Category Archives: Chary

Man at the Match, Chary: Arsenal rain on Wigan’s parade

Despite the award of a free kick for a non-foul that led to an undeserved Wigan equaliser to Podolski’s early strike, Arsenal bit back in the second half to score 3 goals in a 15 minute spell and trounce championship bound Wigan.

As the rain came down in relentless sheets on the red corner of North London the Arsenal faced up to a Wigan side fresh from a giant killing of Roberto Mancini’s former team, Manchester City.

The neon lighting around the Ashburton Grove stadium combined with the heavy bursts of rain to give the look of a Blade Runner inspired backdrop but with a cool autumnal feel despite it being mid-May.

With all but the ever injured Abou Diaby available for selection the major choices for Wenger would have been whether Gibbs and Flappy would return to the starting XI at the expense of Monreal and Chesney, with the latter having done nothing to deserve being dropped, in the event the return of Gibbs was the only change.

Wigan’s support were squeezed into one block, rather than the three away clubs normally get probably due to their supporters opting for the Wembley fixture of their 2 London dates in the space of four days.

As the game kicked off the Wigan danger man McManaman was given license to run their right wing however it was clear early on that Gibbs had the measure of him – Kieran’s anticipation of his interplay with Maloney prevented anything of consequence developing offense wise for Wigan.

While there was a little tension in the air around the stadium Gooners would have done well to realise that Wigan’s defence has been leaky most of the season and so it was to prove. A cross into their box was headed in, with little challenge from the Wigan defenders, by Podolski to put the good guys one up fairly early. Due to Arteta losing the toss we attacked the North bank in the first half, and not the second as is usual, so my view on the goal was a distant one as I was in the Clock end lower tier.

The rain carried on saturating the players and the pitch and possibly Mike Dean’s brain as he gave the first of two Wigan free kicks for fouls of what seemed to be of minimal contact and close to the edge of our penalty area.

The first of the free kicks went into the wall and ricocheted off in my direction to the right of the goal but the second 30 seconds before half time beat Chesney’s left hand.

The sense of injustice of an equalising goal coming from the “Dean effect” galvanised the crowd and the aforementioned official and his team left the pitch to a justified chorus of boos and whistles.

The atmosphere at the stadium could have gone one of two ways in the second half – either nervous anxiety or defiance and support of a team that deserved to be winning. It went the second way and it has to be said the way the crowd got behind the team and didn’t let the officials get any respite from home crowd pressure or the timewasting by the Wigan players (the goalie, who was given the countdown, or the player who got booked for slowing down the taking of the corner) go unnoticed.

The Arsenal were now attacking the goal in front of me and it seemed the team were being energised by the crowd to get the win that was rightfully theirs with Cazorla being effective in decisive bursts.

All of a sudden he was running towards me, down our right wing, and a cross was slung in towards Theo. At that point time appeared to slow:

Oh, it’s bobbling around in there, wouldn’t it be nice if Theo got onto that, but wait the goalie has ploughed into him, that’s a penalty surely, never mind it’s a goal now as he’s bundled it in!

It was nothing more than Arsenal deserved and the crowd felt the vindication of taking a lead that was lawfully theirs.

About 25 minutes or so to go, would we hold onto the lead? Moments later, all of a sudden Podolski latched onto a through ball from Santi, who I think took advantage of napping by the Wigan defence to send in a quick cross, and Lukas duly lobbed the floundering Joel in the Latics goal.

Relief! A two goal buffer, one that this more defensively resilient Arsenal would surely hold onto. However yet another telling through ball from Santi set off Rambo on a marauding left wing run, which just as I saw the whites of his eyes he flashed them to the side and curled in a delicious goal past the keeper who was expecting him to cross, and made it four goals for Arsenal. After another lung busting performance in a dynamic midfield the supporters to a man were elated for Aaron, who thoroughly deserved to score

A few late subs saw Jack return; he suffered his first foul (one that Dean even called) after being on the field for five seconds and our skipper come on after Oxo.

4-1, a decisive score line and one that started the exits of the bedraggled Wigan supporters to begin their long journey up north to Lancashire, where they would contemplate life in the Championship come August. To the Arsenal supporters credit when the Wigan team went to clap their fans at the final whistle they also applauded the team and their remaining fans.

The chants of “We’re coming for you, we’re coming for yoooo—uuu, Tottenham Hotspur, we’re coming for you” rang out at fulltime and while the job is not finished the home season ended on a high note and the lap of appreciation was warmly received and all thoughts would then be focused on final fixture against Newcastle.

It’s been a rough old season and your humble scribe hopes you enjoyed this season’s reports and looks forward to a win on Sunday to salvage a season that started off inauspiciously.

UTA!

By Charybdis1966, on Youtube and Twitter.

Man at the Match, Chary: Relegation threatened Reading brushed aside

A confident Arsenal team, following two convincing away wins, returned to Ashburton Grove to ease past a Reading side suffering from the heat of a relegation battle and looking destined for the drop.

On another cold day of a seemingly interminable and harsh winter Reading faced Arsenal hoping to benefit from the new manager (Adkins) lift that the Berkshire club was expecting having sacked the previous manager, the ex-Arsenal forward Brian McDermott.

Wenger’s team selection held only a couple of surprises, bringing in Tomáš Rosický for Walcott and Sagna for Jenkinson, but resisting the temptation to bring back Chesney as Fabianski had done nothing to deserve being dropped.

There appeared to be an air of resignation about the away support, perhaps they felt changing managers was not really going to make any difference to their fate.

The Reading fans, although having turned up in numbers, were fairly subdued with the only chanting I could hear, from my unusually lofty position in the upper tier behind the Clock end goal, coming across as indeterminate wailing.

Say “weeeee-aaaahhh!”

Light flurries of snow preceded the game as winter showed no signs of letting go although by the time the game kicked off only the icy wind remained.

The Arsenal started comfortably making slick, precise passing triangles with the Reading back line looking shaky from the off. The ex Arsenal goalkeeper Stuart Taylor also looked lacking in confidence behind the defence as his clearances were being sliced repeatedly and goal kicks going straight out of play.

As it was the 12th anniversary of the passing of the much respected former midfielder Rocky Rocastle (at the tender age of 33) fan groups were planning to clap for 7 minutes 7 minutes into the game. I was sitting opposite the Red Action corner of the stadium and they seemed to be the only section of the crowd to start the “Rocky, Rocky, Rocky” song and applause at that time, but soon after Rocky’s picture (1967-2001) was put up on the big screens and standing applause was seen all over the ground.

On the pitch it was Santi and Ramsey who were providing a creative/athletic axis across the middle/forward sections of the pitch, ably aided by Rosický who was finding space for his driving runs and his quick changes of direction.

Maybe I’m favouring a fellow electric guitar playing metal fan unduly but I thought his link up play helped the Arsenal midfield to exert a hold on the game that a nervous Reading side couldn’t find a fingerhold onto.

Rock on Tommy

The Reading back four looked edgy and sure enough a gap opened for Santi to exploit and set up Gervinho for a tap in and therefore the opening goal.

Celebrating a welcome early goal

Having already scored in the previous league game, as witnessed by the man at the match on that occasion, Tim, Gervinho’s confidence appears to be returning and the Ashburton Grove crowd’s reaction to his goal should bode well for the run in and the goals we’re going to need from the Ivorian.

Support from the crowd means not groaning when one of Gervinho’s mazy runs ends in nothing or one pass too many rather than a shot, if he doesn’t know exactly what he’s going to do with the ball then how do the defenders counter him ? He may be a frustrating player but I believe he adds that random element, that unpredictability that can unlock defenses when he is full of self-belief.

More attacking from the home team and Giroud lobs the Reading keeper and then get’s clattered by Taylor in goal straight after.

Ouch Olivier !

While some were calling for a penalty it appeared to me that Giroud had lost control of the ball by the time he was hacked down.

As the half time whistle went there were subdued but contented cheers of thanks from the crowd for the first half goal and a satisfactory performance.

The second half started as the first ended with Reading trying to hold back a red and white tide, and with Gervinho’s dribbles suggesting a dead end would be reached, however a smart pass to Santi from the rejuvenated Gerv and our lead is doubled soon after the restart by a shot curled in with some skill by Santi.

The second goal appeared to kill off any signs of life in the Reading team and their supporters. What response that did arrive was in the form of an easy to save header directed straight at Fabianski (he only had one other save to make in the first half) and by Reading players following through on any stray tackles and clanging the Arsenal player clearing the ball, Sagna being on the receiving end of one of these meaty challenges as well as Ramsey, who got a late tackle from Leigertwood.

A rare spell of Reading pressure lead up to a corner which resulted in a counter attack led by, who else, Gervinho and just as it seemed he’d dwelt on the ball too long he teed up Giroud, who was the first Arsenal player to catch up with the play, who then thumped the ball left footed into the net in a satisfyingly emphatic manner. A well deserved goal not just for the precision of the strike but for Olivier’s hard work off the ground – virtually every aerial challenge he made he seemed to win and also cushion the resulting header over to a team mate.

At three nil up it should have been time for the home support to relax, but instead the Arsenal defence had a dozy moment and Sagna contrived to let a cross in that was an easy opportunity for Robson-Kanu and he duly scored and make it 3-1. Unfortunately in trying to track Robson-Kanu and prevent his shot Monreal slid past the Reading striker and clunked his head against the post – the crowd wincing as they saw replays of the Reading goal finishing with the sight of Nacho’s head colliding with the goal post.

Thankfully Nacho was able to hobble away from the pitch to be replaced by Gibbs; to be frank our Spanish left back hadn’t had one of his better games but the man is all honest effort and endeavour and will be a crowd favourite soon enough. The only dissension I saw in the defensive ranks was a little bit of finger wagging between BFG and Sagna when a cross allowed to get into the box – Kozzer quickly shouted to both of them not to turn their backs on the resulting throw in and no harm was done.

Five or so minutes later Giroud and Gervinho were subbed off with Podolski and The Ox coming on. The plus of that pair of changes was that The Ox went on a surging run into the Reading penalty area and even from where I sat at the opposite end of the ground, the hack on him was a blatant penalty.

This was coolly despatched by Arteta and 4-1 it was with a fuzzy picture the best I could manage from my distant vantage point.

Arteta scores – no, really, that is him.

The departure of Giroud did flag up how much we miss his aerial presence, virtually every goal kick of ours was headed back to us once he’d gone off, while when Olivier was there battling it out we retained possession from over 80% of our goal kicks. As mentioned before a feature of our play today was the cushioning of the headed ball and being guided forward to a forward moving midfielder. It does raise the question of who is going to win the headers in Giroud’s absence.

That is a debate for another day as at the moment both the Spuds and Chavski remain in our sights in the top four battle thanks to another three points won convincingly.

Three points in the bag.

UTA !

Written by Charybdis1966 (on Twitter and youtube)

Who are we? Who are we? Who are we?

Earlier in the week I was asked to define 7amkickoff. It was a simple enough request: “Can you send me a sentence or two summing up 7amkickoff?” but, as it turns out, defining yourself is not that simple.

It should be simple. “Who am I? Why am I here?” is the question that everyone asks themselves soon after they realize that they are, in fact, a person and that they are, in fact, “here.” Hey, wait, I’m my own person? What kind of person am I? If there were a terrace full of people experiencing an existential crisis they might perhaps chant: Who are we? Who are we? Who are we?

And it was easy to define myself when I first started writing — I was “The Arsenal Blog From An American Perspective” — because like a young kid just realizing that you are a person, you start with a basic concept like “I’m American!” and then try on a lot of different ideas until you settle on the ones that really fit you.

In my Arsenal Writing Youth, I was a “wild eyed optimist” (factually, you can’t spell “optimist” without “tim”). I was a cranky anti-Arshavinist (I still am). I was a pro-Wengerist (still am). I built my own statistical database (still use it). I wrote poems like a teenage girl (still do). I built the “7amkickoff Index” — a data driven style of writing borrowed from “Harper’s Index” (which is now my By the Numbers column on Arseblog News). And I wrote travelogues that literally tens of people loved (still do).

But since then I’ve added some contributors and just as important readers who add to the collective conversation that is 7amkickoff: Grimbo and Chary came first. Grimbo filled with righteous sanctimony and Chary with pragmatic match day reportage. And now we have Les Crang and Arsenal Letters adding their pieces to the mix, Les with the wonderful pieces on Arsenal’s history and Arsenal Letters with the insightful match previews. And 11 Cannons (not listed in the official Who Are We section of the blog, yet) who is going to add artistic flair to the site with some very special graphics. And before this starts to sound like the epilogue from The Breakfast Club:

Dear Readers, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Tuesday at 4am for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. As a…

I guess I will actually have to get down to the business of defining “7amkickoff” — a sort of mission statement if you will.

Here’s what we are:

We are forward thinking — Have you heard the one about how Arsenal haven’t won a trophy in eight years? Me too. I’ve read Arsénal: the making of a modern superclub and I think that’s about as thorough an explication of the recent past that anyone needs to understand why we are where we are today. If you want to dwell on why Arsene bought Silvestre, go right ahead. I’ve decided that I don’t care about that any more. I want to look forward, toward a better Arsenal future and not some past full of mistakes.

We are rooted in Arsenal’s history — Just because we want to look forward doesn’t mean we can’t also look back. We honor Arsenal’s history, the good times and the bad because Arsenal’s history if what makes us different from Chelsea or Man City. So, don’t want to forget our history but we also don’t be enslaved to it.

We are storytellers — the goal of my writing is always to tell a story and just like with any story there will be opinion, but opinion is not the point. The point is to take you from whatever dreary little hole you work (or live) in and transport you someplace else. I want to take you all to the Swansea game, not just tell you that I thought “so and so’s match was yet another example of Wenger’s profligacy in the transfer market”. There will be some of that but it’s never the point. The point is always to tell a story.

We are data driven – whenever we do write an opinion, we try to do our research. Les is notorious for his research, I can’t tell you how many sources he pulls for one of his historical articles. I love data, obviously. Chary reports what he sees. 11 Canons draws from myriad sources to make his original artwork. And Arsenal Letters gives match previews based on all available data for that week. Our one, lone, voice of unreason is Grimbo. And even he doesn’t just spout off. He knows his stuff inside and out, then he spouts off!

And I, Tim, am an iconoclast – you hold up any icon and my urge is going to be to smash it — yes, even Arsene Wenger. Everyone and everything deserves to be challenged. If it’s strong enough, it will stand up to the meager challenge of some Arsenal blogger.

In short, 7amkickoff is an iconoclastic Arsenal collective of writers and readers who write and discuss in equal measures analytical, passionate, historical, and forward thinking stories about the club that we all love. The Arsenal.