7amkickoff — The Arsenal blog from an American perspective

Deadline day Given-Schwarzer go round

August 30th, 2010 | Category: Arsenal | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)

It’s a little over 24 hours until the transfer window closes and I thought I’d run down the rumors and any facts that we know. Before we get started though, I want to point out that I will always strive to name my sources. I feel like if you don’t name your sources then all you are doing is the bidding of whomever you are repeating the rumor for. I mean these aren’t life or death situations, there’s no one going to war over this information, so naming your source shouldn’t be a problem. I do know people “inside the club” and there has been only once where that person passed me information that I put on the blog anonymously. It turned out to be false, or maybe not false, but rather, perhaps, “fanciful.”

There are plenty of bloggers who do have contacts in the club and they steadfastly refuse to name their sources because, well, because if they did the well from which their fanciful predictions springs forth would quickly dry up. There’s nothing Arsene Wenger hates more than a talkie toaster.

I always find it funny that these bloggers get 98% of their predictions dead wrong but it’s only the 2% that anyone remembers and they quickly become a “reliable source.” For example, the Warren Barton quotes I put on the blog about Shay Given “definitely” coming to Arsenal. I reported what I and others heard as part of a Fox Super Sunday Plus after match special that ran only in the United States. Many other people heard Warren Barton say definitively that he has had contact with Shay and that it was a done deal and it’s looking like Shay to Arsenal is not a given after all.

What I think was actually going on was Shay’s camp trying to move along a deal with Arsenal, which was always going to be exacerbated by the fact that City are pretenders to the throne and won’t want to give Arsenal a key component. I have no doubt that Given wanted a move to Arsenal, but as Wenger points out today, clubs still have a say.

Funnily enough, John Cross from the Mirror has maintained for several weeks now that Arsenal are still after Fulham’s Mark Schwarzer and Fulham for their part are not willing to let go of their number 1, unless they can get a replacement in. This is corroborated by Mark Hughes when he says:

Mark Schwarzer has made it clear that he would like to go to Arsenal so we are trying to look at other options. I’m always interested in quality players and Shay Given is a quality player. Make of that what you will. But I have said that if we can’t get anyone else in, Schwarzer will have to stay.

Sparky’s openness makes for an interesting quote and sort of matches well with all parties. Wenger has said that the transfer window is like the terminator robot at the end of the terminator movies “dead, but not finished.” Perhaps he plans to man a time machine and go back to find Sarah Connor and put her in goal, swooping in at the last minute to present her registration to the FA? We can assume that Given is using his contacts in the media to push for a transfer out of Manchester City. We know that Schwarzer is looking for one last hurrah in the Champions League and has handed in a transfer request. It all matches up very nicely and as far as I’m concerned, it’s one of the 2% that us bloggers will get right.

If it happens. Given is on a pretty hefty salary and Fulham’s wage bill has been historically very small so I wouldn’t be surprised if what’s holding up the deal is something like Fulham asking for City to pay part of Given’s wages. Please note that last bit is what we call “making things up” and should not be confused with “actually knowing what’s going on.” Only a few people involved in these deals have that knowledge and they aren’t talking. I’m just wondering out loud, which I’m allowed to do since I am a blogger and not a journalist.*

I also have trusted sources that I will quote from time-to-time and one of them is the French language newspaper L’Equipe. They have recently started publishing a weekly roundup of the gossip columns but other than that one article a week they have been 100% reliable. If they say, for example, that Juventus is interested in taking Armand Traore then you can believe that they have sourced the article well and that there is interest from Turin.

I also like L’Equipe for their simple yet accurate reporting on deals that have been done. For example, they are reporting that Ibrahimovich is returning to Milan, though this time with AC, and that Mascherano has completed a move to Barcelona. Neither of which is actually shocking news but what I particularly enjoy is reading how much each player went for. Ibrahimovich just cost Barcelona Samuel Eto’o and cash which raised his transfer to the equivalent of 75 million Euros and they have turned around and sent him back to Italy on loan with an option to buy… at just 8 million Euros a year over 3 years. Considering that Barcelona just bought David Villa, that they are giving away Ibrahimovich and that they are paying somewhere near £14m for Mascherano, it really puts the £24m Cesc Fabregas bid into perspective, doesn’t it?

Anyway, those are the only reliable things I have to report. Sorry, if it’s not exciting enough for you. Maybe next time I will have an EXCLUSIF for you. In the mean time, I do want to say one thing about Almunia. There is a good chance that all this wheeling and dealing (NSFW LANGUAGE FROM REDKNAPP) will not come to fruition and Schwarzer will stay at Fulham. In that case, I am with the others who have said on this blog that at 6pm GMT on Tuesday we need to back Almunia 100%. I won’t doubt your commitment to the club or anything but I will doubt the logic of taking him down. I’m not talking about saying that he had a bad game, I’m talking about the constant moaning like a Pulis about him not being good enough. Maybe he isn’t good enough, but he’s possibly all we got and after Tuesday there isn’t much we can do about that.

Right, that’s well and truly it. I’m off to stand around outside the Stadium of Light and see who they cut today and make sure I can get Arsene a screaming deal on one of their 20-odd holding midfielders so that Alex Song can have an experienced back up.

Cheers!

–

*I have noticed a sharp turn in what passes for journalism these days with copy being directly, erm, copied from one source to the other without so much as a changed word. I’ve also noticed that many journalists are actually turning in to bloggers, writing opinion pieces, and even appearing on blogs in a turn where the blogger interviews the journalist. The professional has clearly been hit by tough times and the writers are doing anything to stay relevant, including the hit whoring that used to be the exclusive purview of us bloggers. So, when people come on here and complain about my “journalistic integrity” and duty to report fairly, I kind of understand why they might be confusing me for a journalist. After all, I read them every day and the standards at places like the Mirror and the Daily Fail are actually lower than mine — they just don’t use the word “cunt.”

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Blackburn 1-2 Arsenal: how do you undo that hoodoo that they do?

Quote of the day

Mark Schwarzer has made it clear that he would like to go to Arsenal so we are trying to look at other options. I’m always interested in quality players and Shay Given is a quality player. Make of that what you will. But I have said that if we can’t get anyone else in, Schwarzer will have to stay. — Mark Hughes on the Schwarzer transfer saga

Man of the match

If you’re going to play in England and have the fortune of carrying an English provenance you’re going to come in for some heavy and unwarranted criticism in your time. The schadenfreude surrounding Wayne Rooney’s inability to score a goal for club or country over the last few months had reached the point where I swear that the National Health Service was about to forced every hospital in England to carry one of those LED clocks that counts the hours, minutes, and seconds from when some last event or to which some even takes place. In this case, it would click upward and read “Since Wayne Rooney Last Scored (in Football, not with his lovely wife).”

Rooney’s illustrative of another fact in football and that is that no matter how hard you work for the team (Heskey) no matter how unselfish you play up front (van Persie) strikers are expected to score goals and if they don’t people get all apoplectic about the fact. Rooney hadn’t scored a goal in (insert number of hours) and this was a national emergency thus, the clocks were called in to shore up the mental health of Great Britain.

There are some people though who will seize upon this cultural phenomenon and exploit it for their own pig-eyed purposes. In comes our villain, one Alan Hansen: twirling his mustache, Alan Hansen tried to tie Theo to the tracks of stupidity and claimed that Theo has no footballing brain because in a masterful hat-trick performance he missed a few passes. It was a preposterous accusation and was decried by all commentators who do have both a footballing brain and a regular brain.

For his part, though, Theo refused to play the damsel in distress and simply sloughed off Hansen’s crudely fastened ropes and played the pivotal part in what everyone has to admit was a great win over a difficult opponent. Opening Arsenal’s account with a bold lash, which symbolically blasted through Hansen’s ropes when it ripped the netting in the Blackburn goal, Theo went on to simply be scintillating for all 90 minutes.

Hansen no doubt will have said that Theo should have scored 100 goals or some such non-sense but as we all have seen over the first three games of the season — in which Theo has already drawn or surpassed his historical Premier League season long goals tally — our young Newbury Henry is well on his way to being the striker that Wenger envisioned when he first moved him to the Siberia of the right wing. An instinctive and an intelligent performance from young Henry, erm, I mean Walcott easily earns him man of the match for me.

How do you undo that hoodoo that they do?

Blackburn are a bunch of ball wiping, goal kicking, Samba as Center Forward playing, dirty, diving, cheating… losers.

That’s right, they lost and they lost at home. Moreover, they lost to their old foe, the team that they feel like they have some “hoo doo” over, the team that their boss Sam Allardyce feels like he can match wits against because up until the last few years he’s had a pretty good record.

Arsene Wenger’s not a stupid man and so the idea that Sam Allardyce is his equal is laughable. Sam plays the percentages game. If he gets enough balls in the box and they land somewhere near Christopher Samba’s giant head and Samba is allowed to use his opponent’s shoulders as a lift and Samba doesn’t have two left heads and Samba gets his shot on target.. well then, the sky’s the limit. They could get one, maybe even TWO whole goals. If they do get a goal, then they switch tactics and use rotational fouling to break up play. Until they get the ball back and start playing percentages all over again.

It’s anti-football because basically every play is a Hail Mary. Could you imagine if the Detroit Lions decided that after every kickoff they would throw a Hail Mary on first down? Come to think of it, I think the Detroit Lions might have more success if they threw Hail Mary’s on every play. Why not? Like Blackburn, what do they have to lose?

But who cares what tactic they used? We dealt with it. Long throws into the box, long bombs from Paul Robinson, physical play, everything they threw at us we dealt with and it was a joy to watch.

That said, a couple of players in particular did very well taking on the physical challenges and dishing back out.

Judging from the stats (9/11 tackles, 6/9 clearances, and 4 interceptions) Blackburn targeted Koscielny from the off and I have to say that he did pretty well. I’d bet if you asked him, this was a giant physical step up from Ligue 1, and you can bet that he’ll be asking to see the weight room schedule to check for opening times in the morrow.

Diaby also had a good game physically winning 8/11 tackles, though when Wenger matched him man for man against Samba he only managed 1/5 clearances. You have to think that just matching someone on Samba is a huge step forward. Offensively, Diaby was our best passer completing an astonishing 91% of his 58 passes yesterday.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Manuel Almunia who put in what many thought was a man of the match performance yesterday. He was very good, I will grant you that and I particularly liked that he punched away a couple of long balls with authority. Also, there were at least two times that the Blackburn attacker “magically” found himself underneath the ball as Almunia came for the high claim. It was shades of last year when Fabianski found himself in the same position and brought the ball down on Samba’s head only to concede the goal. Almunia, though, had “safe hands” and when he brought the ball down it didn’t pop out on Samba’s head. Almunia did well and if he can just keep his head for a season, could very easily be another Eboue type figure. Of course, that is, unless Arsenal buy Mark Schwarzer which it seems like we are trying to do.

The bad

Why is it that referees can’t be consistent?

I will concede that I am biased but what I can’t understand is when there are two similar situations and the referee calls the play one way for one team and the other for the opposite. For example, yesterday, Gamst was down in our box, Arsenal were all the way on the other end of the field, Theo has the ball and is about to skin the Blackburn fullback (for the umpteenth time) and ref blows play dead. Fine, fair enough, even though it’s a bit odd because Gamst is nowhere near the play, we are fully in attack, and there is no indication of a head injury.

So, why is it that when van Persie was brought down and Blackburn have the ball and they are passing the ball around in the area where van Persie is clearly in trouble, that Chris Foy waits until we win the ball back to stop play?

Just call it the same way each time and everyone will be happy.

The ugly

Ironically, Blackburn’s only goal came from open play and it was a comedy of errors. I don’t need to tell you that Koscielny is a slight figure and that he was easily nudged off the ball by El Hadji Diouf. I also don’t need to tell you that Clichy has been found out time and again defensively. Any time a team scores against Arsenal, there are going to be recriminations and finger pointing, but why is it that it seems like a large number of really, really stupid mistakes are committed when Clichy is in defense? I mean, they scored in a 3 on 4 situation there and all Clichy had to do was mark the other Diouf and make the goal difficult. Instead he stopped dead — why? No one knows.

Conclusion

Overall, it was a very good win from the Arsenal perspective. Yes, we lost van Persie but we all know that losing van Persie is just a matter of how and when. 10 days is the initial prognosis and now that we have Chamakh it’s not that big a blow. The first half was bit nervy but as I pointed out in the liveblog yesterday, Arsenal completely dominated the second and deserved the three points. Sam Allardyce is the patron saint of “Arsenal don’t like it up ‘em” and hopefully, this win will finally put that old warhorse to rest.

Anyway, now we head into the international break and our players are scattered far and wide. We have until Tuesday to seal a deal with a keeper, if we are indeed after a keeper any more, since Wenger did say that the transfer window is closed for Arsenal. And that will be our week. A week of waiting for news that so and so comes back from their national team healthy or hurt. A week of rest for some and a week of gaining match fitness for others. But a week in which the Arsenal players can look back and be proud of shaking off the ropes of their critics and look forward to playing against another old villain in Bolton and the start of our Champions League campaign.

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Liveblogging Blackburn v. Arsenal

August 28th, 2010 | Tags: Blackburn v. Arsenal | Category: Arsenal, Premier League Campaign | 105 comments - (Comments are closed)

4:20am Pacific Standard Time. If the game had been any other time I would have gone down to my local. But as it stands nothing is open and even dedicated football fans don’t risk the wrath of the liquor control board when their business is at stake. So, instead I’m at my couch, Coffee is on, dog has been put out, and I settle in for the pre-game.

4:30am. Normally the wizened old commentators are horrible but Steve McManaman and Robbie Mustoe are doing a really good job being complimentary about both Arsenal and Blackburn. For example, I didn’t once here the cliche that dominates all conversation before and after these games in England about how Sam Allardyce has a “hoodoo” over Arsene Wenger.

4:45am. Holy crap, I thought kickoff would be closer to 5am. I’m surprised and haven’t had a chance to set things up on the blog. Now, we are off and already it’s nothing but set plays. Arsenal are doing well with the constant barrage from Blackburn.

5:00am — ok, 10 minutes in and Arsenal should be ahead 2-0, Diouf should have been sent off for headbutting Almunia, Almunia is doing very well dealing with the Blackburn set pieces, Gamst has discovered his true talent as a ball wiper, and Paul Robinson has discovered his lone talent as a long kicker.

17′ — Samba uses Diaby’s shoulders to gain an advantage and misses an open header. Arshavin and Cesc starting a bit slow.

19′ — Throw… ball wiping… THEO!!! Arsenal were threatening the whole game, opening Blackburn at nearly every opportunity. And van Persie plays in Theo who score a brilliant goal in the fart post, unstoppable, but hey, he’s got no brain right? Score more now Arsenal! TO THE TOP OF THE TABLE

25′ — Theo lets the ball drift across his body and destroys his marker who is reduced to pulling Walcott’s shirt. No call but Theo wins a corner. He’s having a hell of a match already.

26′ — El Hadji Douche rolls Koscielny and slides the ball past a quiescent Clichy and Vermaelen who somehow lost all of their markers. Pathetic, weak defending, and I’m not sure who should shoulder the blame there — Clichy for losing Diouf? Koscielny for getting shrugged off by a midget? Vermaelen for not organizing them? All of the above?

34′ — FUCK. Robin van Persie is down and I’m really, really, really and tired of saying that. But here’s the other thing, why did Chris Foy stop Arsenal’s attack 1 minute ago when that diver Gamst was down in the other end of the field, and yet he allowed Blackburn to play on with van Persie down RIGHT AROUND THE PLAY.

37′ — ball wiping. Song is having a poor game, giving the ball away cheaply.

39′ — Gamst knocks Diaby over as he’s having a shot. No call of course because Chris Foy either doesn’t understand what a foul is, is blind, or…

43′ — you know what Gamst wants for Christmas? Another couple of balls and an extra set of hands. I’m saying he fidgets with his balls a lot.

46′ — So what position is it that Clichy plays? Because he’s never marking his wide attacker.

Half time and all the old ghosts, save one, are evident. Almunia is having a really good game and is exercising some demons here so, straight away I have to give him credit. Meanwhile, Clichy is having another poor performance and Song is turning the ball over too much. We need to stop giving the ball away cheaply and start marking people. Clichy, in particular is to blame for their goal: he looked back, saw Blackburn’s leading goal scorer and LET HIM RUN UNMARKED. Koscielny deserves some credit for the Blackburn goal and if he’s getting pushed over by Diouf he will be crumpled up and thrown away by a beast like Drogba. I have to think that Squillaci will seriously challenge Koscielny for a starting spot if he’s going to be brushed aside that easily.

Cesc looks tired and I don’t know why it’s not like he played a ton of minutes in the World Cup. Arshavin is trying to be tricky but it was basic passing football that got the goal. Theo is tearing Blackburn to shreds and my only hope for him is that he retires from international football, because we’ll need him healthy as Robin van Persie is probably going to be out for several months now.

As for Blackburn, well, it’s the same old shit: long balls, ball wipers, Diouf is a Douche, Chris Foy is giving them every advantage, and Christopher Samba is a large man.

Meh. We can still win this, their defense is pathetic — I should say slightly more pathetic than ours today — and our offense is custom made to score goals. Chamakh with the winner?

47′ — Arsenal start the second half and continue to look off the boil a bit. Come on boys.

51′ — Sagna saves Chamakh’s blushes and then strips the paint off El Hadji Douche to put in a great cross, Theo has a shot, and the rebound falls to Arshavin who puts away with aplomb. Now, let’s get 5 more.

53′ — Cesc shows what he can do and plays in a lovely ball to the onrushing Chamakh, who’s shot is blocked. A win at Blackburn would be a huge confidence boost.

60′ — Diaby is having a massive game. He is really putting himself out there and winning duels. Plus he’s been marking Samba. He deserves a goal and I have to say that I really love the combination of Diaby and Song (though Song is having a poor game.

63′ — they just flashed that Arsenal have had 72% of the possession in the second half. Much better all around from all the players.

66′ — Salgado takes Arshavin out and 99% of the time, that’s a yellow card 100% of the time. Chris Foy elects to make it that 1% and no card is shown. I wonder if Wenger’s words about “Rugby” hasn’t backfired a bit, or is this just an exceptionally clean game? You make the call!

70′ — oh hey look, Cesc is off and Rosicky is on. We will see all an action 20′ from Thomas I predict. Counter attacking goals?

74′ — Givet gets the first yellow for nearly stripping Theo bare after the Englishman turned him inside out like a tube sock.

78′ — Theo has a crack at goal and it looks like Robinson might have got a finger on it. Balls are being wiped.

80′ — replays show that Arsenal are fighting Samba in the box. My feeling is that if he’s allowed to put hands on the defender’s shoulders on a jump, we should be allowed to Greco-Roman wrestle him to the ground. It’s only fair.

83′ — It’s a “battle of wits” as Allardyce plays all his cards and pushes Christopher Samba into the center forward role. Sad, really.

85′ — Chris Foy makes a pigs ear of that as the Blackburn defender clearly handles the ball and thus played Theo on side, or at least we should have had a free kick. Terrible refereeing.

87′ — I’m getting nervous now, but I have to say I loved seeing Wilshere tackle Samba. Brilliant. FUCK… CLICHY. Come on.

90′ — Rosicky had a shot well wide on a counter as Christopher Samba shows that like Gamst, he is also a diving cheater. Ball wiping.

91′ — Wilshere just slips on a wide open shot. Come on Arsenal, this is ours.

AWESOME WIN. I couldn’t possible be happier. Arsenal’s second half performance was massive and we played very physically against a team who tried to out-muscle us. More thoughts tomorrow, though I’d love to hear who you think Man of the Match was.

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