The Fall From Grace - Part II

A Ray Of Hope

So, where do Arsenal go from here?


In my opinion, the way forward for Arsenal is to look back.

The Arsenal team with which Arsene initially  had so much success was handed down from George Graham. This team had the meanest defense on the land.So much so that"1-0 to Arsenal" was the cliche at that time. What Wenger did to this team, after he came in, was that he bought some players with attacking flair to give our club some "Style". However, and most importantly, the back four remained unchanged. What I am trying to say is that we have to have a strong defense if we are to succeed. The team must be built from the back. If Wenger looks back in time, he will realize it. Obviously,he has not done so yet. He has even claimed many times that he will be happy as long as his team scores more than the opponent! That will just not work.Definitely not if the club sells its best attacking players each year!

We all know how the teams that have the best defenses or defend the best get to win trophies(Chelsea anyone?). Our defense is among the worst in the league. You might argue that we have conceded the third lowest number of goals in the league. But, at least in the league,the defense with the most clean sheets win. Just look at Manchester City last year or the Manchester United team this year and the previous years and Chelsea. It would be very bold to predict that Arsenal will keep a clean sheet, even if it is against a "lesser" side. Just look our recent matches. Bradford, we conceded 2, scored 2. Blackburn, conceded once and lost.Bayern,we conceded 3, scored 1. If we had managed to keep a clean sheet in all these matches, we would have still been these competitions. The thing with keeping clean sheets is that we give ourselves every chance of winning.

The worst part of all this is that, we can just sit there and point to our team's nooks. We know that our protests will fall in deaf ears and we can do absolutely nothing about it. Its painful and difficult. To look at a club's rise to the top and fall so dramatically. Well, we were with the club when Arsenal were at the top, lets get behind the club when we are on the way down. "Through Thick and Through Thin" as they say.

The win yesterday was a pleasant welcome. But again, we made it difficult for ourselves and until the final whistle blew, we never knew what could have happened, against one of the league's minnows this season, Aston Villa.

The Fall From Grace - Part I

Is he to be blamed?

So we are out of the trophy hunt. Yet again.
Our hunt for a trophy(if we are looking for one at all!) continues for yet another year.

I doubt anyone would have expected such a trophy drought when Arsene was sweeping everything before him when he first arrived at Arsenal. The pinnacle of his achievements would unquestionably be the 2004/2005 season when Arsenal won the league without a single loss all season. After the victorious campaign, I still remember what he claimed to the world : "There will be a new power shift from Manchester to London". He could not have got it more wrong.

It would not be wrong to say that Arsenal are no longer a power house.(The talk of "power shift" is out of the window)! They are a good club no doubt. But, we are no longer a force. It was made apparent by our tame defeats against Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United and more recently against Bayern Munich.We were well outclassed in all these matches. Even Arsene admitted it. After the defeat to Bayern, Arsene claimed "Bayern were class". (Of course, that means we are not!). Defeats against League Two side Bradford and Championship side Blackburn suggested we were not even close.

Is it the fault of the Board or Arsene or both? We can blame whoever we want to but the fact remains that Arsenal have become just another average team.

Win Marred By Wilshere's Loss

Wilshere Will Be Badly Missed

It was a resolute performance for the 1-0 win from Arsenal yesterday. We were able to cling on to the one goal lead ,especially when we were under immense pressure in the second half after we lost Jenkinson to a red card. The win was more important as it meant we are still in the race for a top four finish after Spurs had earlier won their match against Newcastle.

We witnessed some excellent football in the first half from Arsenal. Wilshere and Cazorla were involved in most of the attacking threats that we had against Sunderland. The only downside in the first half was that we could not score more goals when maybe we should have because the slim lead placed us under immense pressure in the second half. The second half did not start well. We lost Wilshere, our main man, on 50 minutes to injury. And then Jenkinson got sent off for a second yellow following a rash challenge. We had to play the last half an hour with ten men and just about hung on for the win. We missed very good chances to go up 2 or 3 goals up and had to thank Szczesny and Sagna for helping us keep a clean sheet.

The good thing to come out of the match is that we were resilient as a team and were hard to break down even after being reduced to ten men. But the biggest loss is undoubtedly Wilshere. He will be a big, big loss. He has been such an influential player for Arsenal. I wonder how we will cope with his loss. His loss could be season defining for Arsenal, such is the importance of this player. Lets just hope we perform well without him and pray for his quick recovery.

After the match, our players were looked extremely tired and fatigued.Our next opponents are Blackburn at home in an FA cup tie on Saturday, which means our players will get some well deserved rest. Thank god we don't have Champions League match this week!

Arsenal Top of The League And Sunderland Vs Arsenal Preview

To Start off with, it has just been revealed that Arsenal would be joint top of the league if we were to remove the first half of matches! Here is the link to how the table would look.

The race for the top four is hotting up. Arsenal are five points behind third placed Chelsea and four behind fourth placed Spurs. Everton are just a single point ahead of us at fifth.  The first team to blink will be left behind.

Arsenal, needless to say are placed much worse than the other three above us.Such is the situation that Arsenal  put themselves in that anything less than three points will pile more pressure on us as we will slip further behind in the table which could open the doors for Liverpool to take over us!.

The team news ahead of the game is not encouraging too. Vermaelen and Koscielny are out and it could mean Sebastian "What is defending?" Squilachi will start in defense alongside Per Mertesacker.We have  been leaking goals even with Vermaelen or Koscielny in defense. With Squilachi, we are most certain to do it!

We have seldom performed well immediately after an International break. Fatigue will be an issue as most of our players played over 60 minutes during the break. Lets hope a certain "Wilshere" will bail our team again.

Wilshere's Progress: Good or Bad?

Wilshere Has Grown In Stature

Now, don't judge me by the topic heading here. I know it is stupid. Of course Wilshere's progress is GOOD for everyone!

Wilshere is an outstanding player which he proved again in the mid-week international friendly against Brazil by running the show in mid-field and claiming the MOTM award in the process. He was praised for his performance from everywhere. The papers, the pundits, fellow players,fans...everyone. If the world had not realized what Wilshere could do, they were left wondering what he could not do after the match.

What is my point? Let me sum up my point in a sentence : "If Arsenal were badly in need of a trophy, they need it sooner than ever". Otherwise....its back to "reality check".....like every year for the last few years at Arsenal.

POLL: Monreal Vs Gary Neville!

I just went through some of the images of Arsenal's new signing Nacho Monreal and realized that he looks strikingly similar to the Manchester United great, Gary Neville.

Do you agree with me?

Get Real! Its Mon"REAL" : Who Is Monreal?

Nacho Monreal Completed His Move To Arsenal...Just

In the end, we did come up with a signing. I did not see that one coming to be frank. It looked increasingly like we would not make any signings at all. Fans and the media were expecting so many "big name" signings. They were virtually linking everyone seen playing with a football! Its almost as if Arsene made the signing just to dodge the question "Why didn't you sign anyone in the transfer window?".

So who is Monreal? The 26 year old former Osasuna youth and senior player(127 appearances for senior squad) only moved to Malaga in 2011(42 appearances in total). Here are his stats so far for the 2012-2013 season:
Appearances            : 14
Goals                        : 1
Assists                      : 2
Pass Completion%   : 85.3
Man Of The Match   : 3
Average Rating       : 7.19
 (stats from whoscored.com)
He is not a bad signing by any means. In fact,if you look at how well Spanish imports have been doing in the premier league, he could well turn out to be a very good signing. Many expected big name signings like David Villa or a physical enforcer like Diame to come in but...I guess something is better than nothing! The fact of the matter remains that one player cannot change the way we play, given how poor we have been this season, especially defensively(defense has been our Achilles heels for some years now!). Maybe we needed more signings...quality...signings..but our "ambitions".....(just read THIS. I already have a post about our ambitions). Only time will answer all our queries.