Archive for the ‘Arsenal’ Category

Just when you think the Arsenal are safe from a collapse, just when you think we’ve secured something of importance for the season (i.e. third place)… bang, the most unexpected loss occurs, and takes the winds out of our sales. Last season, we were leading Wigan 2-0 with 15 minutes to go – at their ground – and ended up losing that game 3-2. We never recovered and went on to finish 4th, in a season where we could have finished 1st or 2nd had we kept our gusto. This season, Wigan again have been the team that seem to have derailed us.

The question is why? Why do we let ourselves get into this position? Why do we fail to win when it really matters? Am I being harsh considering we’ve actually won 9 out of the last 11? Or am I correct in thinking we really should have beaten Wigan, considering our home advantage and reasonably low injury list?

After the game, Arsene felt we were not sharp enough…

We have given a lot over the past two or three months and we were not sharp. Is it mental or physical? It is hard to know why. I felt in the first half we had quite a good response to being 2-0 down, but in the second half there was not a lot to come. We finished with Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Rosicky, Gervinho and Van Persie offensively and we didn’t create a lot.

Personally, I don’t think Oxlade or Gervinho contributed a lot. Gervinho is short of game time & confidence – Oxlade thought he had to do it all by himself every time he had the ball – and Theo – well, he had one of those very frustrating games. Arsene says we weren’t sharp enough – why not? Ramsey hasn’t played a lot of games, why isn’t he sharp? Gervinho came on with bags of energy, but no end product…

Wigan played midweek, and had a very energy consuming game against Wigan. Surely we should have been more energetic and sharper than Wigan. The problems we face now are also psychological – can we pick ourselves up – without Arteta – who has been our linchpin – and survive the rest of the season?

“It is an ankle problem. It looks quite a serious one. It is too early to say tonight. But it doesn’t look a little ankle sprain. It is a serious one,” revealed Wenger. Unconfirmed reports have since emerged claiming the Spaniard has in fact suffered a broken ankle which will come as a devastating blow to the Gunners who are already without another of their midfield stars, Jack Wilshere, for the rest of the season.

Ramsey will need to up his game considerably and the worry now is whether we can get back into shape for the game against Chelsea. Chelsea are back into some sort of form under Di Matteo, with a resounding 5-1 win over Sp*rs in the FA cup – yes, they play Barcelona tomorrow, and they should be more tired than us by the weekend, but that doesn’t mean anything.

The good thing for us is that Gibbs and Koscielny will be back into the starting up against Chelsea and they seem to add some structure to the defensive unit. We play Chelsea on Saturday, an early morning kick off – at the Emirates – the onus is on us, we’ll be the favourites, we need to ensure we don’t lose, and keep up the pace with a win if possible.

More analysis tomorrow, but for the moment, enjoy Bayern vs Real Madrid… and don’t forget Tottz will be back tomorrow for his Wednesday piece!

Til then…

This weekend see a host of games from all competitions. Two FA Cup semi derbies, taking Liverpool and controversially Chelsea to Wembley. Sp*rs getting tanked 5-1 was an awesome end to the weekend too. With some great Spanish football too and games pretty much every day last week, we really have been spoiled…

We play tonight and then two Champions League games on Tuesday and Wednesday, it just doesn’t stop… but for us, of course, tomorrow’s game is so important. Win tomorrow and 3rd place is virtually sealed… we will be 8 points clear of 4th place with 4 games to go. So it’s not going to guarantee us 3rd, but it will go a whole long way towards it.

One of the fears I have had is when we get on a run, we get complacent – and we may even to that considering the gap is 5 points at the moment, but you can’t rest on your laurels and we have to hope that the players realise what an important game it is. I think Rosicky nailed it when he spoke yesterday:

“Wigan beat Manchester United on Wednesday, so that’s an indication that it will be a tough test for us,” he told the Official Arsenal Magazine. We’ll have to be on top of our game to win, no doubt about it. Wigan have some very good players and a good young manager, so this will be a very tough match for us. We have a great chance to stay in [third] position, but now we have to make sure of it. That starts against Wigan on Monday – and make no mistake, it’s a very big game for us.

Rosicky was rested for the game against Wolves last Wednesday, but I fully expect him to return to the line up tomorrow. In fact, looking ahead to tomorrow’s game, we should be able to field a very similar team to last Wednesday, although I also expect Benayoun to be on the bench in favour of Oxlade.

Szcznesy

Sagna – Djourou – Vermaelen – Santos

Arteta – Song

Walcott – Rosicky – Oxlade

Van Persie

It’s pretty awesome nowadays that I can name Van Persie in pretty much every line up. Something that I’ve never been able to do outside of this season. As the season draws to a close now, many minds will be thinking about possible transfers in Summer, and finishing third will help us to be sure of Champions League football – something we couldn’t do last season. Most conversations I have are about the summer and how we can move forward. I’ll hold off now from commenting, as we will have quite a while to discuss that after the season has ended.

Short blog today, back tomorrow… here’s to a thumping at the Emirates, come on you Gooners…

With Wigan and Chelsea coming up after today, Arsene decided to rotate a little bit, whilst not changing too much. The in form Rosicky was rested and Koscielny had an enforced absence – which meant that Ramsey started in midfield and Djourou at the back. Benayoun kept his place after some good displays. Gibbs’ absence meant hat Santos started too, in what was our 18th different back four combination of the season.

The line up was:

Szcznesy

Sagna – Djourou – Vermaelen – Santos

Arteta – Song

Walcott – Ramsey – Benayoun

Van Persie

Although Ramsey

The opening exchanges were in our favour with a determination, and within 10 minutes, Wolves had a man sent off and we had a penalty. The penalty was won when Walcott cut inside, passed to Van Persie – who then chipped in it back into Walcott path, who made a darting run into the box. Ex-Sp*rs defender Bassong pulled him down, red card for the defender… Penalty to Arsenal.

Van Persie decided to do a little cheeky chip to score – not something I’m a fan of, especially when it’s 0-0 and it’s such an important game, but he did score – and it was his 34th goal of the season. Guess how many goals Wolves have scored all season? 34… you got it!

Arsene was also a little surprised at the choice:

It was a surprise to me because I have never seen him doing that. It was just what came into his mind at the last second he said.

And 1-0 became 2-0 very quickly, when the same combination and one two between Walcott and Van Persie saw Walcott through the middle and he slotted it past the keeper to make it 2-0.

The rest of the first half was a little run of the mill – we had a lot of possession and Wolves were quite frustrated, nothing really to write home about, it was all second gear.

Wolves had a bit of pressure in the second half and you felt it was self inflicted. We did get the safety third, albeit late on – Song played a slightly more advanced role today and when Van Persie set him down he left – his cut back found Benayoun and he Israeli got his name of the scoresheet to secure the points.

In the end, the scoreline was comfortable, and despite a little bit of pressure, it was a relatively straightforward game. Arsene summarised the game…

We started well and then had a situation where we could control the game. Did we push on or not? After that we played a bit with the handbrake on, they played deeper and defended like mad with a great spirit until the end of the game. If they keep that spirit then they still have a chance of staying in the league. On our part we controlled the game, although they actually had a spell in the second half where they created chances. Szczesny made a good save but after that it was a comfortable win.

We now return to the Emirates for the game against Wigan – who beat Manchester United today – and they are fighting for their lives. Their win against United actually moved them out of the relegation zone. No matter how much we think we’ve achieved, or how easy the opposition will be, we have to ensure that we focus and do our utmost best. We did so against Man City and Wolves and we need to apply the same tenacity to Wigan.

Til tomorrow, my friends, til tomorrow…

Morning Gooners,

Another week, yet more drama and you get the feeling there’s plenty more to come whether you want it or not.

Debs covered off the City game fantastically yesterday so I won’t elaborate too much on it but what a day that was. I was oddly confident going into the game as I knew City had to play for the win and when teams attack Arsenal at home, we’re at our most dangerous. Arsenal didn’t let me down; they were hungry for the ball and drove forward at every opportunity while City seemed to be a team potentially affected by United’s 2-0 win versus QPR.

After a number of efforts against the post and misses on the line, Arsenal finally got their goal. ‘Panic buy, passed his best’ Mikel Arteta won the ball back off Piazarro and fired an unstoppable effort in the bottom left corner. Not for the first time this season, cue pandemonium. Relief to get the goal we deserved, a goal to beat the City money boys (Na$ri) and a massive three points. The stadium instantly mocking City by celebrating with the Poznan was one of those moments that you’ll always laugh about, my lasting image was looking up from my seat and seeing the club level box above me joining in too. Brilliant fun.

A week after losing to QPR, Arsenal reacted in the way we needed them to especially given how tight the race for the Champions League is shaping up. With Tottnum losing, Chelski drawing and Newcastle winning; Arsenal sit in 3^rd place by two points, ahead of Tottnum and Newcastle and Chelsea 4 points a drift. Arsenal have a game in hand tonight at Wolves, in fact Arsenal will play three times in the Premier league before Tottnum kick a ball again. I’ll let the mathematicians work out where we ‘could’ be come 3pm on 21^st April.

On to tonight’s game against Wolves. Arsenal go into it without Koscielny who picked up his 10^th booking of the season against City, thus resulting in a two game ban. Djourou will come straight into the side and while many will cringe in fear after his performances back in January, you should remember these sub-standard performances were at right back rather than his natural centre back position. With Gibbs feeling the fatigue from a long period out, everyone’s favourite maverick left back, Santos, will replace him. I expect further changes too given the effort put in to beat City just three days earlier. Don’t be surprised if Chamakh, AOC and Ramsey get a run out too.

After the non performance and apologies from the QPR game, we should not under estimate a Wolves team who are literally scrapping for their Premiership life; what do they have to lose going for a win against the mighty Arsenal? Just ask Norwich.

RVP yesterday wrote:

“I remember when – without being disrespectful – I first arrived here, there were some games when I was thinking less about whether we would win or not and more about who would score for us and how many we would get.

“There were some games like that in my first couple of years, but those days are 100% finished because the so-called smaller teams have improved so much.

“That QPR game was a wake-up call for us.”

Wise and honest words from the captain but I feel like I’ve heard different forms of this before only to be let down in subsequent games. Captain Robin, ‘actions speak louder than words’, 6 points from the next two games against Wolves and Wigan are vital, over to the boys.

And finally… to the clowns that govern our game, The FA. After plenty to digest and review after the double header over the Easter weekend the following decisions were made:

An apology from Mike Riley to Wigan.

After the linesman failed to raise his flag for not one but three players in an offside position when Chelsea scored their first goal, the Head of Referee’s Mike Riley, issued an apology to Wigan boss Roberto Martinez. While this doesn’t put right the wrong, the apologetic gesture from Riley should be seen as a positive move from the FA and referees.

The FA uphold Shaun Derry’s red card.

Soon after Riley’s apology the FA announced it would not be rescinding the red card shown to Shaun Derry at Old Trafford. For those that haven’t seen it, Ashley Young was a yard offside when the ball is played into him, the lineman fails to spot the offside and lets play continue. Derry, in an effort to get back into position after correctly playing Young offside, places a hand on Young’s back and the United player pirouettes to the ground in a theatrical fashion to win a penalty. The referee decides that it was a goal scoring opportunity and sends Derry off.

With a couple of days to consider their options the FA could have taken a similar stance to the Wigan situation and rescinded the red card as acceptance of the incorrect decision. No chance, the FA decides to uphold the decision regardless of the fact the goal was given due a player CLEARLY in an offside position.

The FA chooses not to charge Mario Balotelli.

Have a look at this picture:

Not worthy of retrospective action?

According to the FA, one of the match officials saw the incident therefore they can not take retrospective action. Really? But what about Ben Thatcher’s elbow in 2006? What the FA are saying is they are spineless in making the big decisions and dealing with serious foul play that risks serious career ending injury.

Man City boss, Roberto Mancini apologised for the tackle after he saw it on the TV and accepted the FA should look into it. So the opposition manager urges the FA to look into a tackle he has apologised for as it was dangerous, yet the arrogance of the FA means they won’t take any further action??

The FA are completely and utterly spineless. A joke of an institution governing our game through hypocrisy. While they refuse to rescind false red cards and take action on serious foul play, they will spend time pleading for a reduction of Wayne Rooney’s ban after he kicked a player on the floor playing for England.

The Respect campaign my arse.

Bring on Wolves and Wigan!!!

Come on The Arsenal.

@Tottz82

Howdie Folks…

A massive thanks to Debs and Tottz for their excellent blogs in my absence – my travels have taken me to Dallas, New Orleans, Miami and Brussels in the last 2 weeks – but you don’t really care too much about where I’ve been, really, do you? Of course you do, don’t, do! What’s more important though, is how Arsenal have done and where we are in the league. The mighty Tottz will be blogging in time for Wednesday morning, so I’ll keep my installment very quick. Let’s have a look at the league table…

Making for interesting reading doesn’t it? Liverpool languishing mid-table, 4 points adrift (1 if they win today) of Everton and Newcastle ahead of Chelsea. This league is no picnic in the park and despite our excellent form (minus the QPR game), no game is a given. We have Wolves away tomorrow (Weds) and even though they are bottom of the league, it will still be a very tough game. In fact, maybe a little tougher than a team like Villa (who Van Persie said was such an easy game), who aren’t fighting for much. Wolves are bottom and fighting for their lives…

Arteta echoed the way in which we need to look at the game:

“I don’t think it will be easy at Wolves. We have some good examples this year when we have dropped points against teams near the bottom. We have to go there with the right mentality and the right approach and sense of pride. When you’re playing away from home, there are no easy games in the Premier League.”

Has the lesson been learnt?

Arsenal vs Wolves

Team news ahead of tomorrow’s game is that Gibbs, Gervinho and Mertersacker are all out, and with Koscielny suspended, it’s won’t be a perfect back four – but I do expect the line up to be:

Szcznesy

Sagna – Djourou – Vermaelen – Santos

Arteta – Song

Walcott – Rosicky – Oxlade

Van Persie

Benayoun, Ramsey and Park on the bench…

Over to you Tottz! Speak later my fellow gooners! The question is… can we finish third?

No matter what anyone says, we owe Man City some sort of revenge…

There is nothing more satisfying than seeing them lost – well actually, I do get a lot of satisfaction from Chelsea losing… and even more from Sp*rs losing, but hey, I’m getting sidetracked here…

Revenge!

Ah yes, Man City, Money Bags City…

And the worst part about City? They actually have players that I like to watch – in Aguero, Silva, Yaya, Johnson and Hart, they have five players, who as a football fan, I like to watch – and that’s annoying. A few years ago, when Chelsea started to try and buy the world, they filled up their team with players who no one really liked to watch, who’d care about Lampard, Drogba etc?

But we are the Arsenal, and we hate Man City. They pipped us to 3rd last season and then nicked Samir Nasri from us… and now after a season of mediocracy from them, they’re now after our prized possession in Robin Van Persie.

Arsenal vs Man City, Sunday 8th April, 4pm

Sunday is the day, a day whereby we’ll field our strongest team, a game where we’ll have to be on top of our game and a game where we can ill afford to lose. We should go into the game with one thing on our mind… revenge... the will to win.

Robin Van Persie has been inspirational this season and he’ll surely lead the line. Arsene talked about his performance this season and how he instills confidence in other players:

“I must say Robin van Persie has done an outstanding job of leading the team, as have many players – people like Vermaelen, Arteta, Song, Sagna – I don’t want to leave people out but the senior players have played a big part in setting the tone in the squad. It keeps the spirit high. When you are suffering, you are ready to suffer a little bit more knowing that you just have to find one chance and there is a guy there who can win us the game.”

The starting line up should contain all the senior players – Song at 24 is considered a senior player – and he has raised his game up this season that is for sure.

The line up? Surely it picks itself – but I would like to see either Oxlade or Gervinho deployed down the left flank. As much as I like Rosicky and Ramsey, they should not be on the pitch at the same time if we’re playing Song & Arteta:

Szcznesy

Sagna – Koscielny – Vermaelen – Gibbs

Arteta – Song

Walcott – Rosicky – Gervinho

Van Persie

For this one, I’d leave Ramsey and Oxlade on the bench and bring them in if we need them / when we need them… For Man City, they’ll have Aguero back for this one and will pretty much be at full strength, but we are the Arsenal, we’ve got our first team raring to go – we owe them one, and I think the crowd will be jeered up for this one…

Revenge my friends, revenge!

3 points, my friends, 3 points…

Til tomorrow…

‘It was all good just a week ago’

I never thought I’d use a Jay-Z lyric to kick off my weekly Arsenal blog but that line sums up the overall situation.

Last week I wrote about the ‘easy win’ against Villa and how we’d really started to click into gear. Well the gear popped out, car stalled and the exhaust backfired on Saturday didn’t it? The reaction by the fans has been familiar once again, a split of perspective.

The glass is half empty:

Yet again Arsenal have bottled it. With an opportunity to increase the gap to 6 points before the Spuds played on Sunday, Arsenal put in a limp performance against a team fighting relegation whose fans sung ‘You must be sh*t, we’re winning at home’.

During the week the players and manager were more than happy to sing their own praises about turning (another) corner and quotes about how they knew they would be fine in the end. You would be forgiven for wondering if such complacency and arrogance had entered the minds of the players as they failed to perform. QPR were hungrier for the ball, they didn’t even have to bully or kick us as we were happy to play into their hands. With 68% of possession during the game, Arsenal rarely created the kind of chances our recent form expected. When you play a Mark Hughes team captained by Joey Barton, you expect to leave the ground angry at rough house tactics or some form of bullsh*t by Barton, sadly I left the ground annoyed at my own teams lack of fight and acceptance in the manner QPR had beaten us. A worrying feeling.

As expected Spuds didn’t refuse the gift presented to them on Sunday morning and beat a brave Swansea team. So we ended the weekend level on points with Tottnum and ahead of them in the league by a single goal. Unfortunately you then look at the run ins, Tottnum face Sunderland away this weekend in their toughest remaining game. Arsenal now face the prospect of homes games against City and Chelsea and a trip to our old friends in Stoke.

90mins of complacency may have just taken us back to where we’ve just come from.

The glass is half full.

7 amazing wins in a row has completely transformed our season and unfortunately all good things must come to an end. While a defeat at QPR is a pretty frustrating thing, 7 wins from 8 games is nothing to get down about. At the start of this run Arsenal sat 13 points behind 3^rd place with a very tough run ahead of them. Wins at Sunderland, Liverpool and Everton have shown that the team can go to traditionally tough grounds and pick up the maximum points. Would losing at Everton but beating QPR have made people feel any better? You know I think people would be more accepting given it was Everton who beat us. Odd but true.

The fickleness of fans is a common part of football. On Saturday many were keen to point the finger of blame at Thomas Vermaelen and question whether we he was good enough at centre back. These were obviously the same people who lauded the TV5 defensive performance and goal against Everton as well as screaming the house down when he scored that last gasp winner against Newcastle. Slips happen in football, it’s how we react to the slip that matters. On Saturday we didn’t score again but the team can react as a collective and show the league we mean business when we play City on Sunday.

Eight games ago we would have prayed to be sitting in 3^rd place even if it was by a single goal. However expectations change and as football fans it is easy to get carried away with where your club will end up when on a run. City fans were signing ‘1-0 to the Champions’ when we left their ground in January, wow they must be feeling pretty stupid right now.

Arsenal, the manager and the players have done fantastically well to get themselves to 3rd place. 7 wins from 8 games is an extremely respectable return and if we can repeat the run again, we will be in the Champions League place. Will we finish 3^rd? It’s not as impossible as it seemed in February that’s for sure.

However full you see you glass to be, we’re all aiming for the same thing. It’s time to repeat the run starting this Sunday.

Come on The Arsenal!!!

Comments welcome – @Tottz82

This season has been a stark contrast to last. Last season our end of season collapse was becoming an “Arsenal thing”, and from the lofty heights of fighting for the league, we plummeted to fourth in the table.

This season however, we were 17th after 6 games and with 8 games to go, we’ve catapulted ourselves into 3rd. We’re now clear of both Sp*rs and Chelsea and we’re favourites for 3rd.

So what is better? A good start to the season and a faltering end? Or a bad start and a good ending? Well, the real answer is neither… a good start and a good end are what we need. But that’s cheating, because it wasn’t one of the choices! In reality it matters where you are in the moment in time, where do you enjoy the success – at the beginning means you have hope for the season, but at the end means you are in the “here and now”.

We’re in the “here and now”, now… and it’s good. 7 wins out of 7, who can ask for more? Well, 15 out of 15 (i.e. win the next 8)… but in reality, it’s a good feeling to be finishing so well. The team are starting to gel very positively and the future seems bright.

Le Boss knows the difference first hand between third and fourth…

“We have come through a very difficult period. We have learnt from that and must keep our feet on the ground and focus on the next game. It makes a massive difference [to finish in third] because fourth place is a qualifier and third place is really the Champions League.  I would prefer not [to have to qualify], as would everybody, but if we have to do it, we do it. And don’t forget, it’s after the Euros so we might not have all of our players.”

I’ve definitely enjoyed the return of Rosicky – the emergence of young Oxlade Chamerlain – and the odd defying return to form of Theo Walcott. It’s amazing, three players who are really on top of their game. Mikel Arteta has slotted into midfield as if he has been at the Arsenal all his life.

PS, Happy Birthday Mikel!!

The future holds what we want it to. We’ve been in this position before. A good end to the season, a hope that we may strengthen in summer. Rumours of signings already, murmurs from the manager about next season.

Will it really be any different? Who knows. But, we do have an excellent platform to move ahead with. Our first XI is really something special now – even the back five. And with Wilshere to come back in too, we’ll be even stronger. So what do we need to do in summer?

Well… first of all, get rid of dead wood. Players like Almunia, Squillaci, Chamakh and sorry to say it, but Benayoun, are a little past it in terms of playing for the Arsenal. Secondly, improve the strength in depth. Players like Park Chu Young, Chamakh etc, just don’t cut it. If a player like Van Persie or Song gets injured then we are left with gaping holes, poor players coming in and an unbalanced team.

Arsene made one vital statement yesterday:

“We want Podolski here and if we can find world-class players, we will.”

The potential signing of Podolski is a step in the right direction, for sure; but we do not need to stop there. Back up for Song, back up for the central defensive area, a better goalkeeper in case Szcznesy gets injured and a world class winger… and hey presto, you’ve got yourself a title winning, champions league winning team.

All that is left to say is “Happy Monday”… a week off for the team, time to relax and enjoy…

An excellent day for everyone connected to the Arsenal. Our seventh win in as many games – three different scorers, a very good performance all round – what else do we want? It’s a great sight to see us in such an elevated position. Languishing in 17th after a few games and then just after we got to the top 4, we lost a few on the trot… so to come back and win 7 out of 7 is an amazing feat.

Arsenal 3 – 0 Aston Villa

We played well, but at the same time, Villa were poor. The team line up was nearly what was predicted, but Rosicky was given the nod ahead of Ramsey and the line up was:

Szcznesy

Sagna – Djourou – Vermaelen – Gibbs

Arteta – Song

Walcott – Rosicky– Gervinho

Van Persie

Now I really don’t know where on earth Mr. Rosicky has got this new lease of life, but he has been immense in our revival, effectively keeping Ramsey out of the team. He was immense again today and he seems to have a free role which means it’s impossible to mark him for the opposition and it drags the opposition all over the place.

The first goal was scored by a very unlikely goal scorer in Kieran Gibbs – but some excellent interplay with Gervinho saw him in  good position and he hit the ball at goal and it kind out went through Shay Given – who you had to think could have done better. Of course, he did actually get much better throughout the game. How nice is it to have Gibbs in the team and having had a run of games? Awesome isn’t it? And it was 2-0 before the break after a lovely ball into the air, over the defence by Songinho, and a great finish by the man in form, Theo Walcott – 2-0 to the Arsenal.

Having had two games in 4 days, the second half would be a little tougher, and Villa bettered themselves a little, more so by the removal of Emile Heskey. The second half was tighter, we were still good, but it looked liked it was going to be goalless… that is… of course, until Mikel Arteta stepped up in stoppage time. It was a free kick, but it was dispatched into the back of the net like no other free kick has been dispatched today – MOTD baby!

Arsene spoke after the game and commented on the excellent performance of the team:

I felt it was a very dynamic, fluent performance in the first half with top technical quality. It was a controlled performance in the second half, we controlled the game and managed not to concede a goal. Our fatigue came in a bit because we gave a lot at Everton on Wednesday night to win the game. Overall I am very happy, very pleased because we managed to score goals and not concede any. We have consistency at the moment, so let’s go home and wait for the next game.

It is very important now to continue the run and look up rather than down. If we think the job is down then we’ll fall into our own trap of thinking we’ve made it. We’ve seen how quickly everything can turn around, so we need to ensure that we keep our feet on the ground, concentrate on the next game and the next game only.

With the Euro’s coming up this summer, there has been a lot of fan and media interest in Theo Walcott’s performances and after his dip in form earlier this year, many were questioning his place in the Arsenal team. But February and March have been good months for Theo and today, he showed it all – movement, tricks, passing, skill and he scored a goal. His previous few appearances have also seen quite a few assists too…

Arsene singled out Theo in his post match interview:

Theo had a very good performance and scored a great goal. You have to give him credit for that. But I would like to give credit to the pass from Song, because it is not the first time he has done that. You do not see many defensive midfielders [do that]. If you look at the assists that he has made this season, you will see that his numbers are top in Europe.

Consistency for Theo is the key, and that goes for the whole team. We’ve got QPR at Loftus Road next weekend, and we’ve seen what they’re capable after they beat Liverpool earlier this week, so we will have to be very much on top of our game…

Til tomorrow my friends, til tomorrow…

Morning All…

Today is officially match day and there is nothing quite like a game when you’re on a run of form, when the sun is out and when the opponent is Aston Villa. The Villans have been very poor under Alex McLeish and they’ve really been quite average. They did indeed lose a sizeable amount of talent in the summer with the various sales they’ve had – but any team with the likes of Charles N’Zobia, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Darren Bent should be able to score goals. And despute their average-ness this season, that’s the major worry to be honest. They can score goals. I’d expect them to sit back and defend until they can break, and break they will do with pace.

What does this mean? Well, it means we’re going to have to be patient for sure. Away games are different, and Everton came at us, allowing us space – but against Villa it will be different. They will pack their half – two banks of four and maybe 4-5-1 with a lone striker. I’d expect them to be a little aggressive too if McLeish and the way he primed Birmingham are anything to go by.

The team news ahead of the game is that we’ve got no new injuries to worry about and we do have Squillaci & Diaby back in contention if need be…

Szcznesy

Sagna – Koscielny – Vermaelen – Gibbs

Arteta – Song

Walcott – Ramsey – Gervinho

Van Persie

It’s been interesting in recent weeks to see the rotation of Gervinho, Rosicky and Oxlade in the team. Personally for this game, I think Rosicky will be rested – especially after his exertions in recent weeks. I also think Gervinho will get a run out – he needs one – and if he does well, it will give us more options for the run in…

Arsene spoke about our recent run, and there was a sense of satisfaction in his voice…

“Am I surprised? No. But pleased? Yes. People questioned our attitude because we lost some games [in January] from leading situations at Fulham and Swansea. Recently it has been the reverse. But in the Fulham game, we’d played Saturday-Monday, finished with ten men and had no full-backs at the time. Since then we have more options and a bit better plan. That has allowed the team to feel more confident. At that time [this comeback] was difficult to predict. But I knew one thing – we wouldn’t give up. We were ready to fight until the end of the season and that’s all we promised ourselves.

And the comment about more options is very much true. Rosicky has had an excellent revival of form and you have to give the boy credit for the turn around. Oxlade has given himself every chance of being selected with some great performances and of course, the original replacement for Nasri, Gervinho is back in the squad, albeit suffering from a loss in confidence.

It’s Sp*rs vs Chelsea first and a draw is a good result for us – and a win for us too obviously!

I’ll be back after the game for a post-match digest… until then, enjoy the football…

Yesterday’s game was a good old fashioned 1-0 to the Arsenal, although the way in which we started, you’d think we’d have gone on to win by a greater margin. But on hindsight, the margin didn’t matter, the three points was all that did. The game itself was in stark contrast to the game at White Hart Lane, where Sp*rs had 25 shots versus Stoke’s 6 and finished the game with a draw. Our game was slightly more balanced, but we held on for three vital points.

We’re now into third (who would have thought?) and above Sp*rs. Life is good.

The starting XI was an interesting one, with Ramsey deployed on the left of midfield and Rosicky retained into the team, with both Oxlade and Gervinho on the bench. The plus point was the that the back five was our first choice back five and that was also very important. We’ve been on a great run recently and it’s no wonder that that has coincided with the return and of and consistency that having a solid back five brings – with full backs!

The line up was:

Szcznesy

Sagna – Koscielny – Vermaelen – Gibbs

Arteta – Song

Walcott – Rosicky – Ramsey

Van Persie

Although originally deployed on the left of midfield, Ramsey found himself floating into the middle and Rosicky seemed to have a free role. A little unbalanced defensively, but from attacking point of view, it was exciting to see the runs of all the players in all the different directions.

The goal of the game came just 8 minutes in when Thomas Vermaelen nodded in a Van “He assists when he wants” Persie corner. Great start, our third chance of the game and 1-0 to the Arsenal. I expected us to go on from there, but sometimes you have to battle it out for the win, and that’s exactly what we did.

1-0 to the Arsenal!

Arsene spoke about yesterday’s game and also the recent run of games and form we’ve experienced.

I felt if we scored a second goal maybe we could give a psychological blow to Everton. We had a brilliant start and slowly Everton got back into the game after 30 minutes. In the second half, for the most we did hang on until the last 15 minutes when we started to create chances again. But it was all Everton [until then]. We were resilient, focused and with a great desire to defend. Our defence played very well tonight. I felt it was a bit psychological – we refused to play because we just wanted to keep the score. Credit to Everton they played very well in the second half. I was always optimistic, because if you look at our results from October onwards we only had one bad spell when we lost three times on the trot because we had no full backs. The attitude of the team was always good, so I felt we could bounce back. We needed to be strong because we were under a lot of pressure and we will need that until the end of the season. Where we come from, we know what suffering means because in some press conferences I had to answer ‘are you playing not to go down’. We know we have a difficult battle in front of us.

We were 17th in the form table and now we’re 1st. That shows a great turn around if I do say so myself. But the job is far from done. We have a long way to go. We’re third now, but we’ve got to keep third and start to create some distance between us and Sp*rs. We were fortunate with other results, Liverpool, Chelsea & Sp*rs all dropping points, but it goes to show that we can also drop points if we’re not on top of our game.

It’s Aston Villa on Saturday at the Emirates. A win there would get us higher up the table and with Sp*rs and Chelsea playing each other on the weekend, as long as we get the three points, we’ll increase the gap…