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Man at the Match, Chary: Holloway’s Tangerines Juiced

Theo Walcott led the demolition of a Blackpool side brimming with confidence carried over from their impressive win away to Wigan (a team we embarrassingly capitulated to last season after being 2-0 up at the DW stadium) last week.

On a humid, overcast afternoon with a blustery wind that stopped the atmosphere from feeling too suffocating the first sign of a change in the stadium since my visit at member’s day a little over a fortnight ago was additional signage above the entry points of each block. So as I entered block 11, a compass point motif, with the upward pointing part of the quadrant symbol highlighted in red was labeled “North Bank.”

My seat was at the corner flag to the right as the players faced the North bank where I observed our team warm up and the first thing I noticed was Song limbering up, with a slight limp in his left leg. This could just have been part of his natural gait as he played the full ninety and must therefore have been deemed match fit.

The pre match routine was unique in that for each of the newly renamed stands a family of three generations of season ticket holders were introduced to the crowd to represent the Clock End, the West Stand, the East Stand and – where I was – the North Bank.

A countdown to the switching on of the power to the clock followed the passing of two banners at both the clock end and north bank up and down the lower tiers after which fireworks were let off as the clock sprung to life at about seven minutes to 3pm.

The only other change was the Elvis song that usually accompanies the teams out onto the pitch was played fifteen minutes before kick off with a different song being played to the teams entrance, Right here, right now by Fatboy Slim. Not my sort of stuff, but I doubt many in the crowd would appreciate my choice, All guns blazing by Judas Priest.

The away support pretty much filled out the allocated blocks and plenty of bouncing and singing was to be had amongst the swathes of tangerine support, tangerine coloured balloons floating above them added to the party atmosphere.

As expected Ian Holloway’s team didn’t adopt the defensive approach that many mid/lower table teams have done at Ashburton Grove and for the first ten minutes or so they showed sufficient forward ambition to explain why they scored so freely last weekend, yet their skill levels in engineering openings were not on the scale of the home team.

I suspect they will score goals home and away as well as continuing the commendable trend for some of the so called lesser lights of the Premier League, such as Wigan and West Brom, to attempt to play an attractive game. Maybe the anti football ground out by the likes of Fat Sam Allardyce teams has finally been found out for the crowd killer it is. This is undoubtedly a welcome trend and a positive thing.

Once our passing game started to take a grip the Blackpool forays up field decreased in frequency and the Diaby-Wilshere portion of the midfield stabilised after a shaky start, both players guilty of losing possession although thankfully on no occasion was this punished.

It became clear after a quiet start that Theo Walcott was having an inspired game, his runs frightened the life out of the Blackpool defence and his crosses into the box were well directed even if Chamakh was not quite on the same wavelength as our number 14 initially. Striking partnerships take a while to form however based on what I’ve seen so far I’m optimistic that the Theo-Chamakh axis will reap many goals.

Once the first goal went in courtesy of precision finishing from Theo a healthy portion of the confidence drained away from the Blackpool midfield and a short while later a surging run from Chamakh led to a penalty being awarded.

As I was at the opposite end of the pitch to where the penalty was awarded few of us in the lower tier of the North bank could see that a penalty had been awarded or that their defender had been sent off. It was not till Arshavin picked up the ball and placed it on the spot that we knew for sure what the outcome was out of penalty, free kick or yellow to Chamakh for diving. A powerfully placed pile driver got Andrey off the mark goal scoring wise for the season and it was only a matter of time till Theo, playing like a man possessed, produced another moment of brilliance – a sharp turn and exemplary close control preceding another accurate, driven finish.
3-0 at half time and the mood around the ground was relief that a potential Hull style banana skin was being avoided.

Special praise to Rosicky and the influence he exerted on the game; while Wilshere and Diaby would show a mixture of skill and mediocrity Tomas was consistently controlling and pushing the midfield forward with the confidence of the seasoned, class player he is. The shame being how little we have seen of him since the 2007-08 season, where his presence in the midfield with Cesc, Flamini and Hleb almost delivered a title to us.
An honourable mention must also be made of Song’s efforts at centre back, while not especially dominating in the air he appeared clinical in the tackle and hard to push off the ball, however we are not playing to his strengths there and against stronger opposition we will need him in midfield.

Theo duly completed his hat trick and by now the Blackpool fans had become less animated although each time we scored, bizarrely, it appeared they were joining in the cheering and celebration. Curious indeed.

The decibel levels rose when our World Cup finalists took to the pitch after a Diaby strike brought up the fifth goal– I can only imagine the panic amongst the tiring Tangerines when they saw Robin and Cesc waiting to come onto the pitch.

“We’ve got Cesc Fabregas, we’ve got Cesc Fabregas” rang out – something a good many Gooners doubted they would hear this season. An extra special cheer for Robin as a losing finalist was heard in recognition of the belief amongst our supporters that he is an Arsenal fan as well as a player – the more of that type of player we have in our team the better.

Of course an appearance by Robin isn’t a bona fide one until he has an injury scare, which he duly provided in the penalty area not more than five yards in front of me. Cesc was his usual self, pulling the strings and creating space for himself in the way he does.

A Robin corner that Chamakh – salmon like – hung in the air for and skilfully craned his neck back to connect to and our sixth goal arrived for a deserving player. Chamakh took time to grow into the match but he will be glad to have started scoring, the only pity was the crowd didn’t have a song to sing for him, the one heard at Barnet was not taken up by the Ashburton faithful on this occasion. Chamakh, already a well integrated team member it looks, went straight over to Robin to thank him for the assist after scoring.

As the game headed to the finish what was surprising to me was the frustration of many in the crowd of the ever present tendency of our forwards to seek another pass instead of trying to shoot.

A strange thing to say after a 6-0 win, but an interchange between Robin and Cesc that resulted in an attack fizzling out (because of one pass too many) was greeted with a pretty scathing response from those around me; while I just groaned a little there were various expletive laden shouts to be heard. I would venture that many are tiring of our reluctance to shoot and the subsequent passing of responsibility of shooting to “someone else.”

Against a newly promoted team playing with ten men this weakness will not be enough to affect the result but against one of the title contenders we could pay for such profligacy via dropped points.

Tougher tests await our team but an away draw at Anfield and a healthy home win are a more than satisfactory start.

Thanks for reading.

Chary

Arsenal 3-0 Rangers; the ZOMG, ZOMFG, BARRRBLEFARRABLE

Match Report, Match Video

ZOMG

With a goal in the second minute, Jack Wilshere sealed his fate, from now on he will be the most hyped man in England. Expect billboards with him in an England shirt, pictures of him lounging on a throne, his crown slightly off kilter as he fondles two beautiful English lasses.

That he then went on to cap his performance with a second goal, and a goal of undeniable quality, only served to underline the headlines that were to come: Wilshere Could Play For Capello.

Arsene warns us not to heap too much pressure on Wilshere, but the fact is that’s going to be damn hard when the lad puts in performances like that. For example, the most effective weapon Wenger has to combat those expectations is to keep him playing regularly in the reserves with occasional appearances in the league. But when a player is that good, I think that’s impossible to do because what you don’t want to do is keep his chances so limited that he thinks the club are ruining his career.

Unfortunately, that’s going to be down to Arsene managing the hype from here on out. Jack’s already being tabbed for next year’s World Cup squad, which, unless he establishes himself in the first team as a regular, is just a stupidly premature suggestion. But the problem is if the boy takes that hype on board and starts thinking “I should be in the World Cup squad” you can see what kind of trouble that could lead to when the boss doesn’t play him regularly. As Wenger puts it:

The only problem is that in England, with the impatience of the English people, we need to keep the right pace with his progress.

That said, when asked whether Jack could play the whole Premier League season, Wenger answered “certainly not.” So, I think the boss will be playing him here and there, most likely as a sub and will manage the hype as best he can. Oh well, that’s one of the problems when you manage a bunch of kids, I guess.

The other performance that I want to highlight was that of Eduardo. After the match, and after about 200 questions about Jackie and Paddy, Arsene Wenger said that he feels like Eduardo and Rosicky are 100% healthy and ready for the season. Eduardo only scored one goal but it was the kind of goal that only a top drawer finisher can make. He takes a perfectly placed through ball, faces the keeper and drifting to his right, hits a left footed curler around the keeper, off the far post and into the net. I can’t stress enough how important Eduardo is to this team. He’s a better finisher than the highly overrated Klaas Jan Huntelaar, he can dribble, he can play wide left, and he can set others up. In fact, the only thing holding this guy back from scoring 20+ goals this season is the fact that there are 5 other guys who all want to play in that spot. It’s the type of selection nightmare that I think most Arsenal supporters would love to see in midfield and defense.

ZOMFG

The defense looked a bit shaky again, especially in the second half, but I think that’s to be expected when you’re playing a makeshift back four. Moreover, our two defensive coordinators (Gallas and Vermaelen) were both out at that point. Gallas was out because the boss didn’t want to overplay him and Vermaelen was out because he has some tightness in his hamstring.

Of course, 93% of us (as Amy Lawrence points out) would point to this makeshift back four and say that it’s ample evidence that Arsenal need a defensive signing.

I’m not sure yet. We’ve got two more weeks of drills and like I’ve said, most of the mistakes have been down to poor communication rather than lack of fundamentals.

We also have an unknown situation with Senderos. Last week, Arseblog reported that Sendy was being Sent to Everton. Many people speculated that this was the replacement for Lescott — which is odd, isn’t it? Does David Moyes value them similarly? Why don’t many Arsenal fans see him the same way? Because someone scored a goal on him? Anyway, where was, I? Oh yeah, Senderos to Everton. The problem is that the Lescott to City deal looks to be off because Everton want £30m and City have only offered £20. Which could explain why the Senderos deal has dried up.

Let’s assume for a second that Senderos is gone. That leaves Vermaelen, Gallas, and Djourou as our first choice CBs and Song and Gerry as our backups.  Even I, the wide eyed optimist, see that as a bit of a problem. Hopefully, Arsene does too. Otherwise, Arsenal could very well turn into the Dallas Mavericks of the EPL, playing games to 4-4 draws and 5-3 wins.

We’ll have to wait and see.

BARRRRBLEFARRRRRBLE

Did anyone else watch the match on GolTV? Their coverage and their announcers were perhaps the worst announcers I have ever tried not to listen to.

First of all, there was the constant, nails on chalkboard, sound of the color commentator calling FranCESC Fabregas, CHESK. CHESK. CHESK. There’s no H in his name, asshole. It’s not Chesk, it’s never been Chesk, and it never will be Chesk. I think that what he was trying to do was pronounce Cesc’s name the way he thinks it’s pronounced in Spanish because he was doing that with all the players (pronouncing their names in their native tongue). It’s an annoying thing that American announcers do and normally I’m ok with it, but really? CHESK?

Second, they kept cutting away to advertisements for upcoming games, reducing the game we were watching to a small box in the upper-left corner. I don’t care what’s happening in the Peace Cup you fucktards, I WANT TO SEE WHAT’S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.

And then, they had some advertisement for some pundit show that they put on that would come up every 5 minutes and block out the bottom half of the screen. Seriously, what is wrong with you? I could sort of understand it if they were getting paid to advertise something, but they are advertising their own shows! If you really think I’m going to watch Los Proffesionnales or whatever after you’ve ruined the coverage of the show that I wanted to watch you’re sorely mistaken.

And finally, my biggest gripe is that the announcers were lazy and stupid. They clearly were handed the cliffs notes on Arsenal and made sure they hit every point. “Total Football,” “like a new signing,” “Cheapskate Arsenal,” how we were going to have a hard time “cracking the top 5″ (as if we’re 10th place Tottenham or some shit) and then they even cracked a joke about how maybe Wenger should open a day care!

But the one that clued me in to the fact that they were just being handed this crap and talking out their ass was the fact that they kept mentioning that Arsenal only have one Englishman on the pitch. GolTV, a Spanish language, American based outfit cares how many Englishmen Arsenal fielded in a pre-season friendly? REALLY?

I mean, I understand that Fabio Capello was at the game, but any commentator worth his weight knows that he was there not for Jackie, but to watch future England Number One, Manny Pickledickle.

Yes, Travis and I renamed Almunia, we think with a proper English surname he could be accepted by England when he finally breaks down and gets his passport.  We chose Pickledickle because, well, why not? No one would believe he made that name up!

Anyway, GolTV was a nightmare and I hope I never have to watch another match on that channel as long as I live.

Conclusion

Whelp, this is the week. There will be a week of practice and the manager will have plenty of time to buy and sell and reshape his squad, if that is his want. He’s playing his cards close to his CHESK, though the Chamakh story seems to be generating a lot of heat. The player is now publicly engineering a move to Arsenal, angrily lashing out at Bordeaux who are reportedly asking £15m for a player in the last year of his contract. Arsenal have supposedly offered £5m and I think that’s a fair price for a player who Wenger’s probably going to convert to Center Back anyway.

The other transfer story with legs is Patrick Vieira supposedly returning to Arsenal. From the interviews it’s pretty clear that Wenger is putting a lot of thought into the impact that this player would have on his team, and I don’t mean that in just the positive way. Again, we’ll have to see.

If there’s a signing today, I’ll make another post. If not, well you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

See you then!

Look who’s coming to Porto

Eboue is going to play against Porto. Which should settle all this debate, right? The boss is playing the player and unless there are extraordinary circumstances, I seriously doubt that the traveling Arsenal supporters will boo Eboue. In fact, he’ll certainly get a warm reception and with all the press brouhaha over the incident at the Emirates on Saturday he’ll probably even get a ton of leeway.

I just want to answer a couple of things that have come up here and in other forums so that we can put this to bed once and for all. 1. Where the fans a “disgrace?” 2. Is this a witch hunt? 3. Where do we go from here?

To the first, I say no. Look, I see this stuff here in the comments all the time. Fans, short for fanatics, are passionate about their club. Sometimes they are passionate beyond reason and so, I applaud the supporters who can sit through the performance that Eboue put in on Saturday and not get vocal: that takes a combination of compassion and self restraint.  I couldn’t do it, especially not in that game.

This was a very tense match, the fans and the players were desperate for Arsenal to get a win so as not to follow up a big game win with a “lesser” team draw, or worse. As the game progressed, the tackles got harder, and as the Arsenal pinged balls off the post and generally started letting Wigan get some belief in this match, our tension level rose. There we sat, on the knife’s edge between heartbreak and joy and when Eboue stole the ball from Toure and passed it to Wigan, I think a large number of us broke and saw heartbreak looming. Then when Wenger yanked him, they broke down and acted out their baser instincts.

People ask what would happen if Fabregas did that, or is this just irrational Eboue hatred? Well, I can’t see Cesc doing that, but if he did, I think he would get some stick: he hasn’t been playing up to his high standard this season and I’ve already heard some grumblings. But it’s still not the same: Fabregas has never been labeled by his own manager as a cheat.

Eboue has a long, long history of on-field histrionics which makes him excruciatingly frustrating. One game he’ll be incredible, the next game he’ll be lazy, diving, feigning injury, or stealing the ball off Toure and passing it to the opposition. It’s not a witch hunt, but there is a long history here of bizarre behavior by the player which makes it even easier for the fans to get on his back when he’s had another of his poor performances.

But so what now? It doesn’t do any good to boo him, as Yogi’s Warrior points out, and may even hurt team morale. Given that Wenger is going to play him and play him in whatever position he feels best, there really isn’t a choice: we support Eboue. We tone down the rhetoric a bit, back off him, let him play and get on with the season.

Arsenal still have a lot of work to do this year, next up is taking top marks in our group by securing at least an away draw against Porto. I’ll be there rooting for Eboue to bounce back and put in the type of performance that the club, the fans, and he all deserve.

Enough of this story, right?

News Roundup

The boss has said that Rosicky will be back in March “at the earliest.” So, now it’s March, don’t be surprised if you see April mentioned and then next month, “next season.”

Eduardo is going to play for the reserves on December 16th which is another step closer to first team action. I wonder if he’ll be our Christmas miracle in the Boxing Day away match to Villa?

I don’t know what to think of the fact that Simpson, Hoyte, and Gibbs all might go on loan. There’s not much cover at the full back spot so I’m kind of surprised that he’d loan out those players. Simpson is a no-brainer, with Eduardo coming back there’s no room for him and I’d hate to see him rot in the reserves — he’s got a lot of class and I think a bright future. Maybe Wenger has a defensive target in mind for January?

We’re being re-linked to Alonso, but I’d be shocked if Liverpool allowed that switch to take place. Their midfield is humming along very nicely right now and Xabi is a crucial part of that. That same article mentions that Arsenal are looking to buy Yaya and Kalou, so take it with a HUGE grain of salt.

Heh, I bet Arsene loans out all the youngsters and doesn’t buy anyone in January. Just to piss us all off.

I’ve got to go to work now and I’m going to try my hardest not to boo my coworkers when they screw up. I’ll report back on my success or failure tomorrow.