Rss

Bottlers

Posted by :Kieran On : April 4, 2011
13

Category: Uncategorized

Well, we watched Roadhouse last night, quality late 80′s action drama, with Swayze generally acting the bastard whilst being philosophical. It made me think of Arsenal. We’ve got the philosophy, but none of the balls. To paraphrase, “I thought we’d be bigger”.

As most of you will know, I wasn’t too upset by our Champions League and FA Cup exits. I covered in detail last week how I felt that going out to Barca and United were no great travesties, especially considering the way we played in both games. I mean, the preformance against United was deeply flawed, no questions, but we dominated the match for the most part and conceded two stupid goals. The gap between Arsenal and United, whilst still clearly present has narrowed to such a degree that on a different day with our shooting boots on we would have progressed.

Again, I covered last week the reasons the Carling Cup was so upsetting. Our arrogant attitude in the final proved to be our undoing. In fact that game summed up everything Arsenal in 90 minutes. Conceding a sloppy goal. Dominating possession. Failing to capitalise whilst on the front foot. Giving the fans hope with an equaliser. And then being undone by a mistake.

And so we played Blackburn, probably convinced we would win before we even started – and it happened all over again. There were no costly mistakes this time at the back, but everything else was clear and present – possession, domination, no goals, disappointment. And that’s the most frustrating thing about Arsenal. We should have learnt from that Carling Cup final, the players should be trying to salvage some dignity, grabbing the games we play and imposing themselves. Score 3 goals and then out-posses the other team. Don’t just cruise in 2nd gear for 80 minutes hoping to score the perfect goal before getting a bit panicky. Same old shit, different day.

Some other stuff happened, including Rooney being a tosser (I doubt anything will happen, he’ll probably get a telling off at best, he’s an England player after all), West Ham being tossers, and West Brom hilariously giving Liverpool the good news. Long time readers will know, I love lovely Roy Hodgson and I hate hateful Liverpool, so good to see the big man get a little bit of revenge.

Also, I am beggining to think managers are trying to destroy my fantasy league team. Nani and Ivanovich played 4 and 11 minutes, whilst I had 13 points sat on the bench in Barton and Johnson. For fucks sake, just don’t put them on the pitch and waste my time! If they had of not played at all my auto subs would have put me back at the top of the league. It seems like I’m destined to do an Arsenal though – it’s all to play for but I’m destined to stutter into second.

Kieran

Follow On Twitter

Like On Facebook

Subscribe To RSS

Like This Post? Share It

Previous Post

Next Post

  • ny

    we could have signed Ashely Young when he was not much costly.Similar was the case with Baines,Bale etc.Now ‘Adel Taarabt’ is available for a reasonable fee and again we will let some other clubs to sign him.Thank God he wont go to Spurs for sure

  • Kieran

    @ ny:
    We could have signed Ashley Young, but he’s shit as well as a tosser. We could have signed Baines, but we’ve got Clichey and Gibbs (who, wobbles aside, are better than Baines defensively). Bale is the only player you mentioned, and he signed for Spurs before any other club was even interested and apart from this season was so poor they tried to sell him in the summer – so I don’t see how Arsenal could have bought him cheaply.

  • Vazy

    nani messed me about i had ameobi as 1st sub on my bench! my god i hate united

  • Femon

    fucking surely? 6 years fuck all won with a failing project, annual march capitulation that is beyond embarrassing, soft centre, no passion heart or desire in the squad, goalkeeper situation, big amounts of money wasted on soft French CB’s with no character, captain doesn’t want to be here yet remains captain, shit tactics week in week out.

    where do we go from here?

    what is Wenger’s excuse? will he be man enough to admit he’s failed and resign?

    at any other top club he would’ve gotten the chop moons ago.

    why is he here?

  • Arsefan101

    @ ny:
    With Ashley Young – £12m at the time was quite big – don’t think he was worth that then – in fact, I don’t think he’s a top 4 side player. He doesn’t have much more to his game. I think we have the players – but they aren’t in the right frame of mind.

  • Arsefan101

    @ Kieran:
    Exactly – I think Bale is well over-rated as well.
    At Arsenal, we have a good mass of players, with quality – I am relatively happy at our group of players. Yes, we do have something missing – perhaps it’s the heart, desire, maybe it’s a big player or two who knows how to win things.

    Perhaps, it’s the way we play and our formation!

  • Kieran

    @ Arsefan101:
    I think we have plenty of dead wood – I’d be happy to see Denilson, Eboue, Bentdner and Arshavin replaced with better, harder working players.

    For me that’s what it comes down to – Arshavin is a fantastic player, but Birmingham didn’t need an Arshavin to beat us they had hard work and determination.

    Arshavin is a luxury that Arsenal can ill-afford.

  • paresh

    I don’t know, there are so many people complaining about so many different things… We didn’t buy a defender, Wenger is a poor tactician, everybody will improve except us, we have useless players and injury prone players, we need experience and on and on and on…. I’ll try to answer some of these critics.
    1.We didn’t buy a defender. As far as I see, our last results don’t have anything to do with the lack of a defender. With S’land and Blackburn it’s our attack that let us down, and with WBA the culprits are Ramsey and Almunia…
    2. AW is a poor tactician. That’s easy to say, but it’s very difficult to say what’s the right tactics. But I heard that we should bring Rafa Benitez (lol). Please, don’t!
    3.Useless players plus injury prone players. The useless players are backup players. Btw, which world class player will come to Arsenal to be a better backup than Denilson? Maybe Pirlo – he’s at the end of his contract (joking). About injury pronenenss, how injury prone are Lampard (3 months out this season), Rio Ferdinand (when did he play last?), Alex, Gerrard and the list may continue.
    4.Everybody is improving and will improve. Crap. Chelsea went backwards, Liverpool is a horror show without Stevie G, the Spuds are exactly the same as last year (minus 50 millions spent), Man C a bit better (minus how much, 100 millions?) and Man Utd plays pretty much the same.
    5.Experience. Easier to say than done. In what area of the pitch do we need that experience? Which is the player that will come to Arsenal, play as a starter and will improve the team? Neymar (19 or 20 yers old)? Hazard? Cahill (invaluable mid-table PL experience, exactly what we need)? Torres (obviously improved Chesea)? It’s easy to play football manager, but a bit more difficult to be a real manager…
    In the end, it seems that many people just hope that a new manager will bring a trophy, although it’s not clear what Wenger did wrong. I sincerely believe that a new manager will be a disaster (e.g. don’t even think that Nasri will sign an extension without Wenger and Fabregas will be as good as gone).

  • Arsefan101

    @ Kieran:
    When we had a front four of Pires – Begkamp – Henry – Ljungberg – we had a luxury player in Pires – and the midfield was only 2 people in Petit + Vieira…

    How come that worked?

  • Kieran

    @ Arsefan101:
    Pires and Ljunberg were both very definitely not “luxury” players in the sense I meant. They both worked hard, both tracked back and both made decisive and important challenges when they needed to. They both also pressed the opposition when they had the ball, defending from the front if you will.

    Arshavin on the other hand rarely does those things – and more often than not he is quite lazy when chasing “lost causes” something that Freddie in particular could never be accused of.

    When I say luxury I mean, Arshavin is capable of playing fantastic football, a brilliant pass and a brilliant finish, but sometimes we play him on the off chance that he might do something magical – I would rather have a solid consistent player with bags of energy than a player who scores a wonder goal every now and again.

    United have their own Freddie currently, in Ji Sung Park -the boy does not stop running and often scores goals like Freddie did, by just gambling and running through the channels.

  • fo

    Well said Paresh

    At the beginning of the season, everyone said Arsene HAD to win something this season. And after a promising campaign, every has just given up.

    Something needs to change and it needs to change soon!

  • Arsefan101

    @ Kieran:
    I meant Pires was the luxury player, much like Arshavin!
    The problem is that we don’t have the match winner mentality – the BIG ego’s are the ones we need. Someone who think they are BIG and will take the responsibility on to win a game. Everyone is passing the buck – you can see it in our style of play – it’s not good – we need more winners – and we have too many players who just play without caring if we win or lose.

  • Kieran

    @ Arsefan101:
    I watched the invincibles DVD just after I commented – Pires does so much work in that team it’s unbelievable – Arshavin and Pires are totally different players. Pires had all the positives and none of the negatives.

    My point was, Pires was not a luxury because he added to the team both forward and back. We carry Arshavin when we don’t have the ball.