Massive Fixtures Ahead : Arsenal Title Credentials On The Line

They said "Arsenal will be tested by Swansea"; Arsenal won the match. They said "It will be Napoli who will really test Arsenal"; Arsenal won the match- comfortably I should add. We lost against Dortmund but they were champions league finalists last season and Arsenal did not make it a walk in the park for them did they?

Arsenal Flying High But Tougher Tests Lie Ahead

Arsenal are 2 points clear at the top of the EPL and there still remains doubts, in the minds of the so-called football pundits at least, whether Arsenal are genuine contenders to the title. Who cares what they think, Arsenal are top of the league and Arsenal fans are loving the view from the top :). My honest opinion is that it is too early to predict who will win but we will get a better idea at the end of December.

Moving on from foretelling the title winner, Arsenal are heading into the start of a very difficult period in the season with some tricky ties coming up. Staring with the home match against Chelsea tonight in the Capital One Cup, Arsenal host Liverpool followed by a visit to Dortmund in the Champions League and then to Old Trafford to face Manchester United in the League and they face an equally daunting task against a flying Southampton side at home in the league.As if that was not enough, Arsenal will arguably have an even tougher December to follow with games against Everton(H), Machester City(A), Napoli(A) and Chelsea(H). It is incredible how these big fixtures have all been put together. No wonder people are reserving their thoughts on Arsenal's credibility, because if Arsenal get past this storm of massive fixtures unscathed, or at least not battered, the title would be Arsenal's to lose.

A short note on tonight's match. Arsene knows that a critical phase is approaching in the season and I think he will be forced to prioritize here. He would want his best players to be fit for all these fixtures ahead and I think he will take a big gamble if decides to start with any of his regulars in tonight's match. Whether he will take that risk remains to be seen.

An Appeal To Arsenal Fans

"Man City sign........Manchester United sign.........Chelsea sign.........(even) Liverpool and Tottenham sign.......Arsenal linked with......."

I think the sentence speaks for itself here.

While other rival clubs of ours are busy signing players, most of us Arsenal fans are celebrating the 'big' players being linked with moves to the club, most of which are obviously fabricated. The more worrying thing for me is that we do this during every transfer window!


Its not that we do not sign players at all. We do. Over the years we have we signed Chamakh,Squillachi, Santos, Arteta, Mertesacker, Gervinho, Giroud....... after being linked with Ronaldinho, Sergio Ramos, Yaya Toure, David Villa, Fernando LLorente among others.

People come up with fantastic stories every year and every year, most Arsenal fans fall for it; every year. The more ridiculous the story, the more popular it is. The writers get their desired number of hits on the story and the readers get their dose of  "day-dreaming".

You have to look no further than comments on such stories. Comments like "...now Arsenal will win it this year......Arsenal triple winners this year.......Invincibles again.....a new dawn at Arsenal..."..... it goes on and on. And if you reply to such comments with comments like "we have not signed anyone yet" all you get is.... don't make me swear now! 

It is not a crime to be apprehensive. Being naive and "living in a bubble" is.

I am not saying we must be pessimistic about our team. We should always remain hopeful. We should hope that it will be different this year. But, we should keep our celebrations to ourselves until we actually sign a player or risk being ridiculed by "other fans" year after year.

You also do not have suffer the disappointment of broken promises......because the promises might not have been actually made in the first place!

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.

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?

Why Arsenal Proved Again They Won't Win Any Trophy For A While

Arsenal's Defense Not Scary Anymore

Arsenal lost against a league two side Bradford.
We were taken all the way by Championship side Brighton Hove & Albion, conceding 2 goals in the process.

I can't remember when we last kept a clean sheet..can you.

Where am I going with this?

Our defense is no longer mean. It seems like ages ago that we had a mean defense and teams would be scared of our defenses. They knew it would be tough to score against Arsenal and more than that, they knew that they would get hassled and kicked throughout the the 90 minutes. Team were genuinely scared of the presence of Martin Keown, Sol Cambell and Patrick Viera. They were the enforcers,leaders,commanders... whatever you want call them. I don't think I need to tell everyone that we won when these players were in our side and when they left, we never won anything....zero....zilch...absolutely nothing at all. You don't need to know rocket science to know that we need such players in the side to win trophies do we?

THE TEAM THAT CONCEDES THE LEAST GOALS WINS IN THE END. This is a golden rule that applies to all winning teams. We need to look no further than last season when Manchester City won the league on goal difference because they conceded less than they scored compared to Manchester United.

The most sickening part of all this is that even after 8 years since the last of our "commanders", Patrick Viera left, there has been not a single player who has come in and claimed to have come close to replicating them. Many compared Diaby to Viera but just because they look alike does not mean they have the same presence. Who would be scared of seeing Diaby in the team sheet?

We keep conceding goals against every side and cannot keep a clean sheet at all. The manager says that as long as we keep scoring more than we concede, he is happy with this team. But until and unless we are capable of keeping clean sheets with the use of some "commanders", 8 years will soon be 16years.

POST EVERTON : TOP 4 SPOT SLIPPING AWAY!

I don't think I need to say too much after the match. The facts speak for themselves:
1) After 14 games,Arsenal are in 7th position
2) We are 12 points behind league leaders Man United(its goodbye to the EPL trophy....again!)
3) We are 5 points behind 4th placed West Brom
4) We are 2 points behind our rivals Spurs and 1 point behind top 4 hopefuls Everton

WILSHERE WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO STOOD OUT

 Yet, the most important fact is that we are not playing well and, it does not look like we will be very soon. Yes, some players like Wilshere had a decent game but what about the rest? Wallcott scored and was almost anonymous for most of the game( like always). Ramsey got into good positions to score and wasted everything( like always). The rest.....we do not plan to finish mid-table do we? Surely we must do better. I dare say we were lucky to just draw 1-1 yesterday night. We were outplayed many times especially in the second half. Its against the high-flying Swansea next and honestly,things do not look good for Arsenal.

WILL IT BE MIDWEEK MISERY OR JOY FOR ARSENAL?

WILL OUR DEFENSE BE AS HAPPY AT THE END OF THE MATCH TONIGHT?

 Arsenal travel to the Mersyside to face Everton in their mid-week EPL fixture tonight. The match carries much importance to both the teams as teams look to battle for the top four this season along with Spurs and this seasons' surprise package in the form of West Brom.

This encounter has always served up some classics,especially in recent years. Everton have always given made it tough for Arsenal and are expected to do so again. They have always been a well balanced team under Moyes. This year however, they seem to be even more potent, thanks mainly to their impressive attack. Jelavic,Mirallas,Fellaini and ofcourse, Leighton Baines,who has created more scoring opportunities than any other player in the league this season, have been the key figures in propelling Everton to  new heights this season. Everton can hurt teams, no doubt. Just ask Manchester United. Defensively too, they have been very solid.

A few years back, many would have gone for Arsenal to nick it in the end. Infact, when the "Invincibles" were around,very few would have expected Everton to get a result. How times have changed. Pundits and the media put Everton as firm favorites for the match tonight. Sczesny pointed out indirectly,how things were stacked against us by claiming that this is a "six pointer".

Arsenal have been far from convincing this season and tonight's match could be a turning point for the club and the manager who is under pressure to perform. Win and Arsene will be hailed as the savior again. Loose and fans will be braying for his head. We don't want a draw do we?

WHERE IS ARSENAL'S "BEAUTIFUL" FOOTBALL?

WILL THE NEXT GENERATION DELIVER BEAUTIFUL FOOTBALL OR TROPHIES?

One of my friends told me a few years back : "Arsenal will play some pretty football but they won't win anything." It was the 2006/07 season. I don't think I need to say more about that season! Now when I think over what he said, sure he was right when he claimed it. But I wonder. Do we still play "pretty" football?

First of all, what is "pretty" football? Does it mean playing quick,short-passing game; or quick one-touch passing game; or passing your way to the goal; or passing and scoring lots of goals? Most would claim that short,quick passing game is what Arsenal like to play. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. But a key component that made our game "pretty" was one-touch play. The Invincibles were masters in the art and mesmerized the world with such plays. The next generation at Arsenal that came close to emulating the same style were the players from 2006/07 season with Fabregas,Hleb and Flamini at the heart of everything. I dare say such football is a thing of the past if one looks at the type of football that we play at the moment. Infact, Manchester United and even the so-called "smaller" teams like Swansea and Southampton arguably have better chance of winning the title of "pretty" football!

The irony is that we did not win anything when we played "pretty" football and it does not look like we will win anything when we don't play "pretty" football : ( .

ITS 13 IN A ROW FOR ARSENAL

CONSECUTIVE KNOCKOUT TOURNAMENT NO. 13

So, Arsenal have qualified for the knockout phase of the premier European club competition, the Champions League for the 13th season in a row. It is some achievement. Even the so called “great” teams like Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus have not managed the same feat. It is a commendable achievement no doubt.

As much as the achievement is commendable, it also remains a fact that all of these teams (barring Juventus) have won the Champions League in the same period at least once but Arsenal’s best performance has been finishing as runners up, once. Herein lies the irony. Is competing bigger than winning? Is consistently reaching the knock-out phase bigger than winning the tournament itself? Arsenal fans need no reminding of such questions because they have been asking the same questions for the last 7 seasons as Arsenal have failed to win any trophy yet have qualified for the group stages of the Champions League consistently. There is no specific answer to this question. However, yesterdays match in my view, gave away some of answers to our questions.

Yes,we won the match 2-0 but still we never played like we would win against any team. In fact, in the first half, we were lucky to be 0-0 thanks to some poor finishing from our opponents. Even in the second half there were quite a lot of nervy moments for Arsenal. We will not be as lucky in all the matches that we play. The need for a leader in midfield and defense was so evident in last night's match. You could see that our players were nervy. They were perhaps a bit awed by the occasion because they knew how important the match was. As I have mentioned so many times in my previous posts, we must be defensively solid. The only time we were solid in Europe was when we reached the Finals in 2006 when we did not concede for almost 900 minutes till the final where we were dealt a cruel defeat. Every other season we have conceded more than we scored before heading to the exit.It is a fact. And based on this fact it is quite clear that unless we get a defensive solidity in our team , we will might not fill our trophy cabinet.

ARSENAL FC : WHERE NOW?

I GIVE UP: THOMAS VEMAELEN AND JOHAN DJOUROU

I don't think one needs to be a rocket scientist to understand that Arsenal FC are in deep trouble right now. Arsenal are currently sitting 8th in the BPL 10 points adrift of the leaders Man Utd and their qualification to the knockout stage of the UCL still hanging in the balance.It is fair to say that at least the premier league is out of our reach now.I don't think anyone expects us to genuinely challenge for the UCL.FA cup and Capital One Cup?Arsene has made it more than clear that they are not among his priorities.

There are rumors that Arsene is going to splash 30mil+ on Cavani and he is also looking to spend on Taarabt,Zaha,etc.These are very unlikely to come to Arsenal.Why?Too expensive in Wenger's eyes.Le prof will not spend more than 16mil on a player(he never has). I won't criticize him for that. That is his way of dealing with player transfers and I respect that.Even if we wore to bring these players, they are not be our long-term solution.The real problem at Arsenal is defensive solidity(how many times have I mentioned that in my previous posts!). Right now,you will not find anyone who will say Arsenal will keep a clean sheet;against any team.They will give opportunities to the opponent to score;that is almost a certainty nowadays. This is what gives any team playing against Arsenal confidence that they can get a result.

The solution; we must develop the ability to keep clean sheets.You just cannot expect to outscore every opponent which we are doing at the moment.Honestly, I do not think we will sign any of the aforementioned and I will not be unhappy with that. I would be more happy if we keep clean sheets.Let the other teams feel that they have no chance of scoring against us.That will instill at least some fear in them.We have lost our fear-factor  and it is time we get it back-through defensive solidity.

THE BUSINESS END

So, the international break is over and we are back to some club football. We are in for some cracking matches this weekend and the weekends to follow.It is now what is described by many as "The Business End" of matches when games come thick and fast.

Points gathered during this time of the season often decides where a team finishes in the table. Arsene described this in his own words recently:

"In October the moment of truth starts for the team.The league establishes itself a little bit and the Champions League goes to decisive moments."


Especially after an International break, matches are often very difficult for teams to cope with as players are fatigued and not in ideal condition for matches.Added to it is the fact that international breaks are always accompanied by injuries to some players(Kos and Wallcot are out for at least the next game!).This makes the matches even more important.

Our next 4 matches read Norwich(A),Shalke(H),QPR(H),Reading(A).The very next match is against Manchester United(A) before we head to Shalke(A) and then host Fulham(H).Only then will we get a 7 day break before we host the North London Derby against Tottenham.It will be breathless football before that!
So, hold on to your seats, because we are in for some treat!