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7:30 pm May 23, 2013 posted by Tim Stillman - 4 arses

And now, the end is … er … here

And now, the end is … er … here

Did you ever see that old Simpsons episode where Bart gets so bored of beating Homer at a boxing computer game that he gives Homer one last chance to defeat him before declaring retirement? A determined Homer goes away, receives some tutelage and hones his gaming skills. When he plays Bart again he gives his son a simulated pounding in the boxing ring, but just as he prepares to administer the knockout punch, Marge pulls the plug and Bart retires undefeated? (If you haven’t, this torturous analogy will have been a waste. If you’re not au fait with the minutiae of specific Simpsons episodes, I suggest your life might have been a waste to this point anyway ).

That’s kind of what St. Totteringham’s Day felt like this year. Spurs had us on the ropes for much of the season. They have a good, tactically astute football manager as opposed to a caricature of a used car salesmen. Much as we did in 2011-12, Spurs had this season’s form player hoisting them up on his shoulders. Whisper it quietly, but Spurs didn’t even really shit their pants and collapse this time. Arsenal, in the meantime, were reeling from a second successive summer where more than one first team regular was sold and were left with a tactically unbalanced squad.

Arsenal had to ditch their attempts to play Wengerball because the chemistry just wasn’t fomenting on a consistent basis. Somebody from the coaching staff obviously read my blog in the wake of the Spurs defeat (Arsene, Bouldy, don’t worry about thanking me publicly, I’ll take a Diamond Club box next season as payment) because they went back to basics and earned a very commendable 26 points out of their last 30 to grab the coveted 4th spot.

Spurs lost Modric last summer, but the development of Bale into a genuinely world class match winner was enough to cover the loss, much in the same way that van Persie’s escalation in 2011-12 was a temporary band aid for Fabregas’ departure. (Modric isn’t in Cesc’s class of course, but the comparison stands). Tottenham will endure a summer of speculation over Bale. Even if Levy and co see out the storm this time, it will continue in every window until he inevitably leaves. Arsenal have held on grimly for the sponsorship and TV monies windfall and are, theoretically at least, looking at a relatively peaceful summer for once. Tottenham, lest we forget, are still trying to fund a stadium move.

As this blog from @AngryofN5 points out, we’re not quite debt free, but we’re also not in the belt tightening austerity years that Tottenham will have to withstand if they’re to go ahead with a stadium move. This is all basically a long winded way of saying that this should have been Tottenham’s big chance to overtake us. The landscape is beginning to shift to a sort of economies of scale situation in our favour. Theoretically, we’re about to get much richer and they’re about to get much poorer. (We have outstripped Spurs resources wise for some years as it is).

There’s been a lot of excitement around Arsenal’s financial muscle this summer and what it should mean. Without wishing to paint your hopes and dreams an unbecoming shade of beige, we still don’t have the spending capability available to Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United, the teams that finished ahead of us last season. We are rather hoping that the instability in all of their managerial situations tilts the scales towards us. But essentially, next season, fourth is still “about where we should finish.” Realistically, I think this team will need another year or two together before they can develop into bona fide challengers.

The focus will be to at least make the journey a little more comfortable. That means pulling away from the chasing pack for the top 4 and trying to glimpse the coattails of the forerunners. As @YogisWarrior suggests in this concise season review, much of that gap can be amended by improving our head to head record against the teams around us. Performing better in the domestic cups should also be seen as a priority target. In the past, I’ve defended Arsenal’s relative trophy ‘drought’ on the basis that we were typically being eliminated from knockout tournaments by the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United and Barcelona.

Losing to Bradford and Blackburn in what turned out to be very winnable competitions represents the undoubted lowlight of the season. Our under-performance in the cups meant our schedule was much clearer for league purposes during the run in. Chelsea and Spurs had more onerous commitments than Arsenal in the final 8 weeks of 2012-13. Desired improvement in the cups would remove this advantage next spring, so we would have to balance team selection appropriately. The bottom line is, the depth and quality of our squad must be embellished.

Though the manager has clearly chosen to be cautious with his kitty in previous summers, the pressure and expectation on him to spend is greater than ever. In essence, we’re asking him now to do something he hasn’t really done since the turn of the Millennium. In the summer of 2000, he splashed out for Pires, Lauren, and Wiltord (Edu was eventually added in convoluted circumstances). In 2001, Jeffers, Wright, Campbell, Inamoto and van Bronckhorst arrived. Of course, the stadium move was officially approved in December 2001, which is significant for the timeline in this case.

This year, our coffers are boosted and everyone knows it. Emirates, BT and (probably) Puma essentially supplant what player and property sales have brought in in previous summers. Arsene Wenger showed a proclivity towards brave decisions towards the end of 2012-13 by dropping his captain and his goalkeeper. The situation with Vermaelen has not concluded with the season’s end. The manager still faces a contentious decision there. Assuming Vermaelen isn’t sold, he is going to have to consider what he does with the captaincy.

Unless we receive a big offer, I’m not convinced Vermaelen will leave. Johan Djourou will surely depart, so that’s already one centre half we will have to replace. Bacary Sagna’s future is still the subject of debate. If he goes, I don’t think Arsene will want to spend the bulk of his summer replacing outgoing defenders when this promises to be a summer of consolidation. Even if Vermaelen enjoys a fabulous pre season and forces his way back into the team, his place is surely not certain enough for him to continue with the armband.

At Newcastle on Sunday, when Arteta hobbled off, he didn’t traipse down the tunnel. He stayed in the dugout and seemed to assist the manager with instructions from the technical area. Arteta was the first person Wenger embraced at the final whistle, which suggests that this wasn’t an unsolicited, John Terry style intervention. If the captain’s first job is to be the manager’s conduit to the players, I’d suggest Arteta is better placed to do that whether Vermaelen is playing or not.

Ordinarily, I don’t like debating the destination of the captaincy. I think it’s something British fans obsess over too much, as if the owner of the armband offers an instant panacea to a team’s ills. A good team should have a conglomerate of leaders in any case. But it’s an issue that is there regardless and one that needs to be dealt with. Wenger must curse the fact that he’s compelled to name a skipper. The captaincy has been an albatross and a recurring political headache since Tony Adams retired.

The stadium move in concert the Premier League oligarchies relegated Arsenal from title chasers to a band of clubs pursuing Champions League qualification. In the short term at least. This summer has to represent the time when Arsenal bridges that gap so that they move closer to first and further away from fifth. Ultimately, this is why we made the stadium move in the first place. So that in the long term, we could behave as a superpower without fear of inferiority complex.

In 2007-08, 2009-10 and 2010-11 we were in the championship running for about two thirds of the season before late collapses, precipitated by a shallow squad and mental frailty, were our undoing. This year, the group showed that they have the mental fortitude to finish strongly when they need to. Now they need another sprinkle of quality to extrapolate and sustain that form over a period of ten months. Arsene, it’s over to you. LD.

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Follow Tim on Twitter – @LittleDutchVA

Arseblog, the arsenal blog
8:08 am May 23, 2013 posted by arseblog - 519 arses

On Vermaelen and his future

On Vermaelen and his future

I had the oddest dream where I was staying at a hotel owned by Steve Bould, but rather than the luxury resort the brochures said, it was actually a front for his melon-rice factory (this is rice with melon mashed into it).

He had all kinds of orphans and unfortunates that he lured in off the street to work in an underground warehouse, and the waitress wouldn’t give me any breakfast because it started at 9.20 and I was in the dining room at 9.15. I ended up eating a packet of ham I found on the counter but it had that kind of rainbow sheen off it and tasted crap.

I think it’s allegorical. Steve Bould made the players produce the melon-rice of defending while Arsene Wenger smiled and appeared on the front of the glossy bumph, perhaps with Hervé Villechaize beside him. I’m going to leave this one here before dated references alienate a large chunk of my readership, but speaking of defence there are stories this morning about Thomas Vermaelen and his future.

I think they’re natural enough, given the way his season unfolded. I’m not sure I believe Manchester United are after him, they have a plethora of centre-halves to choose from and unless Moyes is going to start collecting them like George Graham did it seems unlikely. But questions about what might happen to him seem fairly reasonable.

I think it’s too simplistic to say that dropping him and bringing back Koscielny was the answer to our defensive problems. I think that certainly helped, but there was a lot more to it than that. The team in general was much more switched on defensively but of course it helped that we didn’t have somebody at the centre of the defence making errors and getting caught out of position as regularly as Vermaelen was. And on that, I think he was just doing the job he was being asked to do, to be aggressive and quick and win the ball high up the pitch.

The problem was he wasn’t winning the ball as often as he should, and we found ourselves exploited when play broke down and one of our centre-halves was miles out of position. To be fair to him, Koscielny, as good as he has been over the last couple of months, got caught in exactly the same way against Newcastle on Sunday. There was a moment when he chased an opponent up the pitch, without Arteta to naturally drop back there was a large gap, and only for a slightly over-hit through ball and some quick goalkeeping from Szczesny we might have paid for it.

But there’s little doubt that Vermaelen’s season has been a disappointment. With hindsight it’s easy to say he was the wrong choice for captain, at the time he was van Persie’s ‘deputy’ and the progression seemed natural. The problem is it made it more difficult for Arsene Wenger to address his form, which was iffy right from the start. Indeed it’s easy to forget that Koscielny had a poor first half of the season too and one of the worst decisions Arsene Wenger made was to drop Mertesacker and play the two similar centre-halves together against Chelsea.

I think that game convinced Wenger it had to be the BFG + 1, and it was Vermaelen who got the nod. Maybe it took too long for Wenger to address the Belgianphant in the room, but then it took him too long in general to realise that this team could not play the way he wanted it to, the way that his other teams had played in the past. When the focus switched from going out to win while trying to play creative, flowing football to trying, first and foremost, not to lose, then results improved. Vermaelen was the highest profile casualty of that.

So what now for him? Unless he’s completely and utterly lost the confidence of the manager, then it’d be good to see him stay and fight for his place. Looking at the final whistle picture on Sunday, he looked like someone who was thoroughly behind the team, and he doesn’t strike me as a stupid guy. He knows fine well that his form was poor and when the guy who replaces you comes in and plays as well as Koscielny did then you have to wait for your chance to present itself again.

Wojciech Szczesny got lucky, Fabianski’s injury opened the door for him to return after just a handful of games, but the understanding that Mertesacker and Koscielny formed was as good as anything we’ve seen from an Arsene Wenger team in a long, long time. It means that it’s going to be a challenge for him to get back into the team, but I think it would be good to see a footballer rise to that rather than seek the easy way out with a move. We’ve seen how healthy competition for places can be, it improves players, raises standards of performance and, ideally, keeps them high, and the consequence of that is a better team.

Plus, over the course of a season there’ll be injuries, tiredness and suspension, all things which will open the door, and it’s then down to the player to give the manager a difficult decision to make. Wenger showed with the Vermaelen/Szczesny situations that he’s not averse to making a tough call if he feels it’s for the benefit of the team, so we’ll have to wait and see if the Belgian is up for the fight.

The other consideration, however, is the fact that Arsenal do need a centre-half this summer. Djourou is likely to move away on a permanent basis, Squillaci is gone, and Ignasi Miquel seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. United have a squad with Vidic, Wonky-face, Smalling, Jones and Evans in it, and over the course of a season three centre-halves is not enough. You’re one injury and one suspension away from an unnatural solution, and this season has shown us how important stability in that area of the pitch is.

It might depend on the calibre of player he brings in as to what happens with Vermaelen. If it’s a signing which significantly knocks him down the pecking order then he may well feel his only option is to go somewhere else and play. And if that happens, if he’s leaving because we’ve made our centre-half selection better via the transfer market, then I’m ok with that too. I’m all for what makes the team better for next season, but maybe signing a good centre-half and keeping Vermaelen is the way to go.

Revolutionary, I realise, but hey. Right, that’s about that for this morning, back tomorrow with an Arsecast through which we can relive that wonderful final day of the season.

Until then.

Arseblog, the arsenal blog
8:12 am May 22, 2013 posted by arseblog - 489 arses

Squad assessment in 140 characters or less (ish)

Squad assessment in 140 characters or less (ish)

This time last year I spent a couple of days doing squad assessment posts, taking look at each player and giving them a grade.

We’ve been doing end of season ratings over on Arseblog News, but I thought, in order not to drag it out, we could Twitterfy the assessments this year and keep them below 140 characters each (mostly). Starting with:

GOALKEEPERS

Wojciech Szczeseny: Not outrageously bad but became a bit complacent, got dropped for Fabianski and came back more more focused. Can, and must, do better. C

Lukasz Fabianski: Came in from the cold after a year out injured, played well, got injured again. Gets a B on performances alone.

Vito Mannone: Had early season chances when Szczesny’s ankle was bollixed, did ok, but never enough to convince he’s got a long-term future. C-

DEFENDERS

Bacary Sagna: Struggled in what could be his final season with us. The impact of two broken legs hard to ignore. Loved that Sunderland display though C-.

Carl Jenkinson: Much improved, signed a new deal, now nearly as famous as his dad. C+.

Per Mertesacker: Solid, reliable, consistent, like an experienced pack mule. You try moving stuff up mountains without a mule. B+

Laurent Koscielny: Had some early season wobbles and was obviously hypnotised by Pulis when making the rugby tackle against Man City. Stormed back like a hero. B+

Thomas Vermaelen: It just never happened for the captain, his form was wayward, he gave away penalties and assists and found himself benched for the run-in. D

Sebastian Squillaci: *unfollowed* – Z

Johan Djourou: Played just twice before being shipped off to the Bundesliga to present a range of shows on ‘Die Shopping-Kanal’. N/G.

Kieran Gibbs: It’d fair to say he’s made progress this season. Still a bit brittle but left back looks healthy with the competition between him and Nacho. C+

Nacho Monreal: From Malaga to London in January. That is a change and a half but he coped well enough and hopefully we’ll see the best of him next season. C.

Andre Santos: #wtf :-( [instagram pic of some poo] – D-

MIDFIELD

Mikel Arteta: His consistency is amazing, faded towards the end of the season, but relished the responsibility and was a crucial part of the team. B

Abou Diaby: Started the season well but then                                                                      before coming back and then                                        once more. Knackered again, we should take him to the woods then drive off. E.

Aaron Ramsey: Grew as the season progressed and played a very important role in our end of season run-in. Has a good platform to kick on for next season. C+

Jack Wilshere: Worries about his injuries still dominate. Hopefully the surgery will see him get through next season without problems so he can reach his potential. C

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain: Suffered a bit from second-season syndrome but showed enough near the end to suggest he won’t be Terence Trent D’Arby. C-

Francis Coquelin: Arsene Wenger got his Coq out quite regularly in the first half of the season, but from January on we saw little of his thrusting runs or combative tackle. D

Tomas Rosicky: In cryogenic deep-freeze from August – February, made his now customary contribution to the run-in adding zip and energy to midfield. C+

Santi Cazorla: What a joy he is to watch, a brilliant signing who made a fantastic contribution. Player of the season for me. A.

ATTACK

Olivier Giroud: I think it’s been a decent season for the HFB. 17 goals, 11 assists. The issue was always that we had no back-up. Showed enough to suggest he can kick on next season. B

Lukas Podolski: Similarly Podolski’s stats are good, but it’s also easy to see why doubts exist about him and how he fits into the team in the long-term. B-

Theo Walcott: Finished top scorer, got a good load of assists too, and although still frustratingly uninvolved at times, had his best season by a long way. B+

Gervinho: Ended up with 7 goals and 5 assists but it’s the horror misses that people will remember. D-

Andrei Arshavin: Ultimately a massive disappointment, content to see out the final year of his contract. About as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. F

Marouane Chamakh: *reported for spam* FO

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So, there you go. If you want to have a look at the ones on Arseblog News, they’re here in parts 1 – defence, 2 – midfield and 3 – attack. Ratings are, of course, subjective and not meant to be definitive. Argue, debate, discuss, by all means, but don’t get your nose out of joint over them, life’s too short.

And speaking of life being too short, silly season is well and truly upon us with plenty of rumours flying about. I did enjoy the fella who declared that Arsenal had tabled a €30m bid for Stevan Jovetic, spent the next couple of hours re-tweeting the fact he was trending in certain regions, along with people’s tweets of praise, yet remained steadfastly silent when Fiorentina quite categorically denied they’d had any contact at all with Arsenal.

Given the expectation and, let’s face it, optimism (misplaced or not) that surrounds our summer business, I suspect there’ll be plenty more of this kind of stuff, as there’s nothing in this world that garners clicks and follows like an Arsenal transfer story. Worth bearing in mind, especially as we haven’t even reached June yet.

Till tomorrow.

Arseblog, the arsenal blog
7:20 pm May 21, 2013 posted by Anam Hassan - 4 arses

Tactics Column: The players of the season

Tactics Column: The players of the season

After Arsenal secured fourth place with the 1-0 win over Newcastle United and a chance of Champions League football next season, Arsene Wenger hailed his “special” players. In particular, he praised their mental strength as they overturned a seven-point gap from Tottenham Hotspur. The resilience showed in the team’s performances as they went nine league games unbeaten, and swapped their usual swashbuckling style for a more pragmatic approach. The belief was sowed after Arsenal’s Champions League win over Bayern Munich and set the tone for the rest of the season. It was a design based on efficiency, greater organisation and communication at the back but very reliant on taking what little chances the team creates. Arsenal took those chances and while getting to fourth place was overwhelmingly team effort, here are the five players who I think stood out most in 2012/13.

1. Santi Cazorla

The selfless way in which Santi Cazorla ended the season almost makes you forget just how good he was at the start of the campaign. Indeed, he had to alter his game twice for Arsenal in the season; the first, when he joined the club, as he was deployed in what was at the time, an unfamiliar role just behind the striker. He certainly gave no impressions as such when the season kicked-off and he started incredibly, asserting himself as the hub of creativity that Arsenal were built around. But that was also the team’s problem because at times – especially during a bleak period in the middle of the season – they were too reliant on the Spanish schemer.

Cazorla’s best performance was probably in the 3-1 win in October against West Ham United, showing just why he has the best passing figures in the final third of any player in the top 5 leagues. As ever, he glided across the pitch to always end up in dangerous positions but it’s remarkable to see just how high he played in that match: almost on level with Olivier Giroud. Actually, Wenger deserves a lot of credit for the tactical foresight to play Cazorla as the “second striker” and in the game, unsettled West Ham’s defence by starting high up, moving backwards to receive the ball and then bursting forward unexpectedly to get into good scoring or passing positions. That’s how he got his goal in the game, picking the ball up on the edge of the area and letting fly with his left-foot.

It was when Tomas Rosicky returned to the side that Arsenal could share the burden of creativity and Santi Cazorla was shifted to the left wing. He was less explosive from the side but he was no less influential, often drifting infield and getting into positions that he only knew how to get to, yet was still Arsenal’s chief playmaker. It will be interesting to see how Arsenal share the responsibility to create next season; fielding Cazorla in a roaming role on the left allows Wenger to name another creative midfielder in the line-up. Yet, Cazorla is so good that he must surely be central to Arsenal’s plans next season.

2. Per Mertesacker

Criminally, it took three-quarters of the season for Arsene Wenger to make Laurent Koscielny his 1st-choice centre-back (although it is said it might have come sooner had Naxto Monreal not arrived when he did as having a left-footer alongside him – Thomas Vermaelen – would supposedly bed him into the squad much quicker). Thankfully, Wenger realised Per Mertesacker’s worth earlier in the season although it came at a cost: a 2-1 defeat to Chelsea in September in which he was dropped because it was felt he lacked the mobility to cope with The Blues front four. However, Mertesacker was a mainstay in the side soon after.

Laurent Koscielny’s stellar end to the campaign was probably more aesthetically pleasing but Mertesacker represented an ideological shift to Arsenal’s backline, and that’s why he makes it ahead of him in this list. Because Per Mertesacker does things that the other centre-backs don’t do, and his presence in the line-up has a calming effect on whoever he partners. That has been evident in the case of Koscielny whose performances alongside captain Vermaelen had looked slightly erratic, as the stats show here, but has improved immensely with Mertesacker alongside him. Indeed, is there a case, considering the contrast in displays from the first half of the season to the second, that Mertesacker makes Koscielny better? The answer is probably no, but the fact that it is even discussed highlights how crucial Mertesacker has become to this Arsenal side.

3. Mikel Arteta

If I was to say Arsenal were a stronger team in 2012/13 as opposed to the last, much of that reasoning would be down to Mikel Arteta. Because last season was a side largely by the awesomeness of Robin van Persie and his goals masked structural deficiencies in the squad. Alex Song and Mikel Arteta weren’t much of a partnership as neither player took responsibility to hold in front of the defence. This season, Arteta has done just that on his own and in the second half of the campaign, was liberated in a sense, by the breakthrough of Aaron Ramsey.

Tactically, Arteta has been superb, breaking up play with both his reading of play and improved robustness in the challenge. Indeed, those are backed up by the stats, completing on average 3.2 tackles per game and 3 interceptions, making him Arsenal’s best defensive player (and top 10 in the Premier League). But he’s also the team’s first line of attack, initiating forward play with his accurate passing (and has an underrated burst of pace too which allows him to get away from the opponent’s first line of press).

4. Theo Walcott

While Gareth Bale often finds his free-kicks hit the back of the net with pinpoint accuracy, Theo Walcott can sometimes see his shanked horribly off-target. Both practice hard at set-pieces; Theo Walcott more so on his technique than necessarily trying to craft a niche from such shooting opportunities. For Gareth Bale, detail is everything, from the stance to the run up, and he strikes the ball in particular way so that it achieves maximum top spin rather than bend.

From that example, one might dissect a harsh conclusion of the paths of the two careers, but players both ought to be mentioned in the same breath as the season now that the season is behind us.

Theo Walcott’s numbers are magnificent, scoring 14 goals and delivering 10 assists altogether in the league. He’s not carried the team quite in the same sense Gareth Bale has, and in any case, the comparisons are unfair, but he’s transformed himself into one of the best players in the Premier League.

Walcott’s performances in the middle of the season in particular, were of the level we’d expect him to become and against Newcastle in the 7-3 win, he delivered one of the most destructive performances of the season. Theo Walcott is key for Arsenal because he’s probably the only player who gives depth to their attack, whether that’s starting from the middle or the right.

5. Olivier Giroud

The popularity of Olivier Giroud it’s argued is symptomatic of the club going nowhere fast. Whether that’s the case or not, it must be agreed that he has had to shoulder a tremendous amount of responsibility. He’s Arsenal’s only recognised striker – and as such, only probably makes this list by default. Nevertheless, it’s still been a big season for Giroud.

He has scored 11 league goals, which is not a shabby return for somebody who is still developing himself. But his role goes beyond being just the main goalscorer and as such, it is probably why Wenger is willing to overlook some of his deficiencies. Not that he has many because Giroud can do everything. He’s technical (for a big man), can hold the ball up, and bring others into play, runs the channels well and works very hard. That means it carries little risk for a team that is still adapting to playing with each other. In that sense, Giroud acts as bit of a buffer, lessening the impact of this adjustment period by taking hits for the team as they strive to find better balance and understanding. Of course, Giroud still has a fair bit to go before he can call himself Arsenal’s undisputed first-choice striker but for Wenger, that’s alright if only what Giroud does is make Arsenal play.

Honourable mentions

Aaron Ramsey: Had a great end to the campaign, and promises to be a crucial player for Arsenal once he becomes a little more decisive.

Kieran Gibbs: Has tough competition in the form of Monreal but has arguably surpassed him in recent months. His recovery speed is a huge plus.

Laurent Koscielny: Another player who ended the season well, if only because he never really got the chance earlier on. His anticipation is a joy to watch.