Monthly Archives: September 2008

Kolo Toure's Existential Crisis

It’s been an odd couple of days over here in America (land of the free, home of the brave, keep your hands off of my stack, Jack) and I suspect that it’s going to be an odd couple of, erm, well, things are going to be weird for some time. Every day that the stock market contracts I lose more and more of my retirement and the day where I can give up and go raise sheep with Wenger in the Alsace moves further into some hazy future. I don’t even look at my retirement plan any more, what’s the point?

Add in that the house I bought isn’t worth the hill of beans that I paid for it — and its viability as the main means for putting my daughter through college has evaporated — and the future isn’t looking so good. Yet somehow, I’m sanguine about all of this. I think it has to do with the fact that in the face of stark adversity in the past I have always succeeded. That no matter how bad it gets I have the resources within me to overcome and provide for my family. In the words of FDR, in the face of a similar economic crisis, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

All this begs the question, what the hell happened to Kolo Toure? And, maybe more importantly, what the hell is going on at Arsenal that we have now lost three very solid defenders (Campbell, Senderos, and Toure) to three similar existential crises?

As you know by now, Kolo has admitted that he was afraid to play Hull saying just outright “I was scared to play the game.” He’s tried to recontextualize his fear today saying that what he meant to say was that the fear was generated by his knowledge that people have a high expectation from the team when facing an opponent such as Hull. No shit, Sherlock. What happened, did he just start paying attention to the world around him? Fans, managers, and players alike have had the expectation that Arsenal will get at least a draw and sometimes expect wins for, well, since 1886. For Christ’s sake Toure was part of the Invincibles! I can’t imagine that the expectations players feel today are anywhere near the expectations that that squad felt. So, why now, and why such a complete breakdown? I don’t know and we probably never will know, just like we were never told why Sol Campbell bogged off to Holland after shipping three goals, or what happened to Senderos after his gaffe let in the Liverpool goal that saw us out of the Champions League last year. It’s just something that’s happened and if history repeats itself, it’s the end of the line for Toure.  Which is really, really sad.

All this means that I have to admit that I had it wrong yesterday. I thought it was Gallas who had the fear, but it turns out that it was Toure. Once again, I’m left apologizing to William Gallas because now we all know that it wasn’t him who was afraid to mark Daniel Cousins, it was Toure.

And of course, in that context it makes sense that Arsene Wenger would say that he’s not punishing anyone (Kolo) with today’s substitutions, or that he feels we are “too short” all over the pitch. Clearly with Kolo’s fragile emotional state, the boss cannot play him, but neither does he feel he can call him crap. Thus, he says “I’m not punishing you, I’m just bringing in a taller player for this match because with Alex Song injured we need some height.” And then, as if to shore Toure up even further, Wenger reminds everyone of the Invincibles (which Toure was a part of) and says that this team could become invincibles too.

So, today I fully expect to see Arsenal field a back four of Sagna, Djourou, Gallas, and Clichy with the outside chance that Clichy will be dropped in favor of Silvestre; in the midfield then I expect Eboue, Fabregas, Denilson, Nasri, with Theo coming off the bench in the 70th minute; and up front, it will be Adebayor and Bendtner, with the boss dropping van Persie because he isn’t punishing him for being lazy and woefully profligate against Hull but instead because he’s shorter than Bendtner.

Sigh.

The worst part of all this is that this crisis is giving our opponents hope that they get three points even though they lost their best player in Ricardo Quaresma in the off season. I expect an open and attacking game, with Porto playing a 4-3-3 and giving Arsenal plenty of room to create opportunities. I also expect Arsenal to show why they are a top four club in one of the hardest leagues in the world: because unlike Kolo, I fear no club, not even the Portugeuse champs.

Until Tomorrow.

Kolo Toure’s Existential Crisis

It’s been an odd couple of days over here in America (land of the free, home of the brave, keep your hands off of my stack, Jack) and I suspect that it’s going to be an odd couple of, erm, well, things are going to be weird for some time. Every day that the stock market contracts I lose more and more of my retirement and the day where I can give up and go raise sheep with Wenger in the Alsace moves further into some hazy future. I don’t even look at my retirement plan any more, what’s the point?

Add in that the house I bought isn’t worth the hill of beans that I paid for it — and its viability as the main means for putting my daughter through college has evaporated — and the future isn’t looking so good. Yet somehow, I’m sanguine about all of this. I think it has to do with the fact that in the face of stark adversity in the past I have always succeeded. That no matter how bad it gets I have the resources within me to overcome and provide for my family. In the words of FDR, in the face of a similar economic crisis, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

All this begs the question, what the hell happened to Kolo Toure? And, maybe more importantly, what the hell is going on at Arsenal that we have now lost three very solid defenders (Campbell, Senderos, and Toure) to three similar existential crises?

As you know by now, Kolo has admitted that he was afraid to play Hull saying just outright “I was scared to play the game.” He’s tried to recontextualize his fear today saying that what he meant to say was that the fear was generated by his knowledge that people have a high expectation from the team when facing an opponent such as Hull. No shit, Sherlock. What happened, did he just start paying attention to the world around him? Fans, managers, and players alike have had the expectation that Arsenal will get at least a draw and sometimes expect wins for, well, since 1886. For Christ’s sake Toure was part of the Invincibles! I can’t imagine that the expectations players feel today are anywhere near the expectations that that squad felt. So, why now, and why such a complete breakdown? I don’t know and we probably never will know, just like we were never told why Sol Campbell bogged off to Holland after shipping three goals, or what happened to Senderos after his gaffe let in the Liverpool goal that saw us out of the Champions League last year. It’s just something that’s happened and if history repeats itself, it’s the end of the line for Toure.  Which is really, really sad.

All this means that I have to admit that I had it wrong yesterday. I thought it was Gallas who had the fear, but it turns out that it was Toure. Once again, I’m left apologizing to William Gallas because now we all know that it wasn’t him who was afraid to mark Daniel Cousins, it was Toure.

And of course, in that context it makes sense that Arsene Wenger would say that he’s not punishing anyone (Kolo) with today’s substitutions, or that he feels we are “too short” all over the pitch. Clearly with Kolo’s fragile emotional state, the boss cannot play him, but neither does he feel he can call him crap. Thus, he says “I’m not punishing you, I’m just bringing in a taller player for this match because with Alex Song injured we need some height.” And then, as if to shore Toure up even further, Wenger reminds everyone of the Invincibles (which Toure was a part of) and says that this team could become invincibles too.

So, today I fully expect to see Arsenal field a back four of Sagna, Djourou, Gallas, and Clichy with the outside chance that Clichy will be dropped in favor of Silvestre; in the midfield then I expect Eboue, Fabregas, Denilson, Nasri, with Theo coming off the bench in the 70th minute; and up front, it will be Adebayor and Bendtner, with the boss dropping van Persie because he isn’t punishing him for being lazy and woefully profligate against Hull but instead because he’s shorter than Bendtner.

Sigh.

The worst part of all this is that this crisis is giving our opponents hope that they get three points even though they lost their best player in Ricardo Quaresma in the off season. I expect an open and attacking game, with Porto playing a 4-3-3 and giving Arsenal plenty of room to create opportunities. I also expect Arsenal to show why they are a top four club in one of the hardest leagues in the world: because unlike Kolo, I fear no club, not even the Portugeuse champs.

Until Tomorrow.

Let me axe you something

Arsene Wenger has promised to wield the axe ahead of tomorrow’s match with Porto and though I agree with the sentiment completely, I believe his hands are tied and he won’t be able to do anything significant.

Pretty much every Arsenal fan knows that Gallas is the one player who most needs a “rest:” his performances have been shockingly poor both individually and as captain. You need look no further than the defensive scramble that let Hull score their second goal to see what I’m talking about. I know, it’s popular to say that Gallas is “short” (he’s 5’11″, a mere 3 inches shorter than Daniel Cousin) and that’s why he concedes goals from corners but that’s a load of crap. Mr. Shortymcshorterson wins headers on the offensive end all the time and he wins headers in defense all the time, in fact (and I know I’ll get stick for this) he’s a better aerial player than Kolo Toure by leaps and bounds.

No, Gallas’ problem isn’t the fact that he’s an inch shy of the 6′ mark. Gallas’ problem is that he’s a reactor and not a planner. Watch the replay of Hull’s second goal, it looks to me like Gallas doesn’t want to mark Cousin — so, he’s trying to get someone else to do it when the ball’s played in and “oops” he’s out of position and Cousin scores while Gallas is leaping helplessly behind the ball. Leaders who are reactors can be very valuable because they are capable of rapid change when needed but if they start panicking then that’s when they lose the plot. Unfortunately, Gallas has started panicking, he started the trend last year at the end of the Birmingham game and it’s continuing into this year as has happened now three times this season.

Gallas has to be dropped for the Porto match tomorrow and I would go a step further and strip him of the captaincy — make him earn it back, like I did in boot camp. Stripping Gallas of his captaincy would cause a massive disruption on the team but I think that’s exactly what’s needed right now; people fighting to be leader and let the guy with the biggest balls win it. It remains to be seen if Wenger is willing to risk the facade of harmony he’s built this season, after all, Arsene Wenger is not a reactor, he’s a planner.

More than just Gallas, there are a lot of players who looked pretty ordinary on Saturday; van Persie, Denilson and Cesc could all use a “rest” as well. So too Theo has to be running out of steam and could use a day or two off, but let’s face facts, who will the boss bring on if all 5 players are dropped? Jack Wilshere? Song? Silvestre? Nope. Nope. Nope.

Wilshere is hungry but there’s no way the boss is putting a 16 year old in the cauldron that is the Champions League, so Cesc will start there. Song is injured, as the link above shows, so that means Denilson will start there because the only other option is the 17 year old Welsh wunderkind Ramsey. Nasri is back (yay) and so we might see Theo come off the bench not because he did poorly but rather because he’s played, like, every day for the last month.

That leaves just van Persie and one of the two central defenders as viable options. Replacing van Persie with Bendtner or even Vela isn’t that hard a decision but I wonder does Arsene have the balls to replace Gallas? I don’t think he does. If anyone in the central defense gets a rest it will probably be Toure.

We’ll see.

So, tomorrow is a bit hectic but I am going to have some time to catch the game. It’s live on Setanta at 11:30am local time which, as always, means a trip down to Doyle’s. Maybe I’ll see you down there? Until tomorrow.