Diaby is out for a month and Wenger confirmed that Denilson will start against FC Twente.
I can think of no further proof that Wenger needs to buy an experienced central midfielder than the loss of Flamini, Gilberto, and the ubiquitously injured Diaby.
Unless, of course, they’re just marking this season down as already lost…
After Arsenal collected their first trophy of the season Wenger gave an interview where he clarified his statements of a few days ago. Basically, he explained that he was just being coy about not doing a midfield signing and that there are, in fact, target(s) but he’s too busy to sign someone right now.
I have to wonder if his “too busy” remark is kind of a shot at the board. First Dein and now Edelman have left and all the stuff that they did has been shifted onto remaining executives and/or Arsene Wenger. No one has been brought in yet to do the dirty work around contracts and other such business and so Wenger is left getting his team into shape (which it really needs), teaching players about their new roles, introducing a handful of new kids to the Arsenal way, and dealing with contracts and player movement: maybe he really is “too busy.”
There is good news, though, for those of us who would like to see just one more signing to provide cover in midfield; that Wenger is hinting that Arsenal are actively trying to sign someone. The “bad” news is that there won’t be a signing before next Wednesday’s game against FC Twente so the team we all saw this weekend is the one we’ll see then.
I did get a chance to watch yesterday’s match and they way I saw it a bunch of schoolkids held a full Sevilla team to a well deserved draw. There were a lot of problems with the midfield which put extra pressure on the defense but fortunately Fabianski stepped up to the challenge and single-handedly kept out about a half dozen clear chances. The young man really had a whale of a game and I can see why Wenger isn’t buying a keeper. That kid is going to be one hell of a keeper for the future.
The rest of the squad didn’t look bad or anything, they just looked inexperienced. Which is to be expected when Wenger starts a 16 year old and a 17 year old as the central midfield partnership. Wilshere looked bright in the role of creative midfielder but was often caught in possesion and resulted in too many turnovers. Rambo, on the other hand, just really looked lost in the defensive midfield role. To be fair, the young man has the weight of high expectations on top of the fact that he’s really only practiced with the team for, what, a month? That’s got to be tough.
Funny stat of the day: that match saw 5 Englishmen (born inside the country of England) on the pitch at the start of the match. Hoyte, Gibbs, Emmanuel-Thomas, Randall, and Wilshere all started and if you count Ramsey (which I know you English like to do) there were 6 “Englishmen” on the pitch. I thought it was a thumb to the nose at Sepp Blatter and his stupid 6+5 rule; sort of Wenger saying, “we’ll play Englishmen if we want.”
I have a hangover and I’m going to go back to sleep now. See you tomorrow!
Supposedly, Arsenal are going to sign Goekhan (Gokhan, Gökhan) Inler. I say “supposedly” because the only indication that Arsenal are signing him is that the player’s agent claims to have had talks with Arsene Wenger. What makes me extra wary about this story is that Wenger publicly denied being linked to a player yesterday:
I said many times we are one body short. And if you ask me who can come in, I cannot answer the question because I don’t know more than you.
Maybe he’s just playing coy, maybe he just got roaring drunk with the agent and forgot that he talked to him, and maybe, just maybe, the agent is angling for a better contract for his client.
That said, as I pointed out yesterday, Arsenal seriously need a midfielder. I’ll take just about any body in midifeld right now, well, OK, any quality body because right now the boss is saying crazy things like
We missed Nasri tonight who has a little knock. We missed Diaby and we missed Song who’s at the Olympics. I don’t know if our midfield tonight was ideal but it’s certainly not far from the midfield we’ll play on Wednesday night. I’m not concerned about that. But I would have been very concerned tonight if we had one or two injuries in midfield. We can’t afford that at the moment with Nasri and Diaby out. It’s very positive for us that we have no injuries tonight.
There’s no cause for concern for the boss until Arsenal suffer one, two, maybe even three more injuries in midfield. And why isn’t he concerned? Because Alex Song, that’s why. Alex Song.
Meanwhile, yesterday Arsenal scraped out a 3-2 win over Ajax. Sure it was a friendly, sure Kolo Toure is recovering from malaria, but Arsenal’s defense look jaded in the first half. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can watch it yourself. Kolo looked weak and slow and William Gallas failed to close out his opponent not once, but twice. Wenger tries to spin it, calling both goals “unstoppable” but the reality is that the defense looked tired, slow, and insanely disorganized. Watch the video, the Arsenal players are tripping over each other in defense. I actually got shivers watching the match. The defense is that bad right now.
Fortunately, Adebayor saved the team. I don’t care if the big fella missed 50 shots that were all tap ins that a one legged drunken midget could make (he didn’t) the criticism of him as wasteful in front of goal needs to stop. It’s old, like jokes about Britney Spears, and if it keeps up, I swear to your god that I am going to put on some makeup and make a YouTube video — “YOU LEAVE ADE ALONE!!!”
But seriously, he saved the team yesterday with a brilliant performance and all credit must go to Ade for the comeback. If he plays 50% as well as he did yesterday for the whole season there is no doubt in my mind that he will be the best striker in the EPL, if not the whole world.
Today, Arsenal play Sevilla at 10am local time and Doyle’s Pub is supposedly playing the match live. I can’t see anywhere on Setanta or on Fox Soccer Channel where that time is confirmed so I am marking it down as “probably not going to happen.”
Anyway, that’s it for today, I’m hoping for a much improved Arsenal defense today. We shall see.