My regular readers know that if I don’t see a game, I don’t write a match report. Fortunately, I didn’t get to see this game and instead listened to the commentary on Arsenal TV Online. After hearing the final score and even the pro-Arsenal commentators talk about the failures of the team I decided against watching the video of the match on ATVO and instead went for drinks. It was the only rational decision left at that point.

I read Arseblog’s report today and I agree with it entirely; including the criticisms of the players and the manager. Again, for the regular readers, this isn’t something I do. I fell into a black hole of criticism last year and vowed not to do it this year and have, with a few exceptions, stayed entirely positive. But clearly, this team is not performing up to expectations and I’m neither blind, nor stupid enough to realize where the faults lay.

Similarly, I’m not off the deep end quite yet, despite the disheartening fact that Arsenal proved Sam Allardyce correct, and can see some improvement this season and see some hope at the end of the tunnel for next year.

The Bad

Arsene Wenger: he signed Silvestre who has been an utter failure. Last year Wenger even spectacularly defended the player when a supporter called him a “geriatric” but the record couldn’t be more stark. When Silvestre plays this year, Arsenal have a record of 10W-2D-7L. Silvestre has featured in 7 of Arsenal’s 14 total losses this season and worse still in this shit run-in has been part of the team which has shipped 11 goals in 5 matches on the way to a 0-1-4 record. Of course you can’t expect that Gallas, Vermaelen, and Djourou would all be out at the same time but the question remains why Silvestre is even on the payroll if he’s the 5th choice center back.

Worse still, the keeper situation is a disaster and again, Wenger gets the blame. Rumor has it he went after a keeper in the January transfer window. If true, then he failed on this front twice: once at the start of the season, by not having a backup keeper who would have forced Almunia to be dropped and again in January where he kept faith in two of the objectively worst keepers in the League. Good shot-stoppers, both. But utterly nice when it comes to being bullied in the box. Sure, you can blame Silvestre here a bit. As Arseblog points out Keown wouldn’t have allowed Samba to just stand in front of the keeper. But Fabianski and Almunia have to stand up for themselves as well. Good reaction times and making good saves are standard fare for keepers, but so is being a bully and Arsenal’s keepers are too genteel for the English game.

Which is really the final problem that I lay on Wenger’s shoulders. I understand that he wants to win the Champions League and this team is his idea of how to do that. But if there’s a lesson that this season (and every other season in every other sport I have ever watched) should teach Wenger it’s that defense wins championships. Who is your favorite to win the Champions League this year? That’s right, Inter because they have the defense to hold out and win ugly if needed. Same with Blackburn, once they took the lead everyone knew that Arsenal weren’t getting back into the game.

It’s been the pattern all season too. Up 6-0 in the first game of the year and we let Louis Saha score in the 90th minute. So what, we win 6-1 rather than 6-0? It’s the mentality of the team; they take their foot off the gas, they go on a holiday early, and they ship stupid goals which let teams back into games. For example, more worrying was the 3rd game of the year against Pompey: up 2-0 we let Younes Kaboul score in the 37th minute to make it 2-1. Sure, we went on to win 4-1 but that 37th minute goal should never have happened. It’s been the story of the season for this team to be 2-0 up and rather than dig in and park the bus, we’re out there shipping goals.

There are two reasons why this happens: some players don’t seem to care and we don’t seem to have a second way of playing to fall back on. The players who don’t care should be cut loose, now. Wenger must know who they are and must deal with them. Again, sure, injuries have taken their toll and especially their toll on the heart of the team. Cesc, Vermaelen, Song, and Campbell are all players who play above their natural talent level because they have heart and so missing them is a huge blow. But that’s when backup players step up and show the boss that they have balls. These backup players’ balls are shrinking at the exact wrong time.

But Wenger could also have instituted a plan B at some points in the season and he hasn’t. The fact that a fucking retard like Sam Allardyce actually DID outwit Arsene Wenger is as damning an indictment against his system of play and it’s uni-dimensional tactics as I can imagine.  We need balance in defense and the ability to win games ugly. If that means changing some personnel then do it.

The Allardyce

I don’t have his full record and really don’t have time to look it up, but going back to 2005 his overall record against Arsenal is P13, W4, D2, L6 which actually isn’t that bad for a manager who aspires to a 13th place finish against a team which perennially challenges for trophies. Yesterday’s match was his first win over Arsenal since November 25th, 2006 when Nicolas Anelka scored a brace to undo Arsenal. It’s going to be unbearable listening to him go on about how he beats Arsenal “every time” mostly because he’s right; park the bus, get away with red card challenges, and hit Arsenal on the break and you will get a win every 4 years or so. With that kind of tactical nous he should be England manager.

The Good

The sky is hardly falling, but frankly I did expect more from the boys in this run-in. On paper, we had one of the easiest run-ins in the league and should have at least shown some more “bottle” despite the number of injuries we’ve suffered. You do have to give credit to Wigan and Blackburn they have both taken points off all the top teams this season when they are at their home stadiums. They are hardly pushovers and clearly get up for games against the “big four.” It was never going to be as easy as everyone thought with injuries decimating the team and the officials having a bit of a soft spot for tactics deployed by teams like Blackburn.

But, the good news is that we’re on the same number of points as last year’s fourth place team already. A single point on the last day should be enough to take 3rd place, though Tottenham will be gunning for that on the final day if they beat Manciti on Wednesday. Our old friend Patrick Vieira had vowed to give his all in that match and wouldn’t it just be ironic if Paddy comes through for us despite the fact that Wenger refused to re-sign him in January? A draw is the best result because it means neither team can catch us for 3rd and we can play our strolling, end-of season, game that the lads seem to have grown so found of over the last few weeks.

Personally, I’d play Vito Mannone in the last game against Fulham. His shining moment this season was against them where he single-handedly won us the game and I see no reason to continue with the Fabianski/Almunia experiment. They are done. Deader than corduroys.

And that’s a good thing. Wenger cannot possibly go into next season with Almunia in goal much less Fabianski. He’ll need to buy there, no question.

Moreover, with Wenger making some rumblings about tightening up defensively I think he sees that in order to compete in the Premier League he needs to add some tougher defenders and possibly introduce multiple playing styles. In fact, I would go one further and suggest that he basically make two teams: one for domestic competitions and one for Europe. The core of this team has enough passers and people who can move the ball around, now what we need are players who will shove the Christoper Samba’s to the ground, tread on their ankles, spit on them and get away with it. Just like the Hull’s and Blackburn’s and Stoke City’s have. Clearly we can’t beat them and we’re not going to change the culture of English football so if we want to win domestically, it’s time to join them. That’s why you need two teams, one that plays football for Europe and one that’s got a few thugs, for England.

Oh and after you field a team of shit-kickers who foul their way to victory, make sure you smile and shake hands with the opposition. With all the furor over whether Wenger shook Allardyce’s hand and no furor over Pederson’s red card tackle, the lesson is that in England it’s more important to pretend you care about sportsmanship than to actually be sporting. Wenger’s been there now for 14 years, here’s hoping that last bit has sunk in.

Thanks to everyone who sent in well wishes yesterday, nothing particularly went wrong, just didn’t feel like blogging. It’s happened a couple of times in my tenure and, well, it’ll happen again. I mentioned that there would be no blog over on twitter so if you REALLY need news like that, then follow me there.

Right, there’s a huge, massive, critical, ok… somewhat important match coming up tomorrow and I have some huge, massive, critical, ok… really boring news about that match: America is going to be denied our gods given right to watch the game on television.

I know, it’s a tragedy of epic proportions that for just about the first time in 5 years I haven’t been afforded the luxury of watching Arsenal live on television. Not only that, but a win means that we won’t get to see our team win on St. Totteringham’s day!

Let me illustrate how important this game is: it is mathematically impossible for Arsenal to drop to 5th place and with Spuds and Arsenal Rejects Noorf playing in the “£60m Bowl” on Wednesday the chances of us even losing third are super slim. 1 point from either Blackburn or Fulham essentially secures our place in the group stages of the Champions League.

Sure, we’re injured and they “want revenge” and Blackburn have “master tactician” Sam Allardyce but I’ll be honest and admit I’m having a hard time getting up for this game.

Also, looks like Chelsea has just won the title at Anfield as Rafa’s men crumbled, or threw the title away intentionally, depending on your perspective. Here’s Gerrard’s shocking back pass which handed the title to Chelsea:

Anyway, that’s enough of that. I’m sure Wenger will get the team up as much as he can for the game. Looks like Theo Walcott is playing for a World Cup spot and I guess that’s good. Robin van Persie too is playing to get geared up for the World Cup… yay.

I just want to mention one last, funny, thing. The clash between Spuds and Manciti is being called the “£60m Match” which I find hilarious. I understand that in theory a Champions League place is worth £30m and so, the simplistic thing to do is say “it’s worth £30m to each team, X2 and YES! £60m!” But the problem is that the £30m payday only comes if the team gets out of the group stages and both of those teams still need to QUALIFY for the group stages — much less get out of their group. And given their UEFA coefficient, which is based on  past performance in Europe, neither team will be ranked very high and will likely be paired in some very strong groups.

A decade of Champions League football and a third place finish is nothing to sneeze at then, eh?

All right, I’m going to let some news flow over me today and do a transfer roundup just before I go have my Sunday kick-a-Tim.  See you in a few hours.