I lied!

Well, I was going to do a post match blog but so much happened yesterday that I feel obligated to “report” the “news.”

Basically, the Boss gave his usual pre-match Friday press conference and said some very unusual things.  Normally very reserved and tight lipped, Wenger rambled on about Theo, Gallas, Flamini, the pain of losing, Senderos, and David Villa.  YIKES.

The fan’s favorite whipping boy, Senderos, received a boost from Wenger yesterday. Arsene explained why he rested him for the Man U match saying,

Senderos is a genuine and dedicated guy, of course he was extremely disappointed by his performance at Liverpool but only time will get him over that. He is very strong mentally but the first mistake he made at Liverpool played a big part in the second one. Everybody is a confidence player and the young even more so because they have less experience to rely on.

He has enough experience but it has been so intense. He has had a lot of critics. He had two outstanding games against Milan home and away and then on Sunday he was not good anymore for anything. That’s not right but it’s our job. If a guy makes a mistake because he doesn’t care you treat him differently. But he made a mistake and he cares a lot

Wenger is dead on here.  Senderos is not the best defender I’ve ever seen at Arsenal, but there’s nothing wrong with the kid — and he is just a kid.  But a lot of Arsenal “supporters” love to jump all over Senderos whenever Arsenal lose a match.  He made a mistake, get over it, and get over yourself.  Arsene Wenger is a tremendous judge of talent.  I’ll take his opinion about our players over some guy on the internet any day.

In the exact opposite direction, a lot of stuff is being made of Wenger’s statement about Gallas’ captaincy.

I cannot answer that question at the moment. I want to analyse the season after it has finished. At the moment he will be my captain until the end of the season.  I believe he has learned a lot this year and I can only say that his commitment and desire to do well was exceptional. For the rest, I wouldn’t like to go into any individual assessment at the moment.

It was a leading question and this has to be the most honest and diplomatic answer possible.  I know that I have been pretty critical of Gallas in the past and I think I’m going to follow Wenger’s lead here and give it a rest.  I will say this: the only way I can see Gallas accepting the captaincy going to another player is if that player is a world class player and widely recognized leader.  Which is to say, Wenger would have to buy John Terry or the like OR Gallas will have to be traded.  My money would be on the latter.

Speaking of signings, Flamini has refused to put pen to paper so far and Wenger is getting restless.  In fact, he gave the midfielder until the end of April to sign the terms. That’s such a highly unusual thing to do, publicly set a deadline for a player to sign a contract, and really makes me feel like the curse of the shirt is in full effect and Flamini will be going elsewhere next season.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see…

Oh yeah, read my lips: Arsenal are not buying David Villa.  Arsene figures that Walcott and Bendtner will do the job up front and besides… As many of us have been saying, it’s not a LACK of goals that’s the problem.  What Arsenal don’t want to turn into is another Tottenham where 4-4 draws are the norm; and that’s when the team is on.  The point here is two-fold: press speculation is almost always wrong and usually just used to boost the player’s transfer value and Wenger knows where the weakness is in the team.

Theo, like Wenger, figures he should play up front and he’s ready to do what it takes to get there.  The linked article is long and rambling but the more I hear come out of Theo’s mouth the more I like the kid.  Instead of whinging to the press about playing time or going down to Ladbrokes to have a wager with his pals and then wondering why he can’t break into the first team he goes to the boss and asks “what do I have to do to get some playing time?”  That’s real maturity there.  Kudos to the boy.

Lastly, Nike is doing some campaign with Cesc.  UGH.  It’s hideous.  The “no more mr nice guy” video in the link actually made me cringe.  Who comes up with this shit?

Well, that’s it!  I have wasted an hour, brought you some “news” and now I can go watch the tape of the Arsenal game!  WOO HOO!

Up the Arse!

The quiet man

Someone\'s gonna get an owie

In a sense he’s been a dream signing — small noise, big impact. It was not a big transfer by today’s standards but he’s shown that he can be a big player. He has impressed everyone with his quality and enthusiasm. He has huge potential and can play in several positions. What I like is that he’s arrived here and adapted to new challenges with the minimum of fuss. — Arsene Wenger on Bacary Sagna

Back in July, when everyone was hoping Wenger would sign a replacement for Thierry Henry, Le Boss shocked everyone by signing a 3rd right back. At the time, Arsenal were using Eboue and Hoyte in that capacity and so, rightly, most Arsenal supporters wondered aloud why Wenger signed this strange looking man and his Venus Williams beads?

No fan now would question that signing. He’s only scored that one goal against Chelsea but he’s managed six assists in all competitions — which is one more goal and four more assists than his wing partner. He’s also kept his nose clean, with three yellows on a stingy 25 fouls. These stats paint the picture of a defender who is solid, challenges well, keeps his head, and goes forward when it makes sense but isn’t reckless.

But Bacary Sanga wins a place in my top 5 not for just being a solid player but for doing it in his first season, and for doing it from day one. The quiet man may one day have us all saying Emmanuel who?

On to the news!

Injury news ahead of tomorrow’s game: no one has recovered. Which means that Sagna, Rosicky, Eduardo, and Almunia are all expected to be out. Only Almunia is “questionable” on that list and faces a fitness test today, which if he fails, might see Lehmann in goal.

UGH

You know, I loved Lehmann, no matter how bat-shit insane the man was, he was endearing to me. But some of the stuff he’s been reportedly saying has really tarnished his Arsenal image. I don’t know. I guess this is his last chance to play in front of an Arsenal crowd — sigh.

If he plays I hope he has a really great game and fans ought to give him a standing ovation. After all, he was a huge part of the invincibles.

UPDATE: Lehmann is starting tomorrow as Almunia has failed to recover.

In other news Sepp Blatter plans on circumventing EU rules and UEFA’s wishes and impose an affirmative action quota for Englishmen. Since he doesn’t have any authority to make laws like that, he’s seeking a “gentleman’s agreement” among clubs. I can’t see it happening.

UEFA, on the other hand, wants a much more tenable and sensible approach; set a quota of locally trained players at clubs without any discrimination based on nationality, but even this won’t work. Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man U’s entire business model would collapse if that policy became law.

No, I think that the market is going to have to sort this out. Either that, or Sepp and Michel can get locked in a room and fight it out to the death. Hmmm… I like that option best!

Speaking of UEFA, they have promised to crack down on dangerous play and dissent at Euro 2008. Also, diving, pushing in the penalty area during corners, unruly coaches, mass confrontations, and the people who don’t take a shower before the match and then sit right next to me, I HATE THAT. Seriously, I am playing wait and see with this one. They all sound like good reforms on paper but how they implement them could be disastrous.

And that’s it for today. Tomorrow’s blog will be LIVE FROM DOYLE’S!!! The kickoff is 7am even though the actual match is on Setanta at like 2am or something — what happened to the 3pm kickoffs??? — so, if you’re in town, come on down and meet the bloglebrity in person. That’s me. A bloglebrity. No?

Also, player #4 will be revealed on Sunday, since the game day blog takes up all my energy.

Ok, see you tomorrow.

Fever Flamini

Happy birthday to Nick Hornby who must be Arsenal’s most famous fan. I mean, other than the Queen, her majesty, god save her, and all that. Most of my American readers will know Nick by his movies and books like “High Fidelity” and so on, but not many Americans know that he also wrote a book called Fever Pitch. This book was so good it got made into two different movies. One about Nick’s own life as an Arsenal fan (which is what the books is about) and one about a Red Socks fanatic that starred Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore and sucked huge donkey balls. You would do well to not confuse the two films, unfortunately they are both called “Fever Pitch.”

The 1997 version of Fever Pitch is available via Netflix if you have that service and I highly recommend seeing the movie. For one, you will get a chance to experience what it was like climbing the steps of Highbury, cresting the top and having the old pitch fill your eyes. And for another, you’ll get to sort of see what it was like to be an Arsenal supporter in 1989, when Arsenal won the league, at Anfield, for the first time in 18 years. Us “recent” converts could use a dose of humility in seeing the sheer ecstasy that overcomes the fans when you have to wait 18 years before the team wins something major.

Nick also has a blog in which he occasionally still writes about Arsenal. In fact, the latest entry is a timely little musing on the mentality of some fans, you should check it out.

Anyway, happy birthday old man.

And now on to installment #2 (poop) of the top five Arsenal players of the season: Matthieu Flamini.

it\'s a bird, it\'s a plane!

I kinda went down a rabbit hole this morning looking for some stats that would back me up on this claim of Flamini being one of Arsenal’s top five. When I emerged, I still didn’t have anything and so, I’m going to “make shit up.”

“Flattuso” that’s reportedly his nickname and if you watch him for a match, I mean pay attention to what he’s doing on the pitch to the exclusion of everyone else you can see why they call him that. The man is a menace — he’s just everywhere. Wherever the ball is I expect Flamini to either already be there or to pop up at any second. Whenever Arsenal need their opponent’s best player covered, Flamini’s on the job. Steven Gerrard, Kaka, Ronaldo, all have suffered under his ubiquitousness. He’s like a pit bull, once he gets his teeth into you he doesn’t let go.

Many of us saw this in him several years ago when he came on the pitch as a substitute left back — you remember, when Ashley Cole was supposedly injured but was instead meeting Chelsea’s people in hotel rooms? Flamini made me forget all about Cole that year and when Arsenal traded Cole for Gallas I said, “we don’t need him, we’ve got Flamini!”

But then his career took a poor turn. See, he didn’t want to play left back. He fancied himself a holding midfielder and the Rock of Gilberto was in that spot already — how do you unseat the captain of a team, a World Cup winner, and all around one of the most beloved members of the team?

Hard work.

He didn’t go to the press and complain like Lassana Diarra did. He didn’t create unrest in the locker room like Jens Lehmann does. He put his head down and gutted it out. Putting in some impressive performances for the second team in the Carling Cup and generally doing anything the boss asked him to do. Hell, I imagine if Wenger asked, Flamini would carry the team’s water.

And this year, that hard work has paid off. I don’t have any sparkling quantitative data (he only has 3 goals and 3 assists) to show you except one thing: 74 fouls committed. In his case, that’s not a bad number! That’s his job: foul people when needed.

Like here, when Nani did the seal dribble:

That’s a good tackle.

I don’t have the average number of km he runs in a game or the work rate he puts in or whatever you want. But I do have comments from his teammates and I think those will have to do.

Wenger:

Mathieu is mentally strong and is a winner. Players who never give up mentally always improve. He’s responsible for the tempo in our game.

Cesc has a lot to say about his midfield partner:

He was amazing, not just tonight but he has been amazing all season. I’m a big fan of his. He’s hyperactive, on and off the pitch. I don’t know how he does it but he has so much power. With his encouragement we play better. He has so much passion for the game. He enjoys it and he hates losing

And yes, even the press says nice things about him, like when he ran circles around Milan at the San Siro:

In Mathieu Flamini, the Arsenal manager has found a midfielder who is willing to share the workload.

They smothered Milan, snuffed out that genius Kaka, and then pulled off one of the most jaw-dropping results in the history of the European Cup. Milan’s supporters even clapped them off the pitch.

Yes, they were that impressive.

Flamini has proven to be the perfect foil for Fabregas this season; protecting the defense, allowing Cesc to attack, and covering for him when he makes mistakes. Yes, he has been impressive. So much so that the rumors are flying that he will make a move to Juve or somewhere. But only at Arsenal does he have the chance to really build a long term partnership with a player who could be one of the best ever. So, please sign the deal Matthieu, obviously Arsenal need you.

Until tomorrow.