Category Archives: Arsenal

Arsenal 1-2 Hull, the Good, Bad, and Ugly

The Good

Props have to go to Hull, I’m sorry but they outplayed Arsenal yesterday. I could try to psychoanalyze the Arsenal players and wonder aloud whether the pre-match chatter about them kicking us off the pitch played a part in why the Arsenal players looked timid at the start, but that’s just plain unfair to the Hull players and their manager. They came out with a game plan, with the desire to win 3 points, and with the certain knowledge of how to get them, and they did.

Sure Hull came out and gave a few lumps to start, and maybe my reaction in the live-blog was the same as the players, a sort of sense that injustice was being done. But after those initial few lumps, the game smoothed out and it looked to me like both teams played fairly, Hull was just seemed to want it more.

After the 0-0 first half, it turns out that Phil Brown took off the headgear and spoke directly to his players, reminding them that they had worked all week on set pieces and that if they just kept up the hard work, it would all pay off. Arsenal scored first and I really thought that we were going to open them up at that point, but then we just sort of looked like we took our foot off the gas and suddenly Giovanni found himself in loads of space and fired in a beautiful goal; side net, unstoppable. Again, the good has to go here to Hull, they showed the character to fight back after going down 1-0 to the vaunted Arsenal.

Finally, when they were lining up the corner that won the match, I don’t know if I could sense something or not, but I had a bad feeling about Arsenal’s defense on that corner. I couldn’t see it until the slow motion replay but the squad was in utter disarray. Hull capitalized on that, plus their foreknowledge that Arsenal couldn’t defend a corner against a bunch of third graders right now, and they scored the winning goal. The point here is that Hull stayed committed to their gameplan throughout and when the time came, they simply executed what they had practiced.

After the match Phil Brown said this of his team

The character and commitment and desire is a joy to work with.

Character, commitment and desire; in the end, that’s all we need to know about why Hull beat Arsenal.

The Bad

Arsenal simply fell apart. Maybe they read too many of their own press clippings and started to believe what people were saying about them, I don’t know, I’m not the team shrink. I do know that the team fell apart and that you have to look no further than the disastrous defending on the second Hull goal to see that. Who was marking who and why wasn’t that clearly articulated? It’s easy to blame individuals (where was Toure, why was Gallas late, why didn’t anyone close down on Giovanni?) for individual breakdowns but I actually blame the whole team and more specifically the team’s leadership.

I learned a phrase in one of those work life seminar/retreat things that I think is completely appropriate here: the fish rots from the head. On the pitch, and in the moment of the corner, it’s William Gallas who does the organizing, Bill Gallas who sets out the marking, and Bill Gallas who leads the team. It was good ole Bill who is directly and indirectly to blame for Hull’s first and second goal.

First, he’s the guy who’s supposed to sense that his team have taken their foot off the gas and get them back on task. He failed to do that. Second, if he can’t sense that his teammates are getting lax, at the very least he could scream at someone to close down on their opponents. He failed to do that. And finally, after they scored the first goal, Gallas should have rallied the troops, that’s what leaders do, and instead he faded into the wallpaper, failed to organize the team, and they simply let Hull score.

Arsene Wenger doesn’t want to put any blame on any individuals but I will, I blame William Gallas, and since it’s ultimately his decision to retain Gallas as captain, I blame Arsene. When the chips are down, William Gallas is a poor leader. More than anyone else on the pitch, the captain needs to be the one showing strength, maturity, and desire. Arsenal lost that when we lost Flamini, who was the only person I saw last year with those qualities.

The Ugly

Prepare yourself for a non-stop barrage of stories about how the mighty have fallen. I should have seen it coming. The reaction from the press over the 6-0 Carling Cup win was just too effusive. As a fan, I wanted to believe that press (it made me feel good) but now I see it for what it really was: build them up so that when they fall (which all great things do) you can write 1000 stories about how they fell. Now, we’re going to get in-depth analysis of the team, their boss, the garbage, the tea lady, the ball boy, everything. Get ready for it.

The season isn’t over guys: we’re just two points off the leaders. Sure, Arsenal haven’t played any of the top 5 teams like West Ham or Aston Villa, but there are 32 games left and a possible 96 points. We, the team and the fans, need to regroup, refocus and get out there and beat some people like we know we can, starting on Tuesday.

Until tomorrow, up the Arse.

Live-blogging Arsenal v. Hull — part 2

9:00am Taylor Twellman’s Kick medic it’s “TAYLOR MADE” HAR HAR. I can’s wait to see what these two geniuses have to say about the Arsenal match. Let me guess: “Arsenal don’t like physical play?”

9:05am Did you know that the number one search term that people use to find my blog is “Arshavin?” WTF? Oh well, Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin – he’s overpriced and talentless, he should play for Spuds! Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin !
9:10am gross, I’m watching the “highlights” and Christiano Ronaldo gets a penalty — I’m sorry but that was probably the only good tackle that Bolton put in the whole match. Too bad they’re going to get relegated.
9:20am “blah blah blah tackle blah blah blah Arsenal don’t like to get kicked blah blah blah.”

9:25am the lineups are announced and Fox Soccer channel is putting Eboue as the central midfielder — eye roll.

9:27am That guy’s name is “Warren Barton” and he was born in Islington but he played for Kelvin Koogan at Newcastile. Yay.

9:30 — that’s better, Eboue on the wing, DUH. God, Fox Soccer Channel sucks. They should hire me, at least I know where everyone plays on the pitch.

9:35 — kickoff, wheee, hey look Phil Brown has the same stupid headset that his evil mentor Sam Allardyce wore. And of course the announcer is already mentioning that Arsenal haven’t been scored on at the Emirates — that’s what we Americans call a jinx.

9:40 — hey look, three obvious fouls and no whistle.  Ok, so that’s how this game is going to be called. As long as it’s going to be called the same way on both sides.
9:42 — great pursuit by Denilson to save some blushes. COME ON YOU REDS!!!
9:44 — Jeebus, Denilson is everywhere.
9:47 — Jeebus Denilson earns a free kick on the edge of the box and Robin’s free kick is easily claimed by the keeper. Wasted chance.
9:48 — good call Matt — he looks tired or something and missed a wide open opportunity just now.
9:52 — bodies are flying all over the place and the ref has finally seen enough — stopping play when we have a clear advantage. Are you Tottenham in disguise?
9:56 — ok, so Hull can tackle rough but Arsenal can’t tackle at all, it’s going to be one of those games, got to play through it, ignore the ref.
10:02 — a real live injury to Eboue with blood and everything.
10:08 — that’s it, move the ball, make them run, Hull can’t keep up this pace all game.
10:13 — yawn… two consecutive offsides and Hull is sucking the life out of this game — exactly what they want to do.
10:20 — lots of chances in this first half but I’m going to give credit to Hull, they have executed their game plan to perfection.  They are closing space, roughing players, they’re well organized in defense and Arsenal is clearly frustrated. Let’s see how the Boss responds in the second half.
10:40 — oh good it’s back on. I’ve brushed my teeth and changed into my Fabregas jersey, clearly Denis Bergkamp wasn’t working.
10:43 — Theo with a mazy run and he pulls the ball back for Cesc who puts the ball in. The Jersey clearly worked.
10:45 — ONE NIL TO THE ARSENAL ONE NIL.. Come on boys get another! Christ, Eboue and Ade should have scored 4 goals on that last possession. PROFLIGATE!
10:50 — Jeebus, Theo has the speed of a thousand.. speeders, play every ball to Theo from now on, he can only get better. DANG! another missed opportunity, stop trying to set others up Ade you’re a striker, strikers SHOOT.
10:55 — fucking hell… no one closes down on Giovanni and he picks out the side netting on a great goal. There goes the Arsenal “clean sheet at home” that the announcer jinxed us on earlier. I was just about to comment that Arsenal looked like they had taken their foot off the gas for a bit.
11:00 — I had a bad feeling about that corner. 2-1 to Hull…
11:02 — off comes Eboue and on comes Bendtner. All hands to the pump. Eboue was probably most directly responsible for the extra passes and the first goal.
11:05 — what is this the 100th Arsenal corner???  How about a goal?
11:08 — Vela’s getting ready to come on and Arsenal’s going to switch to a 4-1-5.
11:11 — the 101st Arsenal corner, Hull look really jaded, Arsenal need to put this fucker away now. But instead, Marlon King latches on to a ball and has a good shot
11:15 — van Persie on the end of a beautiful Fabregas move and puts his left footed shot just wide. This is really frustrating.
11:17 — Arsenal waste their 108th corner — how does Gallas miss?
11:20 — 4 minutes, I want to believe.
11:24 — 4 minutes of added time too, I take back everything I said about your mother.
11:25 — YOU’VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME.

11:28 — Incredible result, nothing to complain about as far as Hull’s tactics, they won doing what they wanted to do and no matter how much they tried Arsenal just couldn’t put the ball in the net.  More about all this tomorrow, I have stuff to do around the house now. Fuck.

Live-blogging Arsenal v. Hull — part 1, enter the Stoke.

I did some “liveblogging” last season as a test but I didn’t have anywhere near the audience then as I do now, so I thought I’d give it a whirl again and see what the response is. I’ll be honest and say that the real impetus behind these is that since I write the blog in a half a day away different time zone the news stories generally dry up by Saturday morning and I’m left with just a few dregs.

So… without further ado.

7:50am the Stoke v. Chelsea game is at a break and none too soon, Chelsea is up 1-0 off an own goal. This is like watching a root canal.

7:55am ha ha, my daughter is crying, probably because she just realized that Arsenal don’t play for an hour and a half. Or maybe she just learned that Thomas Rosicky’s magical mystery illness is causing all Arsenal fans great consternation.

8:03am Fox Soccer Channel is so low rent… they never tell who the commentators are (I wanted to look up this English guy’s name so I could see why he was chosen to represent anything much less Football in America) and just now as they went to break they were announcing their sponsors and couldn’t even get the sound right so the American dude was drowned out by their closing music.  Plus, the commercials are funny. Thomas Kinkade paintings of NASCAR? Who do they think is watching this, the Beverly Hillbillies?

8:09am Chelsea are hurting people, again.

8:10am mmmm… Raspberry pancakes, thanks babe, you rock!

8:15am these pancakes are awesome, and hey look at Chelsea fouling and cheating and wasting time: they’re so classy.

8:20am Stoke’s 8’11″ stiker is giving Chelsea all kinds of problems. I’d be so stoked if they equalized.

8:25am It’s called “NASCAR THUNDER!!!” and I give it 4 whore diamonds.

Thomas Kinkade Gallery of Horrors

Thomas Kinkade Gallery of Horrors

8:35am Stoke is making a game of this, but you just know that Lampard or Dogbag are going to get a second goal.

8:37am Disgusting, Anelka lashes in a goal after a shockingly poor clearance by Faye.

8:43am disgusting, the announcer just said “John Terry… sheer brawn.”

8:50am sorry, this game is deader than corduroy so I was just geeking out on stats. Did you know that Frank Lampard had 60 shots in the EPL last year and only scored 10 goals? HA HA PROFLIGATE! Come on ref, blow the whistle…

8:55am I agree Matt, but Lady Liberty is currently living with her abusive boyfriend in a trailer park in Tennesee, and she’s all corpulent from downing a fifth of Jack and a handful of pills every day.

Thank god, that game ended.  Ok, I’ll be back in a second with the actual Arsenal thread.

What are you guys still doing over here? Go to the Arsenal thread already!