Morning, a very quick Saturday round-up because I have rum *boilks* and getting out of bed this morning was both a challenge and distinctly unpleasant.
The manager has been talking about Aaron Ramsey, that central midfield issue and potential January transfers. It looks as if the Welshman is not going to find himself back in the centre of midfield where he’d like to be, because the manager doesn’t feel like he’s a Coquelin replacement:
Ramsey is more an offensive player, he is not a tactical, defensive player. I will use him there when the game demands but is he naturally, with Cazorla, a balanced pair? Defensively, certainly, it’s a very adventurous one!
His thinking seems to be that he wants him to contribute further forward:
He is not afraid to tackle but he likes to go in the box.He has a good timing of runs and he wants the ball and he wants to go forward. If you take that out of him, if you say: ‘Look, you have to sit now, sit there and wait,’ you kill his strengths. Ramsey can do it with Coquelin, and Cazorla can do it with Coquelin but Cazorla and Ramsey is a bit …
A bit … yeah. He’s obviously more likely to play him centrally in the absence of Cazorla than Coquelin, which means that Mathieu Flamini, in the short-term, and Mikel Arteta, when he’s fit again, will be the deep options until Coquelin is fit again. Of course there is the transfer market in January, and on that the manager says:
It’s nearly impossible to find, in January, a top, top player. But you have your eyes open. You never know … we’ll see.
And then there’s Calum Chambers:
That’s why I played, as well, Calum Chambers for 10 minutes in midfield to see how he positions, and we are happy because he can do it.
Now, I like Chambers, I think he’s a young player with a lot of potential, but I don’t know that we learned much from his 10 minutes against Dinamo beyond that he’s going to need a lot more time to get used to that role. I don’t think we saw anything in that cameo that suggests ‘he can do it’. Unless ‘it’ is be in that area of the pitch.
To be fair, Wenger has spoken more than once about Chambers playing as a defensive midfielder, I’m just not sure a few minutes at the end of a game that’s won is the evidence we need for his suitability in there. Still, he completed 10/11 passes, and made 3 interceptions, so I guess it was tidy enough but I think we need to see a bit from him to in any way definitive about his future in that role.
I imagine it’s going to be Flamini on Sunday against Norwich, so we’re not likely to see him unless there’s another injury, or late in the game, but let’s see how it all pans out. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that the manager is more likely to play Chambers or Flamini or Arteta there than buy a player in January he doesn’t really want if the player he does want isn’t available until the summer. If you get me.
Meanwhile, some people are unhappy that Arsenal are flying to Norwich rather than taking a train or a bus or some other form of transport. Arsene Wenger says:
When we made the decision there was some road work planned – sometimes the access to Norwich is difficult. We do not fly a lot any more. We take the train or coach. This is an exception.
Frankly, who gives a shit how they get there? If you think one Arsenal flight to Norwich is some kind of environmental disaster, then you’re probably the kind of person who protests outside shops that sell fur coats while wearing your Nikes and a leather jacket. Seriously, there are all kinds of thing that you could be legitimately concerned about but this is not one of them.
Why not ask a more pertinent question, such as: If Norwich play in yellow and green, why the hell are we going to wear that abominable third kit, the one that looks like it was designed by Jonny Blind in the depths of a stroke, than our red and white one which doesn’t clash at all? The only reason we should ever wear that kit is if all our other kits catch fire, and all the others kits in all the shops in all the world that we could use to replace them, also catch fire, and even then we find a load of red t-shirts and try and Tippex on white sleeves but we run out of Tippex and then somehow those t-shirts catch fire, and the colour red ceases to exist, and the Premier League refuse to allow us to play in skins.
Get your sweat shop trainers and your dead cow coat in front of that protest, you wankers. If I was Arsenal I’d read these complaints and then insist on travelling to Norwich on an old steam train, powered by the smokiest coal possible, with street urchins shovelling it into the fire without any kind of safety equipment. The burns and inhalation of toxic fumes will be character building.
Don’t forget to listen to this week’s Arsecast which you can find here, here or via iTunes. And if you already have, why not check out my chat with top Gooner and ace guitar bloke, Bernard Butler right here.
More tomorrow, I have to go quell my rage with breakfast. Until then.
