Monthly Archives: March 2010

Arsenal v. Barcelona; this is the big one, Elizabeth

Revenge for the lost final, the return of the prodigal sons, 90 minutes of “pure” football, Arsenal stepping out of the shadows, Arsenal proving their credentials, Cesc fighting for fitness, Pep loves Arsenal, Wenger loves Barcelona, OMG OK I GET IT… there are a lot of angles to today’s match and for once the press are covering them all in a mostly positive light.

It’s actually kind of nice to have every newspaper in England covering every angle of an Arsenal match and saying positive things about the team and the matchup. But it’s also a bit jangling on my nerves, after all, the press love to set you up high so that they can knock you down and no matter who wins this fascinating 180 minute tie the loser will be pilloried.

Me? I think we can beat Barcelona but if they edge us then there’s no shame in that. They are widely considered the best team in the world and losing to the best is never shameful. Well, unless you’re one of the doom and gloom merchants who call themselves Arsenal fans.

But there’s plenty of reason to be hopeful, after all we match up very well to Barcelona. Here, let me break it down for you.

Keeper — Advantage Barcelona

I’m not getting into this thing where we rip Almunia, let’s just give them the advantage and move on.

Central Defense — Draw

The only two players who are certain for today are Tarzan and the Verminator. Now, if you’re like me and you take your advice from Martin Keown then the two are very equally matched. Where Barca might have an advantage there in experience, Arsenal have the advantage in speed and youth. So, between those two, I see very little advantage for either team — except in offence, where Thomas Vermaelen is a legitimate goal scoring threat. He will be getting forward on corners and looking to score on his smaller counterparts.

What will ultimately decide this category is who will pair up with Tarzan or the Verminator. For Arsenal it’s one of Gallas or Sol Campbell and for Barca it’s Pique or Milito. In Milito, Barcelona will be giving up a lot of size and that could prove a huge boon to Arsenal’s bigger players like Bendtner and Diaby. If it’s Pique then they have their strongest defense and they could frustrate Arsenal on set plays.

For Arsenal, Sol is a massive defender but there are questions about his ability to keep up with the slippery Messi. Gallas would be better at keeping up with Messi, if he’s 100% healthy.

So, like I said, it’s a draw.

Full Backs — Advantage Arsenal

I’ve heard a lot about how good Dani Alves is and I’m here to tell you, both of our fullbacks are as good if not better. Plus, we have depth in right back and can bring on Emanuel Eboue if more attack is needed.

Maxwell is a bit of a threat at left back but again, we’ve got Gael Clichy and I’m confident that if Arsenal defend as a unit Clichy will not be exposed. Remember that hungry, pressing defense we played in the first half of the season.

Yeah, we need that and then we’ll have an advantage here.

Midfield — Draw

In a sense, much hinges on who plays here. If Cesc plays and we can move Nasri up front then it’s a huge advantage for Arsenal. Toure and Song are basically equals and Diaby is much better in attack than Busquets (though Busquets is a better defender) so that leaves Cesc v. Xavi in the midfield maestro role and I wouldn’t be an Arsenal fan if I didn’t pick Jesus!

If Nasri or Rosicky play there then you have to give an advantage to Xavi, but don’t forget… Nasri scores amazingly great goals so the advantage is very slim.

Forwards — Advantage Barcelona

Messi, best player in the world. Pretty much all that’s needed to be said, but I would like to add just one thing… Arshavin has made noises about wanting to play for Barcelona in the past and it would be nice if he really stepped up and canceled Messi out with a masterful performance.

From what I can tell, Arshavin has been resting the last couple of weeks so he should be bright eyed and bushy tailed for this match.

Manager — Advantage Arsenal

Pep Guardiola has won, but he’s won with an embarrassment of riches in a two team league which basically allows him to rest his players for the season and keep them ready for the Champions League.

Meanwhile, Arsene Wenger has been slogging out a decent record over the last 4 years while trying to rebuild Arsenal on a budget. He’s done this in the toughest, fastest, most barbaric league (how many broken legs have Barcelona suffered in the last 4 years?) in the world playing against top teams who’s owners can pay any salary on top of eye popping transfer fees to gather the best talent in the world on their team.

Not only that, but Wenger’s been doing this at the top level for many, many more years than Guardiola. He’s got a bench that includes Eboue, Rosicky, Eduardo, and many more who can come in and make an impact. Hell, we may even have Cesc on the bench!

Conclusions

So, you see we match up very well against Barcelona and given our similarity in both styles and footballing philosophy, it’s going to be a great match. The match is going to be live on Fox Soccer Channel here in the States and kick off is going to be somewhere around 11:45am PST.

Unfortunately, I have to watch it on tape delay because I have a meeting at 1pm — so, you won’t be hearing from me after about 10am this morning. See you all after the match on either Twitter or here.

Don’t despair, it’s going to be a great game!

I’m shocked, shocked, that William Gallas is back and other pre-Barcelona facts

Like Lazaraus, or Lampard, Rooney, Essien and other normal folks…

I was sitting back this morning, enjoying strong coffee, when down through the intertubes came this picture story about Arsenal training before the match against Barcelona. Here’s the thing, I’ve learned that if you look at the training photos you can learn a thing or two about potential lineups in the next game. THAT IS HOW BRILLIANT I AM.

Anyway, Gallas is in the photos, Diaby is in the photos and Cesc and Alumina are not. And of course, mere moments later, the dot com confirms that Gallas is included for the squad. They must have mended his torn contract ligament this week.

But to be serious for a second, I’m concerned about the lack of Almunia in any photos. I know he is partially responsible for the draw against Birmingham but I’m not sure I want Fabianski in the goal instead of Almunia — unless he’s lost the plot.

Ugh… the keeper situation at Arsenal makes my arsehole itch.

Oh and while you’re looking at those training photos, notice photo number 10…. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, DIABY????

Fabregas, 80% of the time he’s 40% fit.

I know there’s a lot of talk about whether Fabregas will play or won’t play, even his dad is in on the act, but here’s all you need to know: if he’s at all able to play, he will. End of.

Arshavin, Nasri, and it seems Diaby are all fit and ready to play. With Gallas “possibly” making the team Arsenal could field nearly our strongest possible team (minus van Persie). That’s exciting, isn’t it?

Remembering Henry

So, I guess this guy who once played for Arsenal now plays for Barcelona. Have you guys heard about him? His name is Henry something? Henry Morris maybe? Anyway, I guess he did some really spectacular things when he was with Arsenal, here’s 10 of them from the Independent. Personally, my favorite was this one:

Barcelona going bankrupt?

We all know that the country would just bail them out (they are too big to fail!) but it is interesting to get Tony Attwood’s perspective on the relative debt levels of Man U, Arsenal, Barcelona, and Real Madrid. I think this Tony fellow might know a thing or two about world football, you should listen to him.

Also, he’s funny.

And finally…

For something totally unrelated, here’s the Mighty Boosh doing their four-way crimp, genius. I have a thing for British comedies, I’ll admit it, if I could I’d marry them.

Song’s yellow cards analyzed, what does it prove?

Hey all, are you getting your fill of pre-Barcelona “Lionel Messi is a god” stories? No? Well, I’ll provide another article later with plenty of links for you to digest. Meanwhile, we’ll hold off on the match preview until Wednesday and instead focus on a very serious question: is there a bias against Arsenal’s Alex Song?

Yesterday in the comments thread Miko Gooner, a long time reader and Polish Gooner who writes a blog in Polish, commented that he noticed a strange coincidence about Alex Song; this season he has played 26 games total in English competitions and gathered 11 yellow cards while in 17 international and European matches he has gotten zero yellow cards.

Miko thought that this might prove an English referee bias against our Cameroon midfielder but I’m not sure if it’s xenophobia or if there isn’t something else at work here. Namely, that English referees are abysmal.

Here’s the breakdown of all Song’s yellow cards this season:

Opponent Result Time Official
Birmingham 1-1 (d) 16min Webb
Stoke 3-1 (w) 62min Walton
Chelsea 2-0 (l) 83min Dean
Man U 1-3 (l) 17min Foy
West Ham 1-2 (w) 27min Crapenburg
Aston Villa 3-0 (w) 66min Dowd
Man City 3-0 (l) 79min Foy
Birmingham 3-1 (w) 73 min Probert
Wigan 4-0 (w) 40min Jones
Man City 4-2 (l) 73 min Crapenburg
Man U 2-1 (l) 23min Dean

Looking at the table some facts pop out: Song has received 5 of 11 bookings in the first half of games. In those games Arsenal’s record is 2-1-2. In fact, Arsenal’s overall record when Song gets a yellow is 5-1-5. Considering that we’ve only lost 6 games over the whole season then you can see that Song getting a yellow card has a profound effect on the team’s fortunes but does that mean that the refs are doing it on purpose?

Another thing to notice is that Song has gotten a yellow card in every match he’s played against Man U, Birmingham, and Manciti and somehow he’s managed to get 2 cards each from Chris Foy, Mark Crapenburg, and Mike Dean.

Miko saw a pattern here saying:

If you add to it the fact that in England he often gets early yellows for his first foul in the game (Manure-Arsenal: 23. minute, Arsenal-Manure: 17. minute, Birmingham City-Arsenal: 16. minute; which of course, makes his job as DM or CB much harder throughout the rest of the match) and the fact that he has as many EPL yellow cards as Mascherano, just one less than Cana and three more than Cattermole, then the Premier League anti-Arsenal conspiracy theory starts to look something more than just me putting the pills aside.

But is there really a pattern? I looked at Mascherano’s yellow cards and Paul Scholes’ yellow cards and noticed that there is a bit of a pattern: against Man U, the referee often books the opponents and Howard Webb despises holding midfielders.

Take the last Man U v. Liverpool match. Howard Webb was in charge and booked Mascherano in the 10th minute. You can also look at the Birmingham match and see that he booked Song in the 16th minute. But what’s really amazing is the way Webb treats Paul Scholes. Scholes is well known as one of the worst tacklers in the game but of his 8 yellows and 1 red card, 4 have come from Howard Webb and all but 1 came in the first half. Given that record, you can see why Scholes didn’t start against Liverpool: Webb would surely have booked him early.

Some folks speculate that Webb is booking players early in order to show off his World Cup credentials. Maybe so, but I can say for sure that he absolutely has a bias against Paul Scholes. This jibes with my previous observations about Webb. When Adebayor played for Arsenal Webb loved sending him off with the Togo striker seeing red three times and each one at the hands of Howard Webb. If there’s a pattern here it’s that Webb seems to hold certain players in contempt.

Also, he is suspiciously booking holding midfielders early in matches.

As for the other refs highlighted above there are some patterns that emerge but they aren’t necessarily anti-Arsenal nor anti-Song. Mike Dean, for example,  is simply all over the map as far as yellow cards but the one thing we know for sure is that Mike Dean loves awarding penalties. It’s so well documented that Blackburn’s Martin Olsson admitted today that he dived in order to win a penalty against Burnley because he knew that Dean has a fondness for awarding them. Remember, Dean is the referee who awarded three penalties in the Pompey v. Man U match. Pretty incredible stuff.

Martin Atkinson on the other hand is under fire from several quarters for his bizarre decisions this year. He’s the referee who awarded the ghost goal, who exonerated Gerrard for his ghastly elbow on Pompey’s Brown, and who swung the tide in last night’s game between Manciti and Wigan by sending off the Wigan player for a 50-50 challenge where Tevez clearly goes in two-footed.

And as for Mark Crapenburg, the litany of accusations is long and varied. He’s the referee who was in charge of the insanely managed Man City v. Arsenal match. You remember, the match in which Adebayor clearly stamps on van Persie’s face and Crapenburg is clearly looking right at the incident and doesn’t give a card. Mark Crapenburg has the problem of being serially incapable of seeing x-rated, red card fouls.

I’m sure there are other patterns that we find in the referees in England but the problem is that I can’t see a clear anti-Arsenal bias. There are plenty of other biases, for example Webb hates Paul Scholes (who doesn’t?) and Mike Dean loves giving penalties, but there is no clear bias against just Arsenal.

The fact is that the standard of refereeing in the English Premier League is just low, very low. What Arsenal need to focus on is how to manage these biases and overcome them. Man U resting Scholes when Webb is in charge is a perfect example of this. Unfortunately, with the refs so inconsistent and so personally invested in shaping games to their own will, teams will do well to consider them a 12th man and play around them.

Complaining before, during, and after the match clearly doesn’t do any good.