Morning all,
my office is being lit by the moon this morning. Another week of nothing lies ahead until our next league game on Saturday, no doubt it’ll be filled with transfer rumours and other guff but you do miss the mid-week games.
Arsene Wenger has been speaking about the Premier League and the lack of ambition shown by some teams. We saw Bolton’s hugely negative approach on Saturday and according to the manager:
I don’t believe the Premier League is the most exciting in the world now. When I arrived in 1996 teams came at you and there was space. Now it is harder. All the top teams have found it harder to score.
It’s been a gradual thing, I suppose. Premier League survival is so important that anything goes in the quest to achieve that and over the years we’ve seen the growth of what you might call ‘anti-football’. If the aim of most teams is to score more than the opposition and win the game, the mentality of these teams is ‘Stop the opposition scoring and if we can nick a goal then fine’. It’s something the boss understands though, saying:
When I see a team looking only to defend I just think we still have to be good enough to create the chances.
Which is fair enough but it’s not nice to see a team do what Bolton did on Saturday. I understand their squad is limited and every point is precious so they have to cut their cloth accordingly, but it’s not just smaller teams who have played this way. I can remember very clearly Everton doing the same, and they’ve been a top 6 team for the last few years, and Aston Villa, up until this season, played exactly the same way. They’d camp in their own half, get everyone behind the ball, and the height of their ambition was a point.
The trouble is it’s a very effective tactic. Even the best teams struggle to break down 11 defenders. If you get an early goal then it opens the game up as they have to come looking for something but if you get to 60 minutes and it’s scoreless then it becomes a real problem. Those last 30 minutes can see one team dominate but if they defend well it’s very difficult to score.
So horrible as it is to watch why would these teams do any different? Is there any way to create incentives for teams to try and attack? Perhaps 2 points for a score draw? I dunno, but ultimately it comes down to what Wenger said, teams have to be good enough to make and take the chances which will make how their opponents play irrelevant.
Moving on to Bolton’s Kevin Davies? He’s accused Arsenal players of ‘squealing’, ‘cheating’, and being a ‘bit embarrassing’.
He claims Arsenal players were trying to get him booked. As if the way he plays isn’t enough. He has taken up the mantle of Alan Shearer as the Premier League’s leading elbowist. He’s clever at it too, like Shearer was, and over the years Arsenal players have been on the receiving end of his pointy middle-arm bits more than once.
Yet he calls our players cheats. It’s a bit rich. I like the physical side of football, it should be a contact sport, but the contact shouldn’t be one players elbow with another player’s face. It shouldn’t over the ball and down someone’s shin and ankle. For me that’s proper cheating.
The Sun quotes a Zenit ‘insider’ over Andrei Arshavin. He says:
Negotiations between the clubs about Arshavin are continuing. Since both sides want them to be successful, we should expect a good outcome soon — and certainly before the end of the transfer window.
Wow, there’s some serious insight into how the deal is going. And it would hardly be a good outcome if it happened after the end of the transfer window, would it?
Arsene Wenger on Nicklas Bendtner and his boots:
I am not convinced by the boots. But if he wears them and puts the ball in the net I do not mind.
While Robin van Persie had this to say about the Dane after his goal against Bolton:
He hadn’t scored for a couple of months and wasn’t so happy about that, but he is a quality player and if you are a quality player you always score. His confidence is back.
Surely quality players never not score, according to Robin. I mean, if you’re quality and you always score then how come sometimes you don’t score? Does that mean no player is quality or just half-quality? Qual, perhaps? Anyway, I know what he means. I think. And as much stick as Bendtner has got for his form and performances this season it’s always good, and by always I mean the real always and not the Robin always, to have players who can nick you goals like Bendtner did against Bolton.
Right then, that’ll do for a Moonday morning. Till tomorrow.
