Category Archives: Arsecast

Arsecast
April 12, 2013 posted by arseblog

Will being benched buck up Vermaelen? + Arsecast 274

Will being benched buck up Vermaelen? + Arsecast 274

Good morning and welcome to Friday after what seems to have been a long week.

We can now start looking ahead properly to tomorrow’s game against Norwich and the early team news is that both Jack Wilshere and Theo Walcott are likely to return to the squad. Obviously that leaves the manager with some decisions to make. We’ve been over the Gervinho/Walcott issue, I maintain the Ivorian should keep his place, and so he should if he continues to play well.

The Wilshere situation is made a little less complicated by the fact Tomas Rosicky is likely to miss out with Arsene Wenger saying he’s a ‘big doubt’ because of a hamstring problem. It’s a shame for him that he doesn’t get to follow up his two-goal display against West Brom, but when you consider the quality of the replacement it could be a lot worse.

That said, with Podolski fit again the manager could drop Cazorla back into the midfield and start the German, leaving Wilshere as a substitute to come on if needed. Given that Jack was left out deliberately to ensure that he didn’t aggravate a potential injury, it wouldn’t be too surprising if he were eased, rather than thrust, back into things.

One man who will definitely come back into the team is skipper Thomas Vermaelen. Having been dumped onto the bench in Munich, where he remained until called up on in the wake of Mertesacker’s red card last Saturday, he’ll have a chance at redemption tomorrow. Arsene Wenger has, as you’d expect, bigged him up, saying of his reaction to being dropped:

He took it in a remarkable way. He is a great man and I didn’t make him captain by coincidence. I knew there is something mentally special there. He responds in positive situations and in less positive situations like when you don’t play.

They know there could be rotation with the three centre backs from the start of the season, depending on good and less good periods of any individual player.

There’s definitely an element of confidence boosting going on there, but there’s no question that Belgian has been below-par this season. He made the kind of mistakes that saw other centre-halves at the club roundly pilloried, but he was shielded from that kind of backlash because he’s popular, the captain, and still had the goodwill his goalscoring exploits created.

His assist for the Dutch Skunk at Old Trafford, for example, was abject defending. In the end the pantomime storm of Santos and the shirt swap served to protect him, and I think if outrage can be in any way constructive, it would have been far better to be angry about the carelessness of Vermaelen’s defending than the fact Santos took an ex-teammates shirt when it was handed to him as they trudged off at half-time (quite deliberately, in my opinion too, but that teacup has already been chucked out)

To me he looked like a player who had slipped, unconsciously I’m sure, into something of a comfort zone. The armband meant a guaranteed start – it certainly worked that way for most of the season – with the manager reluctant/unwilling to change for one reason or another. Perhaps he thought the dip in form was temporary; it wasn’t. Perhaps he thought Koscielny wasn’t the man to replace him; he was.

When Vermaelen sat alongside Wenger at the press conference in Munich he answered questions like a man who fully expected to start the game and to captain the side. Why wouldn’t he? The manager had given no indication that he’d change and dropping your captain, like it not, is a bit different to dropping any other player. But out went Vermaelen for Koscielny and since then Arsenal have looked better defensively.

I think much of that has to do with a changed approach to how we defend, but I think some of the issues we’ve had this season (and before) have been because Vermaelen struggles to maintain positional discipline. He likes to try and win the ball high up the pitch, which is great when it works, but when it doesn’t there’s all that space for teams to exploit.

Now, I’m not trying to pin all our defensive problems on him, far from it, but for me his poor form stretches back into last season and the manager was a bit too slow to recognise it and do something about it. Hopefully being dropped will be something of a shock to his system and will shake him out of the funk he was he was in.

I’m not sure he’s ever going to be the defender we hoped he might, at 27 the flaws in his game are still too apparent, but between now and the end of the season it’d be good if he reacted positively to the last few weeks and and performed to a higher standard. The manager, finally, sent the message that nobody is untouchable in this team, it’s now down to Vermaelen, like Walcott and Szczesny and others who find themselves sidelined by the form of others, to take their chances when presented.

Right then, onto this week’s Arsecast, and I’m joined to discuss the week that was by Tim Stillman. There’s some Arshavin and the usual guff as we prepare for the Norwich game.

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 20mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

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We’ll have news updates throughout the day on Arseblog News. Arsene meets the press this morning so there’ll be plenty going on.

Back here with a full preview of the Norwich game tomorrow.

Arsecast
April 5, 2013 posted by arseblog

Continue the evolution + Arsecast 273

Continue the evolution + Arsecast 273

Hello there, and welcome to Friday.

Normally we’d have an Arsene Wenger press conference to look forward to but the boss can’t make it this week because he’s lost his voice. Rumours that he suffered this injury around the same time as Gervinho started finding the net seem unfounded to me.

“No, in the net, Gervinho.”

“Between the two sticks.”

“NO, BETWEEN THE TWO STICKS AND IN THE NET.”

“THE TWO STICKS THAT MAKE UP EACH SIDE OF THE GOAL, NOT THE CORNER FLAGS.”

*croak*

Anyway, it’s been left up to Steve Bould to give us the updates on team news and so on, and heading into the game tomorrow there’s little new. Both Wilshere and Walcott remain sidelined although they’re both back outside running (someone should run an EXCLUSIVE about that), but neither are expected to be back any earlier than the Norwich game.

What’s interesting to me anyway, and it’s a point I make in today’s Arsecast in the chat with @thegoonerholic, is that even if both were fit, the boss would have to stop and think about whether or not they’d play. As much as Gervinho frustrates, he’s got 2 goals and 2 assists in the last two games, and Walcott’s recent form has been pretty poor. With no goals since Jan 30th, it’d be a risk to bring him straight back in.

Similarly with Ramsey and Wilshere in midfield. The Welshman has done very well, Arsenal have won two of the last three games he’s started. Which isn’t to say we don’t miss Jack, but it’s good to see that the squad, whose depth we bemoan, has eased the burden when it comes to those two players being out.

Interestingly, given yesterday’s blog post, Bouldie has given props to Ramsey for the way he’s come back into form, saying:

Aaron has been fantastic. Seeing him in day-to-day training, he works extremely hard. He never moans, gets on with his game and has done everything he’s been asked to do. He’s physically fantastic and he gives something to the team. I think he’s improving all the time.

He was getting a bit of stick [from some supporters] to begin with and I think he felt that a bit. It takes a big character to come back and he’s come back massively.

I said what I needed to say yesterday so I won’t dwell on it, but I’m all for every single one of our players finding form between now and the season’s end. There’s no doubt that the futures of some are more uncertain than others, but if everyone can contribute on this run in then we’ll be better off for it.

Watching the display against Reading it was obvious that the team has rediscovered some confidence, the way we knocked the ball around was fantastic – and even if you might want to qualify that by highlighting how poor the opposition were, I’d say a good part of that was because we made them look poor by playing well. Bould points to the game against Bayern as the one that reinstalled some belief:

The big thing for us was getting that result at Bayern. I think we’re more or less the only team that’s won there this season so it just gives everybody a belief that we’re doing alright. It was an important game for us.

And perhaps with a tiny little ‘Toldyaso’ hat on, he said:

I think everybody has realised that clean sheets win games a lot of the time. We’ve improved.

The increased focus on our defensive duties has been an important factor, no doubt about it. It gives us a genuine platform to go and win games. Bayern and Swansea both required full concentration from all 11 players, especially when we didn’t the ball. We stayed disciplined, accepted that sometimes it’s not the best idea to try and win the ball high up the pitch leaving space in behind, and we took our chances when they came.

There’s no question that greater application defensively was a huge part of both those wins, but it’s so important that we maintain that for the final 8 games. There have been times we’ve watched this Arsenal team and had Eureka moments. “That’s it, that’s the blueprint!” we cry as a performance brings about a good result, yet a few games later the team seen unable, or unwilling, to do the very things that were so effective. I hope a couple of clean sheets doesn’t alter the way we approach the game against West Brom, or the one after that, or the one after that.

It might be slightly against our nature, but either you evolve or you get gobbled up or left behind. If we’ve had to sacrifice some of our attacking intent is it a bad thing when the last three results have been so good? Arsene and Steve Bould have to ensure that we keep doing the hard work, the rewards will come if we do.

Right then, onto this week’s Arsecast and joining me to discuss a quiet week, and my fears that this might be the last Arsecast ever, is @thegoonerholic. On the menu, Gervinho, Rosicky, Reading and the run-in. There’s Mick Bendtner and the usual 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 19mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

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That’s yer lot, news throughout the day on Arseblog News, back with a full West Brom preview tomorrow.

Arsecast
March 29, 2013 posted by arseblog

End of a sad road for Diaby + Arsecast 272

End of a sad road for Diaby + Arsecast 272

Morning all.

We’ll start with the Abou Diaby story, and the French midfielder’s injury curse continues as he was ruled out yesterday for up to 9 months with a cruciate ligament injury. It’s unbelievably harsh news for a guy who was happily proclaiming he’d learned to manage his own body just a few days ago. Clearly, his body doesn’t like him much.

On a purely human level it’s hard not to feel sorry for him. The fact that he earns a lot of money shouldn’t exempt him from sympathy. Sure, he earns well and he’s set for life, but money is not a shield from everything bad in this world. Plenty of rich people are depressed and miserable. If we were to dole out care and goodwill based on people’s bank balance, none of us would deserve a bit of it, simply because there are people far worse off than we are.

He’s a guy who has worked incredibly hard since having his ankle destroyed in that tackle by Dan Smith, and it’s impossible to look beyond that challenge as the defining moment in his career. He was just 19 years of age, that match was over, Arsenal were winning 3-0, and that idiot went in late, high and hard and it’s wrecked Diaby’s footballing life.

Since then he’s tried everything to remain injury free and was hopeful that this season he’d cracked it. From extra training in the summer, specialists, consultants, training regimes and everything else. He just wants to be fit enough to play football, but he’s never been able to play for long enough to become the player people thought he might be. You can’t play 5 games here, 10 games there, missing great chunks in between, and ever hope to realise your potential.

It must also be frustrating for him, as somebody who simply wants to be fit, to see players at Arsenal who have the gift of good health and who remain mostly injury free, waste away their careers, content to pick up their money rather than play the game. While it’s clearly not an either or situation, I’d be firmly on the side of the guy who was trying his hardest, rather than the fella who has given up and doesn’t care anymore. I’d rather see him paid than the bloke who did nothing at all and still lapped it up.

If there’s frustration it ought to be directed elsewhere, not at him. He didn’t injure himself, he hasn’t tried to sponge off the club, he didn’t give himself new contracts (and it was 2010 when he signed his last deal – not so recent that hoping he could become fitter was unreasonable). It’s fairly clear that Arsene Wenger was desperate for Diaby to make it, he gave him every chance to do that when other players have been moved on when injury blighted their career. It’d be fair to say that the impact of Smith on Diaby has been far greater than that of Taylor on Eduardo, but the Crozilian was, essentially, frozen out and then sold.

I can understand that Arsenal didn’t want to give up on Diaby, there were enough years left in the tank for him to make an impact … if he could stay fit. What a big if though. The sad fact is he can’t. He started this season very well, had a great game against Liverpool, then missed three months after taking a shot on goal against Chelsea. He’s come back again, now he’s gone for 9 months. And as harsh as it might sound, that really should be that for him at the club.

Nobody can ever accuse Arsene Wenger or Arsenal of not giving him every chance, of not standing by him through a set of circumstances that were not his fault, but perhaps it went a bit too far the other way. Selling a midfielder and hoping to replace him with Diaby was, at best, wildly optimistic. He isn’t a player you can rely on, the aches and niggles and strains mean he just can’t play often enough to be considered a vital part of the team. Another serious injury on top of that means he’s a full year away from being ‘match fit’.

The solution is not obvious though. You can’t ‘get rid’ of a player who is going be out of the game for 9 months. Nobody will buy him. Suggestions of paying him off and sending him on his way don’t seem feasible to me either. When has it ever happened? And while I don’t see any real future for him as an Arsenal player, what would it say about any football club that would treat a player that way?

There are, in this world, some right spawny people who, no matter how badly the shit comes down, always manage to escape smelling of roses. They can be racist, adulterous, spiteful, horrible, despicable, violent, mean and stomach churningly awful, yet always land on their feet. Diaby is the opposite. He might, from time to time, land on his feet but he’ll turn his ankle and step on a rusty nail at the same time. C’est la vie.

For me it comes down to this – you can want Arsenal to improve the squad and be more competitive and still have sympathy for a footballer whose career was needlessly ruined in an instant by a moron. The two things are not mutually exclusive. I hope that one day he manages to stay fit for a few seasons and enjoy his football. I don’t believe it will ever be with Arsenal, and I imagine this is a line crossed that will make the manager think that too, but who would begrudge him a few good seasons somewhere else?

In the very short-term, I don’t think this is an injury that affects us greatly. While obviously you want as many players fit and healthy for the run-in as possible, the truth is he hasn’t ever been fit long enough this season to become that important to the team. There are numbers, and options, once we don’t pick up any more knocks I think we can cope without too many problems.

Anyway, best of luck to him. This is going to look like a long, dark road ahead, I hope he comes through it well.

—

Right then, onto this week’s Arsecast and I’m joined by Tim Clark from Arse2Mouse to discuss Diaby, the return of real football and more. There’s also a bit of culture in there and 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 19mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

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That’s yer lot, have yourselves a good Friday.

Arsecast
March 15, 2013 posted by arseblog

Wenger’s Fab decision + Arsecast 271

Wenger’s Fab decision + Arsecast 271

Morning all.

Although I didn’t see any of the Europa League action last night, I heartily endorse the idea of both Sp*rs and Chelsea going as far as possible in the competition. Hopefully they’ll go all the way to the final and wherever it’s held football holds its nose at the stink both teams make as the game erupts into on and off-field violence, culminating in a helicopter like Blue Thunder going into silent mode and spraying all the fans with Agent Orange and hippo piss while blasting Life is a Rollercoaster by Ronan Keating at top volume.

That song is so indescribably awful it was probably secretly written by Phil Collins. I don’t care who wins it, once we get the rioting, shooting, the possible termination of John Terry as he pleads with fans who are so far gone they rip him limb from limb then use those limbs to beat Ashley Cole and Emmanuel Adebayor to a pulp. You see, you have to look at the bright side.

The reality is that Sp*rs playing 120 minutes last night is hardly ideal preparation for their game this weekend against whoever it is they’re playing that I can’t be arsed looking up. If we can beat Swansea then it puts the pressure on and history has shown us that they’re not that good at dealing with pressure. If, and I realise it’s a fairly big if, we can get some momentum going, who knows?

For our part we have a a difficult away game after a midweek Champions League tie, that’s usually a recipe for a scintillating performance and a good win, right? Make no mistake, Swansea will be tough, they’re riding high on the crest of a trophy winning wave and ordinarily they’re a tough enough side to play against. The interesting thing from our point of view is whether the manager sticks or twists with the defence he played against Bayern.

Although Nacho Monreal may come in for Kieran Gibbs, the big questions are over Lukasz Fabianski and Laurent Koscielny. It would seem very odd if the manager made brave midweek decisions over both, got rewarded, then reverted to the players he felt needed to be left out in the first place. What kind of message would it send to both if, after a clean sheet against a team as good as Bayern, he dumped them back to the bench? So, unless there’s some fitness issue, I think both will play tomorrow against Swansea.

And the manager has some interesting things to say about Fabianksi, talking about a ‘mental transformation’:

He has changed a lot, there has been a complete mental transformation in Lukasz’s attitude. He is more vocal, has more authority and mentally he absorbs the pressure of the game much better.

He has a huge talent, which we know all about. Sometimes to go out of the game for a while helps people to mature and think about their own game.

It’s long been the story that on the training ground Fabianski has shown everything you want to see in a keeper. Great shot stopper, good distribution, brilliant reflexes, but when it comes to the crunch he’s been a bit Sp*rs when put under pressure. The howlers and the mistakes were not errors made because he’s not any good, but because his head wasn’t right.

It’s too early for us to know if the change Arsene talks about has occurred, that will only become evident if he puts in consistently good performances, but it’s amazing how quickly things change in football. Even a few days ago the idea of Fabianski in the team seemed ridiculous and vaguely scary, now not so much. Of course one flap and it’ll be back to square one, but the manager had enough faith in him to throw him in against Bayern.

Regardless of whether he was trying to send Szczesny a message, if Lukasz had made a mistake against Bayern it would have been the manager who copped the flak. People would have said ‘Oh, that’s Fabianski for you’, but the weight of criticism would have been heaped on the manager for picking him in the first place. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but something made a man who is usually pretty cautious take that risk – especially as he’s hardly renowned for his gambles paying off.

Ultimately, if Fabianski comes in, does well, and grabs his chance, then it’s the team that benefits. If it wakes up Szczesny and we have two keepers really vying for the position then all the better. May the better man win, and be steady until at least the end of the season.

Right, time for this week’s Arsecast and discuss the Bayern game, the performance, what it all means and where we go from here is the man from East Lower.

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 19mb 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.

There is, of course, a pre-Swansea press conference, which should be interesting in the wake of Wednesday’s game. We’ll have news and info from that over on Arseblog News throughout the day.

Back here tomorrow with a full preview of the game and all the usual bits and bobs. Until then, have a good one.