The good, the bad, the ugly (Derby 2-6 Arsenal)

The good: Enough can’t be written about how good Adebayor has been this season. Yesterday he came on at half time (subbing for an injured van Persie) and immediately made a huge impact. It took a whopping 15 minutes before he got his first goal, then another 15 for the second and you just knew he would eventually get the hat trick he deserved. Incidentally, the last person to score a hat trick as a substitute in the EPL was Robert Earnshaw (more on him in a moment). So, a hat trick (his second this season), 30 goals (24 in the Premier League, which moves him into second place), and a strong performance all over the pitch from the big man. Good stuff but no less than we have all come to expect from the big fella.

Fabregas also had an all around great game, notched an assist, and generally showed that Robbie Savage is no longer premiership quality. Cesc was partnered in the center with Denilson who I though looked a solid player. He won the ball quite well, distributed fairly well, and honestly looked as good to me as Diarra ever did. I remain convinced that he’ll fill Flamini’s spot fairly well next year.

Theo looked farking fantastic. Technically, he didn’t get an assist yesterday but I counted no less than two times where he was instrumental in Arsenal scoring a goal. Plus he scored a fantastic goal himself: curling the ball into the side netting between two Derby defenders. Heady stuff from the young man. Interestingly, Wenger started Theo on the left — will we see more of this?

The bad: I’m not trying to get down on the boys here it’s just that the two goals they let in were such stinkers that they have to be mentioned. Gallas in particular looked like he had the worst game of his season and earned the lowest rating of any of his teammates. That Earnshaw goal was particularly egregious: the striker set up between the two defenders and came back perfectly from an offside position. That’s just lazy, disorganized defending of what amounts to a grade school attack. A strong, organized defense must be first on Wenger’s shopping list for next season, especially when you consider that Arsenal allowed Derby to score two goals: which was Derby’s first time scoring more than one goal all season and those two goals also represented over 10% of all Derby’s goals this season. Not inspiring stuff from the defense. PLEASE NOTE: I am not suggesting that personnel need to be changed in order to strengthen the squad. Gallas and company have what it takes to do the job, they are all great footballers. They just need a little better organization at the back; maybe Tony Adams? I hear that he’s available.

Up front, I am going to single someone out; I thought Bendtner was shockingly lazy and his poor clearance was what let in the first Derby goal. This is your chance to shine young fella… Don’t stand stock still in the 18 yard box and just expect people to pass you the ball! Geeze.

One final “bad:” van Persie was injured… again. What a shame too. When van Persie is on his game and able to stay healthy for a few weeks he can be a tremendous asset to this team. But he seems more injured than healthy and his injuries seem to be getting more frequent.

The ugly: Robert Earnshaw’s fugly dance: I think it was supposed to be the dance from “Jungle Love” by Morris Day and the Time (WARNING: CONTENT ADVISORY — WHITE GUY DANCES “LIKE” MORRIS DAY). Whatever it was I never want to see it again.

But if you want to see it again here it is! (Thanks to Arsenalist for putting these up on his web site. If you ever need post match highlights, he’s your man.)

Equally ugly was Adebayor’s reply dance(s). The first one looked like he was mocking Earnshaw which is fair enough because Earnshaw’s dance was that disgusting. But whatever Ade’s first dance was, it was at least synchronized… that second dance was just stupid. Stop doing that.

No… seriously… stop.

It was funny when you did it with Henry. It’s now just you and Eboue and kinda makes Arsenal look pompous. Go win a trophy and then do some line dancing. Synchronized dancing when you score a goal against Derby is just embarrassing. You’re SUPPOSED to score goals against Derby. They happen to have the most accommodating defense in the league, so scoring a goal against Derby isn’t cause for celebration, it’s your job. I don’t dance every time I fix a computer. Hmmmm… maybe I should start.

The dance routines did teach me something. I learned the role that Eboue plays on the team: first man to celebrate a goal with! He never does anything on the pitch, but he’s always the first player that gets a hug, or lines up for some kid of dance maneuver. Emmanuel Eboue: team dance partner.

All in all, it’s a good win, and brings Arsenal 3 points closer to the Premiership trophy.  Now, if only both Chelsea and Man U could lose all of their matches…

That’s it, see you tomorrow!

Like rams to the slaughter?

It may seem like a life time ago, but there was a day back in September that Arsenal beat Derby 5-0. Diaby opened the scoring on 10 minutes and from there on in the result was inevitable. Well, three points was inevitable, who would have pegged Ade to score a hat trick? Pretty much no one since, at that point Ade was still considered “horrible” by most Arsenal fans.

Back in September… the season was wide open, Arsenal were on a winning streak, and hopes of glory were still in front of us. 7 months later and now we’ve come full circle: hopes for this season have been dashed (though mathematically Arsenal COULD still win the league title since there are 9 points up for grabs and Arsenal are only 7 points off the leaders), and hopes for next season are in front of us; Arsene is promising to blood some young players, and the old players have all been granted awards.

It should be a fun match to watch. I suspect Arsenal will play the way they always play; open, attacking football (Wenger’s teams never change style regardless of the personnel). And rumor has it they will showcase some young talent, which I always enjoy watching because those young players will be trying to convince Le Boss to give them a few starts next season. On the other end of the pitch, I expect Derby will put in a good performance, hoping to give their long suffering (but no less faithful) supporters something to talk about next season. So, a lively match is on tap. Kickoff is noon local (Pacific Standard) time and the match is a Setanta exclusive here in the states. Which to my loyal readers means that the game is being shown at my favorite Tacoma Football pub — Doyles.

In really great and cool and fun news Cesc has earned himself the PFA “Young Player of the Year Award.” Kudos to the young man, who doesn’t turn 21 until May 4th. Really? He’s only 20?

Along with Fabregas, the PFA named Adebayor, Clichy, and Sagna to their Premier League Team of the Year. So, wait, does that mean I got 4 out of 5 right? I guess it does. And why is it that a man who is described by some “supporters” as having the “touch of a rapist” pegged for Team of the Year along side the likes of Fernando Torres? I can’t quite figure it out myself. In that article, even Ronaldo (who won Player of the Year) revealed that he voted Adebayor for Player of the Year. That must be one of those “lost in translation” things because Adebayor couldn’t be, you know, actually a good player… could he?

There’s some rumor floating around about the Flim-Flam-man signing with Milan because they want him to replace Gattuso. Yep. I’ll believe it when I see it revealed on The Dot Com.

(WARNING — STRONG LANGUAGE ADVISORY)

And finally, my favorite pack of utter douchebags (Bolton) has revealed that they enjoy being douchebags. In fact, they say that their only regret is that they felt they could have been bigger pricks and are right now desperately seeking a way to play an entire season without scoring or conceding a goal, pick up 11 yellow cards a match, not have anyone sent off, and permanently injure one opponent per match.  Lofty goals.  It must be gripping stuff for their supporters to watch a bunch of no talent clod hoppers hoof the ball forward to despicable cheats like El-Haji-Diouf and utter cunts like Kevin Davies. GRIPPING.

Sorry for all the language there, I’m suffering from a form of Tourette’s syndrome; whenever I think of Bolton I have to curse. Also, read the linked article at your own risk, spontaneous projectile vomiting is a known side effect of statements like “We (Bolton) were a top eight side and no one can ever take that away from us.”

If there’s a god, that team will be relegated… along with Birmingham.

God?

t-minus three days

It’s a nice, lazy, Sunday morning and I’m just sitting here watching Juventus destroy Lazio while scouring the internet for an Arsenal news story. Later on I’ll probably check out the Villa/Everton game what with everyone pegging Gareth Barry as a replacement for Flamini.

And that’s the truth of it isn’t it? Everything right now is transfer speculation and responses to transfer speculation. Which is a bit odd for me as this is my first year blogging. Before, I could just sort of zone out at this point in the season and now, I’m looking for stories… Come on… any story will do. Huh, here’s one: Hleb says he wants trophies, is afraid of Premier League defenders, blames his pass first attitude on his childhood, and claims not to know whether he will be going to Inter.

Two things caught my attention there: the thing about defenders and the thing about his pass first attitude. It’s pretty clear that Martin Taylor’s horrible tackle on Eduardo rocked some of the players. You have to wonder what part that tackle will play in Hleb’s decision to move to a new league. Especially when he sees the problem escalating:

The tackling and the style of play has become more aggressive. Sometimes you can see a tackle coming and if you don’t do anything you could lose both your legs. The referees should be protecting players and the game, if they don’t, the aggression is going to escalate.

I kind of disagree with Hleb here. I’ve been watching some classic football matches and those guys were pretty freakin violent. I’m not saying that the league couldn’t use a little cleaning up; certainly it could. Instead, we should see the progress that the league has made in stamping out a lot of violent play and encourage them to go further.

I’ve been beating this drum ever since the Taylor tackle, but I think that the managers and clubs need to be held accountable when players are told to go out and get overly physical. As I’ve said before, international football is changing (UEFA promises to crack down during Euro 2008) and if England wishes to compete they are going to have to develop skill players instead of just churning out lumbering, mindless, no-talent hulks like Martin Taylor. Hleb citing that tackle as a reason he might leave should be seen as a shot across the bow to the FA.

But it won’t be.

As for the pass first thing… Jesus, Hleb, you’re 27 and you can’t shoot because your youth coach told you to pass? I don’t think so. I think that’s an excuse. You scored goals in Germany, I’ve seen you shoot at goal for Arsenal, so I know you CAN shoot, but why don’t you?

Some guys don’t shoot because they are afraid. You can always tell who these guys are because they will find themselves wide open, in front of goal, and will look around for someone else to pass the ball to. I think Hleb is one of these guys. I’m not suggesting that Arsenal should get rid of him, but instead that we as fans should realize that he will never be a huge goal scorer; he just doesn’t have the personality for it.

In the other Arsenal news, Wenger is making noise about players leaving for more money. You’re all probably tired of hearing this but, Arsenal have a strict wage bill policy (with only Cesc and Gallas making more than £50k/wk)and Wenger is NOT going to break that up. Wenger has stated that if he gives Flamini a bunch of money then he has to start re-negotiating contracts with everyone and before you know it, Arsenal are burdened with an untenable payroll. I guess that makes a certain sense.

But Flamini raises an interesting point: Arsenal are linked to Gareth Barry, right? He’s valued at £15m, right? He currently earns £42k/wk and any transfer would see him get a raise, right? So, let’s say Arsenal lets Flamini go and then buys Barry to replace him. They sign Barry to a 5 year deal and pay him £50k/wk. After you add everything up and divide it all up (£15m/5 years/52 weeks) Barry’s total cost is £107,000/wk.

Seems kinda silly not to pay Flamini £60-70/wk doesn’t it? I understand that that would mean you’re breaking the pay scale but you’re breaking the pay scale to save money. Yes, you will have to explain to the younger players that there was this “one off” pay discrepancy but that’s your job! Alternately, if you want to keep the pay scale, then why not a “signing bonus?” Isn’t there some creative way for Arsenal to get the player what he wants?

I suspect they could but that Wenger doesn’t rate Flamini any higher than what he’s offered him. That may be the sad truth of all this. That no matter how highly I think of Flamini, he’s not as good as I’d like to believe. In fact, I was watching Juventus and Sissoko currently holds the spot that Flamini claims at Arsenal and honestly? I can’t see Flamini breaking into the starting lineup there, not unless they are going to radically re-tool that team. Flamini has to know that he will be riding the pine in Italy. So, this is about the money — which Wenger eruditely points out:

There is something in this team which is stronger than a few bucks here and there. What is really important is that this team says ‘lets go to the end of our potential together and not walk out for any simpler reason’ – and that is where I expect them to show strength, and care what they can achieve together… Flamini can earn more somewhere else that is for sure because it would be a free transfer – but how much is he ready to sacrifice to stay here?

We’ll find out in just three days but I suspect Flamini’s answer to that question is “not much.”

Until tomorrow.

P.S. I really don’t know what the big deal is with Gareth Barry, so far he’s been decent but the way the press make him out, he’s the greatest holding midfielder in the history of England.  He doesn’t even play holding midfielder for Villa, Petrov does.  I don’t get it…