going to make it harder against the big boys. I feel that until we get these player back maybe we should do what we done so well in the last 10 games or so of last season. Defend well and organised, try to be efficient in front of goal and make the most of the set pieces, we have a killer dead ball specialist in Ozil and a couple of towering presences in Giroud and Mertesacker. So maybe let’s just focus on not losing and build on those performances.

On Saturday we see the first of 3 big tests in just over a week when we host the scousers. They are enjoying a consistent season and Suarez is on fire but I think we will beat them, I think it’s exactly the game we need right now and then we face Dortmund midweek. I will stick to my prediction of 1 point from the 2 games against the German outfit. I don’t want to think further ahead to United and the Dutch skunk and the little boy he’s inside etc, it was something like that right? We’ll save that for next Wednesday because any opinion on that game could well be invalidated. The poor Man united side we have seen this season could be riding a 6 game win streak by then, it’s like they say…….a week is a long time in football. Iets have a better week ahead than the one just gone please Arsenal.

Oh and one more thing, How can the very best of Crowded House truly be the very best of Crowded House when it doesn’t feature the Hit single ‘chocolate cake’? I know it upset a few American’s back in the day but………I’m digressing here. I’ll be in a better mood next week if we get a euro/domestic combi 4 or 6 points in the bank.

Come on you Gunners!

League cup exit every bit as painful as always

Good morning,

Like Feck it is.I suppose that we should touch on last night’s game against Chelsea in the COC.

The first goal we conceded infuriated me for the simple reason that it’s the second time in as many games that we’ve been exploited from an attacking corner. This time it was a combination of faults between Jenkinson and Fabianksi. Jenkinson’s header wasn’t strong enough to get to Fabianksi, Fabianksi should have come out quicker to meet it.

After what happened at Palace you would have thought that type of mistake would happen again. Yes this time it was different players and a goal instead of a red card but it still cost us at the time. These incidents are forever more highlighting our inadequacies without the ball. For the most part these haven’t been on display against the weaker teams as we tend to enjoy more of the ball. But against the stronger teams it sticks out like a sore thumb.

We can make all the excuses we want about how it’s only COC and that we had no real defensive midfielders and a weakened team but it’s all crap. We should be looking to win every game we play no matter what the competition. The defensive midfielders aren’t the only ones who should be working off the ball, the defence should start from the top and act as a unit of 11 players when we don’t have the ball. And lastly yes we had a weakened team, but so did Chelsea, the difference is they had Eto as their back up forward and we had Bendtner. We had Ryo, they had Mata. But I suppose that’s what money gets you.

                “Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results”

I’m not usually one for quotes, but this one hits the nail right on the head. It shows that with Bendtner as a back up and not making the most of our transfer fund that we’ve repeating mistakes of not capitalising when we can. This is a man who was “80% gone”, never playing for the club again if he had his way. Now we’re relying on him to give Giroud a break. When you look at it in those simple terms, it’s madness.

Some people have been defending Bendneter saying he’s a decent player, he may have been at one point but we haven’t seen that in a long time. I’m not sure anyone has seen it for a while. He’s managed to get a few goals for Denmark but that’s a different set up, he’s just not up to the same quality to those around him and last night it showed. He was slow to react to the changes in play, slow on the ball, without and looked tiered from the off. It’s telling that in that from what I could gather he had no part to play in any of our chances on goal. Not to mention his famous attitude hasn’t done him any favours in winning over the fans.

As if that wasn’t bad enough we had Park on the bench! Park! I’m not sure I’ve actually ever seen him play for Arsenal. He’s nowhere in the managers plans and we can’t get rid of him so he must be there simply to make up the numbers on the bench again showing up our shallow squad. If we didn’t have the injuries we have at this time it may have been different but at some stage in the season every team will suffer with injuries. You need to have the depth to cope with when they strike.

One thing that was good to see was Vermaelen’s performance was pretty solid. He didn’t wow us with goal line clearances or last ditch tackles, but he didn’t need to. He was good with his positioning and tried to do his bit up top when we had a set piece. That’s what’s needed from him at this point. Doing the simple stuff well in his first few games is what will get him back in contention. Getting yourself noticed is risky, if you try something and it doesn’t come off and it costs you. The mountain will be even harder to climb. Maybe he could have done more with the second goal but I think it was just a very good strike, not much any team could have done except prevent the chance before it came to Mata.

That’s us out the league cup again and our second loss to tough opposition. If we win the league I’ll look back on this as a moody rant but that’s a long way off and a big if. This was the first of a run of hard games against good teams. It’s easy enough to say we need to get our chin up and focus on the next one but it’s easier said than done. It’s going to be a long, tough month for Arsenal and for us fans. There will be plenty of opposing fans lapping up our defeats i just hope they’re few and far between.

Until next time

A costly win, how costly?

Good morning,

We start this week like several others before it, top of the league. I'm still not quite getting used to it. I really wish the other teams would slip up a few more times just to give us a bit more room at the top. I thought Stoke were going to put one foot on the path of redemption and beat United. Obviously they like being oafish c**t's anf removed that foot swiftly, rolled over and let United take advantage of them. Then City, Chelsea and Sp*rs were drawing on Sunday. All the way into the final 10 minutes until Chelsea and Sp*rs manged to bag the wins.

I know that we shouldn't have to rely on others to drop points but with the way things are going with our injuries and now suspensions, I'll take all the help we can get. Most of you will be aware of the cost of our win at Palace. Flamini out for 2 weeks and Afteta out for one game after his red card. When entering our toughest run of games yet, it doesn't look good to have both our holding midfielders out. Chelsea in the COC, Liverpool and United in the league and a trip to Dortmund in the Champions league.

We're going to need a bit more fire behind us for those games. We only looked like we were 80% there on Saturday. Palace put 11 men behind the ball and were happy to invite us on. We didnt have the killer ball or defence splitting passes. We looked out of touch. It took the penalty to open the game up because then Palace needed to press to get a goal back.

Watching match of the day made me feel sick. For the simple reason that I had to agree with Alan Hanson (just puked admitting it) our defensive set up for when we had a corner was diabolical.  We can argue all day long over the red card decision the main fact is we shouldn't have put ourselves in a position where Arteta had to make any sort of last ditch challenge. Where were the covering defenders? We made it harder than it had to be and we gave the ref a difficult decision.  A ref that struggled with easy decisions so why trust him to make the right call when its a game changer.

We didnt look very comfortable without the ball at all on saturday, we couldnt seem to get the correct shape to enable the team to cover all positions.  If we were playing better opposition we could easily have conceded a couple of goals in the first half. Our passing wasnt as crisp as it was against Norwich and it seemed we always wanted one more touch or pass than necessary. I said on twitter durring the game that we looked like we turned up expecting the win. Something we've been punished for in the past.

Thankfully it had no short term damages in that we still managed to get another goal and seal the 3 points. But the true cost of the red card could be catastrophic,  we could survive, only time will tell. A huge positive to take away from Saturday is that this is another game that we managed to grind out a result. In years gone by we could easily have collapsed under the pressure of being a man down and being frustrated by an opposition merely looking to cancel us out rather than compete.

It's what United always used to be able to do. If we can twin that with also playing brilliantly like we know we can then this season should be a good one. Dortmund ws our first real test against tough opposition Chelsea will be our second. This time hopefully we won't be held to ransom by our mistakes,  hopefully there wont be any mistakes. I think we will see a changed team as its a COC game but it's still a game we need to win. I don't want us to change it too much if it's going to weaken the team. At the same time we need to rest players for our league game against the scousers. I'm so glad I don't have to make the decisions,  good luck Wenger you wont please everyone.

Unil next time

Finally something to complain about

By Michael Lee @michelplatinlee

Good day to you All, it’s been a couple of weeks since I posted for Arsenal vigilante. This was down to the fact we had an international break and there was nothing of note worth talking about. We went in top of the premier league, top of our champion’s league group and unbeaten since the opening day against the Villa with only a draw away to west brom to tarnish this. But much like my weekend just gone, all good things must come to an end and that was brought about as many suspected by Borussia Dortmund.

Off of the back of a scintillating performance against Norwich came the first real test of the season. I for one am not as negative as many Gooners are today. Why? Because Dortmund are a quality side, and the runners up of this competition. I thought we generally played well, we were positive, the work rate was high and the commitment wasn’t lacking. After a moment of over confidence from Ramsey on the edge of our area put us 1 behind we slowly took a foothold in the game, Olivier Giroud was feeding off scraps all night but took a chance and got on the end of a Sagna cross and the hunky Frenchman made it 1 -1 going into half time. As for Ramsey’s mistake that led to the goal, I don’t want to be to negative, I think we all prefer this version of Ramsey to the one who was struggling so badly this time last year.

Second half and we started brightly and I thought we was the better team up until the 80^th minute. Mikel Arteta was fantastic in the middle when others started to fade. And when we brought Santi off the bench I felt we would take all 3 points, He hit the bar, we ooooh’d and we ahhhhhhh’d. Then we got hit on the counter attack, in what seemed like 3 seconds Dortmund broke forward in numbers to our third of the pitch and Lewandowski finished a cross from the right which to me felt like he had 3 minutes to lock onto the target.

But I will say it again, this is the Champions league and the difference here than against say 90 percent of the premier league is those little mistakes more often than not get punished. So I don’t think we played badly, we just met a team who were more than a match on the night and where 1 goal more clinical than us. Afterword the manager said that we were naïve, and that we should of focused on securing a valuable point, and in hindsight that’s correct, but these lads are hungry and confident and wanted the win. I’m not going to throw my toys out of the pram about this. We don’t play Borussia Dortmund every week now.

Before the European campaign kicked off I said to some friends that if we took 6 points in the first 2 fixtures then 1 point would be a decent return from the middle 2 fixtures against the Germans. And then the last 2 games would take care of themselves, and I still believe this is the case. As I said, in this competition, against this calibre of opposition your mistakes are going to be punished, if we don’t like this then maybe we should play in the Thursday cup like Tottenham, against the queens head, or the red lion or whoever the hell it is they are playing this week?.....nah you’re alright, ok so that means we forget, move on and get behind the team and hopefully enjoy giving a manager-less Crystal Palace a backlash on Saturday.

See you next week