Monthly Archives: November 2010

Barcelona takes Galacticos back to the academy

After this Summer’s disgusting tapping up of Cesc Fabregas I really want to hate Barcelona but after watching them school Real Madrid and Jose Mourinho’s collection of multi-million dollar egos I think they have gained some respect back (begrudgingly) and might even have shown us the way forward. My first instinct is still to think “Buck Farcelona” but if they are going to play football the way they did yesterday, well, you almost have to respect them. Not only for the skill but also the way they got the skill.

Prior to the kickoff of El Classico, media pundits around the globe were tipping Jose Mourinho’s vastly expensive collection of Galacticos to win the Champions League, La Liga, and pretty much everything else in front of them. The feeling that the balance of power had shifted to Madrid was so pervasive that even the typically reserved Barry Glendenning proclaimed that Madrid would win the Champions League.

What people seemed to have forgotten was that Barcelona still had a say in these things. The same Barcelona who’s players have won their League 2 years running, the Champions League 2 years ago, formed the core of the World Cup winning Spanish side, and are a set of the most skilled players that football has ever seen. A bit of hyperbolic license should be afforded me as I am relatively new to football, but I can’t remember a match that had me wondering how a player like Messi saw the passes he made, much less pulled them off.

That said, this wasn’t just a collection of the best players in the world or some simple notion like total football, this was amoebic football. Every player instinctively knew where every other player was on the pitch at all times and I swear if you were to blindfold them they would still be the slickest passing team I have ever seen.

This instinctual quality to Barcelona’s game comes from their academy system. Of the 14 players on the roster for yesterday’s match only Abidal, Alves, Keita, and David Villa were not trained in Barcelona’s academy. On the other side of the pitch, only Iker Casillas came through Real Madrid’s academy and the remainder were assembled at a cost of nearly $500m.

Arsenal supporters will tell you that Arsenal play the Barcelona way and that we train up youth the Barcelona way but the problem with that narrative is that Arsenal’s first team still has precious few players who have actually come through the academy. When Arsenal needed defenders to replace Gallas and, erm, Silvestre they didn’t promote from within. Arsene Wenger bought Squillaci and Koscielny. Gibbs and Wilshere are two examples of academy players just now coming through the ranks but many of the others who we think of as academy players came in at 16 rather than, say, 8 years old as is the case at Barcelona. Walcott, Ramsey, Szczesny, and Cesc were all brought in. Yes, Arsenal gave them the chance at a young age and developed their talent but it’s not quite the same.

A big reason for this is that the Football Association limits the geographic area from which an academy like Arsenal can draw. There’s no such limitation at Barcelona who found Lionel Messi as far away as Argentina and recruited him well below the age of 16 that is the minimum age a player can be recruited in England.

I’m not suggesting that Arsenal’s academy isn’t among the best in the world nor that the talent coming through, especially now that it has had time to mature, isn’t among the best. I’m also not suggesting that the FA change the rules and allow Arsenal and Man U to pluck talent from all over England because that could lead to a similar problem to what La Liga has in their insanely two-teamed league.

Rather, what I’d suggest is that the Barcelona model is what Arsenal are aspiring to and judging from yesterday’s match it’s going to take time. Pep Guardiola was the midfielder who inspired players like Cesc Fabregas to play football and he was a Barcelona academy player. He came through the system, played in the system, and coached at both levels of the system. Arsenal play some amazing football but if Jack Wilshere is the first in a line of truly world class players that Arsenal’s academy has produced, then we might have to wait until he’s manager of Arsenal to see an Arsenal performance like Barcelona put on yesterday.

Which will be well worth the wait.

Arsenal v. Wigan: the Carling Cup is on the Atkinson diet

Arsenal host Roberto Martinez’ Wigan Athletic on a snowy St. Andrews Day and though Arsenal are fielding a numerically young side, it’s not a side bereft of experience. The Latics, meanwhile, are a team that will try to play on the ground and have turned Arsenal over doing so. Arsenal should be looking for revenge for their abject performance last season and will look to get at them early. Thus, this should be an open clash that will delight the audiences who get to watch and may even put a sparkle in the eye of match official Martin Atkinson.

Arsenal will be making several changes over the normal Premier League lineup and I expect to see Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott get the nod up front. Robin can play on the left, Theo on the right and Bendtner in the center if Wenger chooses to stick with the 4-3-3, but if not we might actually even see a 4-4-2. Theo has made his bones in this competition, scoring famously against Chelsea in the final, but those runs have all come to a fruitless end and one can only hope that he is hungry to earn a place back in the full Arsenal side. After a good performance today, he just might find himself knocking on the boss’ door. Though, how he would displace the excellent Samir Nasri is unknown.

The same can be said for both Robin van Persie and Nicklas Bendtner who have to see the form of Marouane Chamakh and be left wondering how they crack the starting lineup. Bendtner in particular can grumble all he likes but when given the chances he needs to take them. Nothing less than a fully committed performance from those three will be acceptable.

The midfield should be a trio of Denilson, Wilshere, and an older head like Rosicky. Were Diaby fit, he would certainly get a run out.

At the back, Squillaci is being rested with a knee injury and Djourou hasn’t gotten much playing time lately so I expect the central partnership will be DJ and Koscielny. Left back is going to be Gibbs and right back will be Emmanuel Lazarus Eboue who has sprung back from his grave knee injury to be fully fit in time for the Carling Cup.

While the team is young, it is a strong team. Just by way of example, Denilson has had 131 appearances for Arsenal already, including featuring in a large number of Carling Cup matches. He’s as experienced as any player on the pitch and needs to show it after a string of awful defensive performances have left even his most ardent adherents wondering.

Wigan, for their part will not play the villains today. Don’t expect that they will come out kicking or lumping the ball forward. Roberto Martinez coaches his teams to play football and that’s what they will do. That said, they have one eye on this weekend’s match against Stoke since Premier League survival is actually worth some money and there should be some heavy rotation. Rodellega is out with suspension which makes way for Victor Moses to show what he can do.

Funnily enough, the match official today has a lot of previous with Arsenal and Wigan, angering both sets of fans with a seeming predilection for given red cards. In the Wigan v. Man U match, Martin Atkinson sent two off including Rodellega who is out suspended for today’s match. And in both matches he has been in for Arsenal he has given a red card to an Arsenal player. In fact, Atkinson’s last 4 Arsenal matches have seen 4 red cards: 3 to Arsenal players and 1 to Joe Cole.

But that record is in the League, in cup ties he’s a totally different referee, preferring to allow more contact and showing fewer cards. In all 8 of the Arsenal cup ties he’s refereed he hasn’t shown a single red card and he averages just 2.4 yellow cards a game. Which includes a zero yellow card performance as Arsenal were trounced by Stoke 3-1.

In the 13 League matches he’s officiated, on the other hand, the yellow card average is 3.5 and the number of red cards totals 6, again with 4 in the last 4 games.

Arsenal’s results in the cup matches that Atkinson has refereed has been very poor of late with 2 losses and 1 draw but prior to that we’d notched 4 wins and  1 draw. Including the incredible 6-3 win over Liverpool which even Atkinson counts among his very favorite matches of all time.

I have to say that I think it bodes well for both teams that Atkinson will likely just let play go on. Neither club is known for intentionally or rotationally fouling and while Arsenal have had a massive uptick in yellow and red cards this season I don’t expect that we will come out to kick them off the pitch.

Given both teams’ set up, our similar managerial philosophies, and the Laissez-faire approach of Atkinson to cup matches I fully expect that today’s match will be end to end football and goals to be scored. One nil to the Arsenal highly unlikely today.

Unfortunately, most of us will either need to steal some illegal feed or will be reduced to listening to the match on ATVO. Well, I say reduced, but listening to the live feed can be fun. Just imagine yourself back in the dawn of football, when the whole family would gather around glowing tubes of the radio and dial in the Arsenal match. Except now days the radio is a laptop and the tubes are the intertubes and I’ll be at work trying to steal a few minutes of commentary as I can so no family will be gathered around my laptop.

Right, that’s it for today. Really bummed that I can’t watch the match live but that’s just because us USA Gooners are spoiled rotten with television coverage. Hoping for a top quality performance today and Arsenal advancing to the next round to face… uhhh… how about Ipswitch? Roy Keane? That would be good!

Let’s make a mountain out of a Cahill

You might not believe this, but Arsenal have the 4th best defense in the League. A fair measure of a team’s defensive ability is how many goals they concede and currently, Arsenal have allowed 17. That’s one more than League leaders Man U, five more than Three Holding Midfielders City, and seven more than Chelsea.

Nine of those 17 goals can be pinned on Arsenal’s poor home form where we shipped six goals to Tottenham and West Brom. Moreover, nearly all nine of those home goals came in similar fashion: switching off in midfield and getting caught on a quick counter.

This is directly related to Arsenal’s playing style. Holding a high line as Arsenal do means that the holding midfielder’s job is more critical to keeping clean sheets. It also means that Arsenal need center backs who are quick to recover. Sure, heading the ball is important but more important is the ability to get back and cover.

What this means is that Arsenal’s style of play dictates what types of players we bring in. Which is like saying that my style of breathing dictates how much oxygen I bring in but I thought it needed to be said.

With that in mind, it’s funny to me that people everywhere are looking at Arsene bringing in a Christopher Samba type center back. This huge man mountain who in their fantasy will come in a just head everything away.  Per Mertesacker, he’s tall. Brede Hangelaand, oh look that’s a big fella!

What’s lost in this is the fact that Arsenal do have a tall center back in Johan Djourou (6’4″) and Thomas Vermaelen, while not tall, is our heading specialist. Both of these players are capable of playing in the Arsenal system because they are able to play high up the pitch and distribute the ball to the midfielders.

Bringing in someone like Per Mertesaker would make Arsenal slightly better at set plays but offensively it would require a radical change to the system because Arsenal’s back line with Mertesaker or Hangelaand in it would be too slow to play our all out attacking style.

Now, some of you might say that’s a good thing and fair enough to you if you don’t like Arsenal’s playing style. But this Summer, Wenger had choices at center back and he went for Phil Jagielka over Gary Cahill because I suspect that Cahill doesn’t fit the Arsenal style as shown by this head to head of their passes:

Jagielka matches very closely to what William Gallas did for Arsenal on the right side and while Gary Cahill is a decent enough player, I don’t know if he’d fit into the Arsenal system. Defensively, Arsenal might change slightly over the course of the season and not play such a high line, but overall, Wenger’s vision is that we play all out, high line, ball holding, crisp passing. So, while you may want to change Arsenal’s system mid season a systemic change to a club with one of the best defenses and the second best offense might not be the wisest move mid-season.

Our cups runeth over

I am contractually obligated to write “Arsenal haven’t won a trophy in five years” any time that the words Arsenal and Cup are mentioned. Now THAT is out of the way…

Lots of talk this morning about Arsene fielding a strengthened side in both the Carling Cup tomorrow and in the FA Cup tie at home to Leeds Leeds Leeds Leeds Leeds Leeds. Good, because while everyone is busy writing off Arsenal’s defense I’m looking at the tie to Wigan and Leeds and thinking that we have a good chance this year. I went back and looked at the other cups Arsenal won (MORE THAN 5 YEARS AGO) and noticed that for some of them we had a pretty easy run. Now that Tottenham is out, and everyone knows that they are the best team in the League, Arsenal have to be licking our lips.

It’s a chance to get back on good with our home form and if West Ham does United tomorrow, a real chance for silverware. Who’s left in this thing after them? Villa? I’ll have some of that!

As for Leeds, more on them later.

Oh and before my Yankee Gooners ask, there is no television of tomorrow’s game. I guess you’ll have to do an illegal internet feed or catch the game on ATVO after.

Sorry.