Category Archives: Arsecast

Arsecast
May 17, 2013 posted by arseblog

Top four, Jack to replace Mik + Arsecast 279

Top four, Jack to replace Mik + Arsecast 279

Hello and welcome to Friday.

The day of reckoning draws ever closer. By 6pm Sunday we’ll know what next season will bring in terms of European football, but it strikes me that what we need to do this summer won’t be too heavily influenced by where we end up.

Accepting that Champions League football is a draw for certain players, it doesn’t mean you can’t sign quality just because you finish outside the top four. Clearly Luis Suarez is a crazy man but he’s also a rather wonderful player. The Mugsmashers managed to sign him despite scoffing from Europe’s lesser plate and have never given him a moment of Champions League football.

The reality is that our summer business should be predicated on the massive points gap between us and the title winners, not the very small one that will exist between us and 4th if things don’t go our way on Sunday. Maybe it’ll make it a bit more difficult to do the business we want but we’ll have nobody to blame but ourselves for that. Perhaps better investment last summer, or even a January booster, might have made this Sunday irrelevant, so little changes either way for me.

If we do what we need to, and win the game, it’s not as if you can mark the season down as a success. We’ll have achieved the minimum required, no more, no less. It’s not a laurel to be resting on in any way. We can be encouraged by what we’ve done in the last few weeks, and how we’ve done it, but it doesn’t alter the fact that this squad needs to be more competitive in all competitions.

Obviously the ideal situation is to win our game, see what happens in the others, and then make our plans based around that, but hopefully the word ‘contingency’ has been bandied about a bit because it would be unwise not to think it couldn’t happen to us. Still, three points makes all of those concerns subside, but between now and Sunday it’s hard not to worry.

In terms of the team for the trip to the Laura Ashley Monster Belly Bowl, we’re likely to be without Mikel Arteta with Arsene Wenger looking for a solution elsewhere:

Honestly, his chances of being available are minimal. I have to be realistic and prepare for another solution.

Jack Wilshere?

He is an option, yes. We will monitor him until Sunday and I will make a decision very late over what I will do.

To me Wilshere is the only realistic option provided he’s fit enough. We know he’s scheduled for post-season surgery on his ankle, the risk is whether or not he might cause himself some real damage. I suspect, given that he was about to come on just before Theo Walcott’s goal on Tuesday, that he’ll probably be all right. The boss said he’d only use Jack in an emergency and, well, this comes pretty close.

It’s not run around and wave your arms in the air screaming territory, but missing the experience and calm of Arteta for such an important game is hardly ideal. Ramsey and Wilshere at the base of a midfield with Rosicky at the top is about the best we could put out. There’s no Diaby, as we know. Francis Coquelin is a tidy player but he hasn’t started a game since the FA Cup defeat to Blackburn in February and his last appearance was a brief cameo as we held on against West Brom at the start of last month.

That leaves Jack, and although there are doubts over his fitness, I think we’ll be able to get something close to 90 minutes out of him. I suppose the other option is to deploy Ramsey in the Arteta role, move Rosicky back into the middle, play Santi as the most forward midfielder and play somebody else wide (perhaps Podolski with Giroud coming back as the main striker), but I’d worry that we might be a bit lightweight in there and we’ll have used up all our attacking eggs in one basket.

The Podolski/Giroud decision is another one that isn’t obvious either. After two games where he struggled, the German scored twice on Tuesday and it’d be difficult for the manager to drop him after that. Yet Giroud, for me, is a much more rounded centre-forward who holds the ball up well and will be nice and fresh after his three game ban. No doubt we’ll get more from Arsene in today’s press conference on the various permutations.

Right then, onto this week’s Arsecast and I’m joined all the way from the USA, and from Stan Kroenke’s home town no less, by Paolo Bandini. On the agenda is the Wigan game, how we cope with the absence of Arteta, the looming Newcastle game and all the other bits and pieces that have gone on this week. Also in there, some sports goods advertising while Mick Bendtner and Arshavin do a duet.

You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too (this is a much better way to do it as you don’t experience the delays from iTunes). To download this week’s Arsecast directly – click here 22mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

If you fancy a look at the book Paolo mentions, this link is your friend, and remember, the Arsecast can be found on Soundcloud (where you can subscribe/follow) as well as in their apps.

And that’s about that for this morning. We’ll have all the news from the press conference over on Arseblog News, and I’ll be back here tomorrow as usual.

Have a good one.

Arsecast
May 10, 2013 posted by arseblog

A whole heap of nothing + Arsecast 278

A whole heap of nothing + Arsecast 278

Good morning.

Normally Friday is a busy day as we prepare for the weekend’s game. Arsene Wenger holds his press conference, we get the latest team news and so on, but due to the fact we’re supposed playing Wigan our game isn’t until Tuesday because of their participation in the FA Cup final.

It leaves us with a football free weekend, but I’m right behind Roberto Martinez’s team for the game against Manchester City. Underdog stuff, of course, the same way I wanted Man City to win when they were in the final against Sp*rs all those years ago. That might not have been underdoggy and much as Spurshatey, but you know what I mean.

It’d be fantastic if Wigan won the cup … and then we relegated Wigan. Ideally, tomorrow’s game would go to extra time, and possibly penalties (although I’d happily take a winner in Linighan time), and they’d arrive at our place absolutely knackered on Tuesday. Whatever happens I don’t think they’ll be any more or less motivated for the game. Premier League survival, like it or not, is more important for the football club as a whole than a trophy win, but obviously they’ll be trying to marry the two.

So, it leaves things pretty quiet again from an Arsenal point of view. The best we’ve got is a story linking us with Dortmund right back Lukasz Piszczek. He’d tick some of the boxes for sure but it’s difficult to get involved in speculation with the season still running. I do think right back, despite my love for Sagna, is an area which we can improve in as injuries and loss of form have taken their toll this season.

The question is: does Arsene Wenger have enough faith in Carl Jenkinson to make him the number 1 with a younger player like Bellerin understudying, or will he create a Monreal/Gibbs situation on that side of the pitch? While there’s certainly plenty of merit to a competitive environment it also has to be balanced with the need for a measure of stability in the back four. Chopping and changing isn’t always ideal, but if he’s got two players who get the system and can be slotted in and out without causing too much disruption then that’s surely the way to go.

That’s easier said than done, however, and keeping both players happy over the course of a season is one of the challenges the manager will face. As for Sagna, I think he’ll move on this summer. He’s been linked with PSG and Monaco, and while he hasn’t ruled out staying with us for the final year of his contract, I don’t know that I’d bet a lot of money on him being at the club next season.

Elsewhere, David Moyes is the new manager of Manchester United. As I said yesterday on Twitter, I think this is a good appointment for the competitiveness of the Premier League. I can see why he was given the job, you lose one miserable dour Scotsman, you look for something similar. He seems to have been fully endorsed by Alex Ferguson and he is a good manager who has done a good job at Everton.

But with Ferguson moving upstairs, casting a red-nosed shadow over everything he does, and the pressure and expectation far and above anything he’s ever experienced at Everton, it’s hard not to think there’ll be some instability at United next season. Even if he brings in Baines and Fellaini, I think he’s going to find his natural conservatism hard to shake and the bigger point is just how important Ferguson was to what United achieved. He was a once in a lifetime manager; for all his qualities, Moyes isn’t anywhere close to that and that can only be good for the other teams who hope to compete for the title.

Finally, BT won some of the TV rights to Premier League football and announced their plans yesterday. Rio Ferdinand as an ‘an interviewer, programme maker and football expert’, Michael Owen as a co-commentator and a return for the risible Tim Lovejoy. I know there are many media directories, listing ‘talent’ available, but this is ridiculous. Whatever about Ferdinand, who clearly wants to be the next Bruce Forsyth, Owen has all the personality of a shoe … with its tongue cut out, and Lovejoy … well, this says more than anyone ever could.

All they’ve done is ensure more success for the sites who stream because nobody in their right mind would want to pay actual money to be ‘entertained’ by that pack of cretins.

Right then, onto this week’s Arsecast and joining me to discuss the Puma kit deal, the race for the Champions League and Arsene Wenger’s potential spending is John Cross. We’ve also got some newsflashes, a sad Arshavin and all the usual waffle.

You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too (this is a much better way to do it as you don’t experience the delays from iTunes). To download this week’s Arsecast directly – click here 25mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

You’ll notice that we’re now going to be serving the Arsecast through Soundcloud which means it should work via browsers on mobile devices and tablets, as well as their apps. If you’re a Soundcloud user you can follow me and all that stuff, and you can make time-specific comments etc on each podcast, so that’s all new and shiny and stuff. I’ve got most of the archives there too, but if you see any issues just let me know.

Right, that’s that, till tomorrow.

 

Arsecast
May 3, 2013 posted by arseblog

Short and sweet + Arsecast 277

Short and sweet + Arsecast 277

Morning all, welcome to Friday.

It’s been another pretty quiet week – you can tell because all the tabloids are just running last week’s transfer stories over again in the absence of anything else to talk about. Gonetic. Jovelons. Whatever. Let’s get to the summer then start worrying about these kind of things.

We got some early team news ahead of the trip to QPR tomorrow and there’s not much new there. Fabianski remains out after Grant Holt tried to eat his spare rib, Olivier Giroud serves the second game of his three game ban for the red card at Fulham, and apart from Abou Diaby that’s about it. It’s a relatively clean bill of health for this stage of the game, but even a small knock is season finisher at this point.

The boss has been talking about his options up front for tomorrow’s game and it looks like he’s going to continue with Lukas Podolski. He says:

He has the qualities because he is a good finisher. He has a good technique and because we have a game based on very quick combinations I believe he can be a part of that. Overall I am convinced in the coming games he will show it.

As we spoke about last week, he isn’t exactly another option, just the best fit in the absence of Giroud, but it would be good for his season to finish on a positive note. He’s had something of a mid-season slump, injury and the form of others have meant he’s been sidelined a bit too often, but his record isn’t bad. 14 goals and 11 assists in all competitions isn’t world entirely beating, but all things considered it’s a long way from being the failure some people suggest.

If he could get a couple of goals to ice the cake, I think it’s a return that would be generally positive, but there’s obviously a need for him to become more influential next time around. He was signed for his experience and ability to slot into a team without too much hassle. He’s at the right age, he seems to like it at the club (although I did read somewhere that his family stayed in Germany, which is a bit odd), and at this point we genuinely need him to do the business.

It’s not uncommon for more natural central strikers to struggle against Man Utd, but in a game against a team that has already been relegated, who’ve conceded more than twice as many at home as they’ve scored, it’s a good chance to show his stuff. We’ve seen what his left foot can do at times this season, a few final flourishes would be timely indeed.

Other than that there might be things for him to think about in terms of his midfield, with Wilshere and Rosicky competing for a place, right back with Sagna’s indifferent form something of a worry, and even left back as the Monreal/Gibbs merry-go-round continues. We should hear more from him at today’s press conference.

Beyond that there’s very little going on, a testament to the lack of fallout from any of our recent results. And at this point of the season that’s absolutely fine by me. There’s little enjoyment to be had from trying to figure out what went wrong, how it went wrong, and how little margin there is for putting things right. I like that we’ve just gone game to game, done what we needed to (for the most part) then gone silent. It might not be quite as interesting but it sure as shit beats the alternative.

So, without any further ado, let’s get on with this week’s Arsecast. Joining me to discuss last weekend’s draw with United, Bacary Sagna, Lukas Podolski and more, is @AAllensSport. We also have some exclusive news about new commercial partnerships and all the usual bits and pieces of waffle too.

You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too (this is a much better way to do it as you don’t experience the delays from iTunes). To download this week’s Arsecast directly – click here 21mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

And that’s really about that. We’ll have press conference news and any other breaking stories over on Arseblog News, for now though, have a good Friday and we’re back tomorrow with a full preview of the QPR game.

Until then.

Arsecast
April 26, 2013 posted by arseblog

Sideshows, defence + Arsecast 276

Sideshows, defence + Arsecast 276

Morning all and welcome to a sunny Friday.

Sideshows. Fun things in their literal sense. There’s the main event but there’s also something on the side to divert and amuse us. It’s little known, but during his Glass Spider Tour, David Bowie provided a number of these, including otter throwing stalls and beat poets who were so androgynous even the great man himself couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl.

They were a distraction, something to take your focus off the fact that even his incredible red suits and LED spider stage couldn’t make up for the fact that Bowie made a song with Mickey Rourke rapping in it (don’t believe me? Look it up). That’s something we’re faced with this weekend.

All the focus is on the fact that the Dutch Skunk is coming back, but the main event is far, far more important than any former player, regardless of how horrendous, traitorous and downright despicable he is. I’ll admit I love the pantomime of it. The guy who, regardless of what else happens, unites the crowd. Sure, there are some who think he was right to leave, others who think that by behaving the way he did he is history’s greatest monster, but during those 90 minutes I don’t think there’ll be too many people pleading his case.

Tim Stillman addresses this in his splendid column this week so I don’t want to go on about it, but underneath the cape and twirling moustache and mwa ha ha ha of it all, there’s a very important football match for Arsenal to concentrate on. While a good result will be made all the sweeter because of the circumstances, the bottom line is we need something from this game as the race for the top four draws to a close.

I don’t think the players will be as distracted as the fans, in fairness. For them players coming and going is part and parcel of professional life. There’ll be some back-slappery and maybe a few jokes but they’ll be fully focused on what needs to be done on the pitch. As Tim, and others have said during this week, perhaps the fact they’ll have to stand and applaud the champions will sting them, give them that bit extra they need to take points against a team that have won 12 games away from home this season, more than anyone else.

At Old Trafford Arsenal played poorly but handed United, and him (of all people), an early lead with the kind of defensive lapse which, eventually, saw Thomas Vermaelen consigned to the bench, and Arsene Wenger says recent improvement at the back has played a key role in the recent good form:

That’s where we’ve improved the most, it’s very important for the confidence of the team that we have such a [defensive] stability. As I said many times, we are an offensive team, but you are only a good offensive team if you have a good defensive stability. In the last two months that was much better.

I’m still not 100% convinced the balance is right but there’s no question being solid at the back is the best platform on which to base your game. For too long this season it was about scoring as many as possible and hoping we could keep the opposition out. When it worked, it was kind of spectacular and enjoyable. The 7-3 win against Newcastle was tremendous fun but the kind of game that would have people weeping into their coaching manuals.

And the issue was that when we didn’t score, or when our attacking game failed to click (not an irregular occurrence), we were banjaxed because clean sheets were hard to come by. It got so desperate that one of the solutions was to throw Serge Gnabry into the mix. A fine talent and obviously a player with potential, but so not ready for first team football at this stage.

The answer was to go back to basics from a defensive point of view. It took too long, and some untimely defeats to bring the manager to that conclusion, but better late than never, I suppose, and the upshot has been us taking 19 of the last 21 points and we’ve lost just once in the last 14 Premier League games. Laurent Koscielny puts this down to the protection offered by the midfield, Ramsey and Arteta in particular, but there’s been an improvement all through the team.

Sunday will likely be the toughest test yet of the team’s new-found defensive capabilities, but with points so valuable, we have to find the kind of efficiency that brought about the win in Munich. We had fewer chances than they did, but took them, and we’ve been a little below par in terms of creativity in recent games. Obviously, there’s plenty more to talk about before kick off and we’ll do that over the next couple of days.

Other than that there’s a heap of speculation this morning linking us to Fiorentina striker Stefan Jovetic, but unless there’s something concrete this, like the return of Sideshow Rob, is a distraction from what we need to do between now and the end of the season.

Right then, onto this week’s Arsecast and I’m joined to discuss the week that was by Philippe Auclair. On the agenda, Suarez and The FA, the United game this weekend, who the manager is going to pick up top and what other changes he might make ahead of the game. There’s some Amaury Bischoff PI and the usual waffle in there too.

You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too (this is a much better way to do it as you don’t experience the delays from iTunes). To download this week’s Arsecast directly – click here 21mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Happy listening, have a good Friday, news throughout the day on Arseblog News, more here tomorrow.