Morning all, got my first look at Arsenal 2010-11 last night as we beat Sturm Graz 3-0. There’s not a great deal you can really take from these training games, they’re more about fitness than anything else, but some observations in bullet point form.
- Samir Nasri scored two excellent goals. The first a low shot from just outside the area which rifled into the bottom corer. The second direct from a free kick. He was at the heart of everything good we did in the first half.
- Andrei Arshavin was quiet but looked a bit more sprinty than usual
- I didn’t really notice Chamakh at all, this may have more to do with the size of the stream window than his actual performance
- Fabianski played the first half and made at least one very good save. Wojscez©® came on in the second and had nothing to do at all. Both of them would have made Molly Ringwald proud.
- Young Norwegian Havard Nordtveit looked a bit shaky to begin with but grew into the game very well indeed. He played at right back, his range of long passing was particularly impressive and he put in some excellent tackles.
- Jay Emmanuel Thomas monstered the second half. The lad is gigantic with quicker feet than Fred Astaire. Really needs to nail down one position though, his versatility is perhaps a hindrance at the moment.
- I got my first look at Laurent Koscielny. My first impression of him is that he’s quite small indeed.
- Jack Wilshere, never one to hold back anyway, got stuck right in a couple of times. His time at Bolton clearly rubbing off on him.
- We were quite lucky not to concede. Defensively we looked quite wobbly but that’s really no surprise and no great concern … just yet.
And that was really about that, to be honest. As I said it’s about getting people fit and match sharp right now. Missing from yesterday’s squad as well were Sagna, Eboue, Clichy, Vela, Bendtner, Denilson, Diaby, van Persie, Song and, of course, Cesc Fabregas. Interestingly, or not, there was no Almunia yesterday – that said there was no Mannone either so they might well rock up in the next one. And the next game isn’t until Tuesday when we take on SC Neusiedl 1919 so there’s lots of physical work to do between now and then.
Some of the pictures on the official site have shown the players wearing what look like man-bras. Don’t worry, the lads haven’t all developed summer holiday Mickey Quinn style moobs, I believe these are used for GPS tracking during the workouts, something to which Ivan Gazidis alluded in the talk he had with the AST towards the end of last season though.
The other main news from yesterday was the official confirmation of Eduardo’s move to Shaktar Donetsk. While it’s easy to accept that this is a move which is probably best for both parties, it’s still very sad to see him go. It’s impossible to look beyond his injury as the main reason for his departure. OptaJoe posted the following on Twitter yesterday:
Eduardo converted 23.5% of his shots in the Premier League before his injury v B’ham City in Feb 2008, but just 6.3% after.
And that tells the story. Even after his injury there were flashes of the wonderfully instinctive striker we’d seen before but between the constant, niggling injuries, a horrendous lack of confidence, the shameful way he was treated over the Celtic dive – remember there was more outrage and anger directed at him for that than Ryan Shawcross for snapping a fellow pro’s leg – and the lack of faith from Arsene Wenger, his time at the club came to a rather premature and flat end.
I wish him all the best at Shaktar and I truly hope he finds his shooting boots again. Good luck, Eddy.
The only other bit of news this morning comes in the Mirror where John Cross reveals we’re still hopeful that Sol Campbell will sign up for another year. With Titus Bramble on his way to Sunderland it looks as if Sol’s potential move there isn’t really on the cards so we’ll have to wait and see. There’s no doubt we need another centre-half, and we need one badly, but I have mixed feelings about Sol.
I do wonder if he can cope with a full season for a team hoping to challenge for the title and ideally I’d like us to go out and buy a player who can be part of the team for years to come. On the other hand his experience, his attitude, his will to win and unwillingness to accept the strolling, laziness from some of his teammates could well be an important factor. Perhaps the displays of Nordtveit might convince the manager that Sol could well be used to integrate the Norwegian into the team over the campaign. It’s hard to know with Arsene – however, I can’t help feeling that if we are interested in him he ought to be doing the hard work at the training camp right now.
Fingers crossed the gap between now and the next pre-season game allows Arsene the chance to do whatever business he has left to do. The quicker we get new players on board and settled into the squad the better. Let’s hope he’s got his Blackberry with him.
Till tomorrow.
