Arsenal need a winning mentality

Good  morning,

It’s been a while since I’ve sat in my chair at home, laptop...on my lap, composing a post on the mighty Gunners. The reasons are twofold. One, work has left me extremely busy of late. Two, the thought of going over the United game put me off. I thought about leaving it even longer, the international break leaves us with little in the way of Arsenal news and views.

There’s talk of injuries mounting for Arsenal players whilst away on international duty. Vermaelen, Szczesny, Mertesacker, Rosicky and Ozil are to name a few. Add that to the list which is keeping the Arsenal medical staff from ever taking a break and that’s a long list. If it wasn’t for a two week break u=i might be worried...*gulp*

I don’t think any of these new injuries will be anything to worry too much about. I expect they’ll be little niggles that will be miraculously sorted in a few days. Either that or those players mentioned are established internationals who realise that these fixtures are meaningless, pointless and shit-givingless. I imagine that the players realise that they are at a crucial point in the league and any rest that can be gained will be valuable.

Our next fixture is Southampton at home, not the easiest fixture considering they’ve managed to place themselves 3^rd in the table. I sure I am among many that believe this won’t be a permanent sight. It’s fantastic for them but realistically we all know it can’t last. The same can be said for City, Chelsea, United and even Sp*rs. They’re not going to remain in a position of dropping points against smaller teams. Sooner or later they’re going to click and we’re going to have to keep pushing them all the way.

United was out toughest test so far this season. Dortmund was tough but relatively unknown. Yes we know they’re good but how many times have we played them over the past 5 years? To date 4 times in the champions league. With us edging it at 2W 1D 1L. Compare that to United over the past 5 years and that’s a completely different story. Over the last 5 years (if my stats are correct) we stand at 2W 3D 12L, 17 times in the league, FA cup and Champions League. Looking at those stats it’s easy to see who Arsenal find it tougher to face.

Considering the amount of times we’ve faced United, we know what they bring every time. The team knows all about the pressure, the quality and history of the team, the players and the coach. Even Moyes has been around for ages even if it was at Everton. Dortmund was relatively unknown. We knew they we good and had some good players but because they hadn’t been getting the better of us over the past few years we had nothing to fear.

I’ve left it until now to talk about the United game because it’s given everyone time to read match reports and analogies. Everyone will have been able to look into the areas of the team which underperformed. The fact is physiologically they already had us beat. Massive amounts of money are going into the mentality of sportsmen and women. It’s the next big thing along with nutrition. In some respects it’s just as important as the fitness. If a player isn’t mentally ready and fit then all the fitness in the world won’t do them any good if they cannot concentrate for 90 minutes.

Until we can beat that mentality then we’re always going to be struggling. Perhaps if we’d been undefeated in all competitions from the start of the season then that would have given us an extra advantage. Yes we’ve been playing well but like everyone else we haven’t been without fault. Winning a cup, or the league would do it but there’s a long way between now and then.

The “fear factor” is a huge thing. Look at City. In the past 5 years (since they’ve been taken over) our head to head is W5 D3 L6. Fairly even but if you look at our results the 5 years before the millions W9 D1 L1. Just shows what a bit of money, success and a case of the “Barry big banana’s” will do. I know it’s not all down to mental state. They’ve spent all that money on trying to buy the best players around. But you have to admit, we all get that nervous feeling against those top teams. Call it respect, call it fear, call it what you want it’s a factor that’s holding us back.

If we want to seriously compete this season e need to eliminate those factors. We can’t rely on the big teams to keep dropping points, we need to take them off them.

Until next time.

Title Contenders....We will know Sunday evening

By Michael Lee @michelplatinlee

Well, heading into the Saturday game against Liverpool they said ‘Arsenal have had a great start but they really haven’t beaten anyone of the big guns’. I disagreed, we beat Tottenham when nobody was giving us a hope in hell of reaching the top four. We dismantled Napoli at the emirates, but that still wasn’t enough to please some. After we lost an unlucky tie against Dortmund a fortnight ago the claws where back out, and it kind of felt like Pundits, the writers,rival fans and even a few of our own where happy that we had fallen at the so called first hurdle. But the team dusted themselves off and started a gruelling 8 day triple head against the scousers.

We took care of Rogers men with ease, we dominated the game, dictated the pace and it looked like top vs mid table rather than current positions pre kick off. So that’s another big win. Hooray. Not a shock in my opinion, While Liverpool have started strongly I don’t see them keeping pace after the new year and what was evident on Saturday is that Brendan Rogers really doesn’t have a plan B. Gerrard looks like he has had his best days as part of an average midfield. Their defence looks not very mobile at all and as good as Suarez is He won’t be able to carry them all season, as will David Sturbridge ©John Anik (UFC Commentator)

Still a very satisfactory win, but what happened last night in Dortmund was something else. Nobody gave us a hope in hell. While I was optimistic we could get a point I didn’t think we could turn over Klopps men in their own back yard. But I was perhaps Naïve to think this, after all this was an Arsenal side who going into the game had won 13 and drawn 1 of their last 14 away games in England and abroad. And we saw why. Last night Arsenal where organised, hard to break down, the pressing from midfield was frantic. Mertesacker and Koscielny played out of their skin, Arteta provided a defensive midfield master class despite being booked early on. After Klopp bragging about how his team out ran us at the emirates our very own Welsh Maestro Aaron Ramsey ran further than any man on the field that night and capped off his 4 consecutive player of the month awards with another goal, anyone else just getting bored of seeing him hit the back of the net ? I’ve ran out of things to say about the lad, this season he has simply been football porn. But what was impressive is that last night we may not have been at out fluent best, the passing was a little off but every man to a T run themselves ragged, not least Thomas Rosicky who I think set a new record with 197 sliding tackles or something. The Czech Midfielder just makes us better wherever he plays in that midfield. I have to say if this is winning ugly, I don’t mind it at all.

So now the rest of Europe is taking notice, Gary Neville summed it up nicely in the post-match analysis as he usually does, Jürgen Klopp thinks we can win something this season, so why shouldn’t we? Well I think the biggest challenge comes on Sunday when we go away to old Trafford. This is easily the worst man united team we have seen in a long time, however they still have a mental edge over us which has been evident in previous seasons. I have no doubt we have the quality to come home with the 3 points, which would in turn give us an 11 point lead, but the big questions is do we believe we can beat united, I for one do but only when we do will I be bold enough to call us champions elect. Maybe if we do win Arsene could do his own Kevin Keegan style rant ‘ I would love it if we beat them, absolutely love it’.

Come on Arsenal, let’s make this week the perfect hat trick, until next time have yourselves a good weekend. ML

Football, more brain power than you think

Good morning,

How many of those have we had lately? I think I might start counting how many mornings have been good in a football perspective from the start of the season, I bet this season there’ll be more than those in our recent past.

Going into the Liverpool game I was really nervous. I usually only get nervous over two teams in our league, Sp*rs and United. The only reason I get nervous about those games is because along with the three points there’s also bragging rights at stake, not only for the teams, but for the fans too. I know it’s not the be all and end all, but when you’ve got those two sets of fans giving it the big’n it’s quick and easy to give them the shut up juice with a defeat.

Not too long ago it was United and Arsenal battling it out for the title making the rivalry a bit hotter. It cooled slightly when we dropped off the boil but now that the tables seemed to have turned, the rivalry could hot up again. There were a lot of people clambering about how in the league we haven’t faced a big team. Liverpool are a pretty big team, they were the closest to us in the table and we got a great result.

United however will be our toughest test yet. While they’re not having a great time at the moment we get to face them after they’ve strung two league wins together and after we have to travel to Dortmund. Not ideal but yet again with this season being our best opportunity to pounce, we need to make the most of it. The question is, which is the more important game?

The Dortmund game is still only a group stage game. Losing it doesn’t make qualification impossible. It makes it quite a bit difficult and will probably see us depending on other results but not out of reach. Ideally we’d want to finish top so that we get an “easier” opponent. Realistically if we’re serious about this competition, we’re going to have to face Europe’s elite at some point so there won’t really be any easy games.

The United game doesn’t have as much pressure on it as it usually does. Usually we’re chasing the pack or the leaders, this time it’s the other way around. Being 8 points ahead of them and 5 points ahead of anyone else gives us a bit of breathing space. A defeat for them puts them 11 points of the lead and struggling. As much as I’m enjoying our form at the moment it’s made sweeter by United struggling, if Sp*rs, Chelsea and City want to join them then I’ll be over the moon. This time around the pressure is on United.

I’m not sure if that’s answered which is the more important game? In a perfect world we’ll get 3 points in each but if you had to chose which one would you take? I don’t like to think like this but there’s this thought in the back if my mind that we have more chance of winning the league than we do the Champions League. Neither are going to be easy but I think we stand more of a chance, as things stand, with the league. Does this mean we should treat it the same as the COC and save our players for the league game?

If that means fielding Bendtner, then the answer is a straight up no. If it means a bit of rotation (do we have any players fit to do that) then I think it would be worth it. We rested players against Chelsea and suffered an early exit from the COC however we also got a great victory against Liverpool. Resting certain players probably helped but did it guarantee the result? If we’d fielded our best team against Chelsea would we have won? Who knows, probably not?

What I think I’m getting at here, in a roundabout way, is that football is more than the game being played on the grass. The decisions made over who to play for which games, players to rest and rotate and which competitions to prioritise. Each decision has repercussions on others, making hundreds if not thousands of possible choices and options for the boss to consider. Some, hopefully most, will be carefully thought, expertly analysed for the potential butterfly effect. Some, hopefully few, will be done with fingers crossed.

I’ll harp on, moan and groan about the manager when things go wrong just like most but I’m not sure I have the brain power to compute all those decisions. Making me glad I don’t have the job, but equally glad that we have a boss that is regarded as one of the most intelligent in the game.

That leaves me to wish a bitter failure for United and City tonight and a great result for us tomorrow. Until next time.