Arsenal 2-1 Everton – A win we can debate

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Post match I like to read as much as I can before posting up a blog to gauge the feeling after a win or a loss. Post Bayern it was easy to get lost in the jubilation of the win, if you can’t feel great after winning a scalp like that you’re never going to enjoy football. It’s somewhat of a fan flaw to overlook the moments when Bayern cut through but couldn’t finish and enjoy the points where we scored.

How differently would we have felt if in injury time when Lewandowski got by Koscielny for the first time the whole game and instead of whatever divine intervention seemed to occur at that point he had chosen to smash it into the roof of the net. The fan reaction certainly wouldn’t have been that jubilant and we’d be out completely of the Champions league.

Similarly there were moments in this Everton match when things could have been squared up. One particular moment was when Lukaku managed to screw a free header onto the post (thank god).

It could be a trick my mind goes through when watching games like this, I seem to put in place a logic that I think the flow of the game will pursue. This match it was as such:

  • Bayern made us run a lot but we won that mid-week foray so the Arsenal players will want to come out and feel they can thrash Everton
  • We will probably score in the opening moments of each half because of this but as the half wares on our legs will tire and Everton will likely get on-top
  • We’re probably not going to score in the last half of each half

Thankfully I was wrong. A sublime Ozil ball into Giroud allowed him to score late in the first half. What then followed was an excellent Giroud tackle followed by Sanchez winning the free kick which Koscielney then converted. Those were two goals created by sublime passes that are only made by players who are in form.

Thanking the football gods I thought I could relax and enjoy the second half. Then a lucky deflection saw Cech beaten from a Barkley outside the box-deflected off defender and into the net classic special that Everton seem to score every second game. The stats show that outside box shots are scored 2% of the time but for Everton they seem to make up about 90% of their highlight reels.

Into the second half we came out refreshed and had an excellent opening period. For me there was this niggling feeling that we were playing to the way that Everton were set-up. In the 70th minute Wenger brought on Flamini to shore things up. Only Wenger and Flamini know why he was running about in the oppositions box trying to score and not helping Coquelin out in central midfield. His foray into the box was the moment the game hinged. It was Everton’s turn for a Bayern-esque moment akin to the Lewandowski divine miss moment that allowed us to get forward and score.

Praise be to Petr Cech who managed to scramble the ball away to be cleared after the ensuing counter-charge.

For me I don’t know how I feel about this win. Is this just what it’s like to have a world class keeper who week after week seems to make the sublime save that decides the match. Chelsea had him for years and every game there would be one moment that Theo or van Persie or Giroud would get through for a one-on-one that he would stop. De Gea last year to my mind is the only reason why United ended up in the top four. They had spent a lot of money that transfer window but they scraped out a tonne of 1-0 results that kept them in it thanks to his keeping. Never forget the Fellaini long ball special was their number 1 strike option for a lot of last season.

We had chances to kill this game. In the second half we did hit the bar through Giroud and Ozil and Howard had a moment where we ended up missing an open net. Where the matter of debate lies is whether we were killing it in the right way. Had Flamini come on and instead of trying to score just sat back and won the ball we may have been allowed to pass the legs out of Everton. This may have resulted in the win in a slower but less heart attack inducing manner.

I’m writing like this because even though I do hate criticising a win I believe that People like Mark King (@mzk90) make an interesting case that should be debated.

His argument is that the space Theo opens up would have killed the game and that Wenger not bringing on Theo and making defensive changes was not helping the result. But people have a tendency to jump onto criticism saying things like this:

ffs indeed. We did win but a balance needs to be struck and I would be interested in hearing why Wenger was going mad in the TA. Was he screaming at the Flame “Jesus christ I told you to stand next to Coquelin and do your god damn job”. Tactically he may have made the defensive decision and Flamini could have executed it incorrectly, certainly the introduction of Gibbs says as much.

But there’s never just one right answer and one of the excellent things about football is we can debate opinions. It’s a fact that we won this game and it’s also a fact that there are many different ways to win a match of football. Cultural identity can become entwined with a playing style which is the only real logic I’ve ever heard for playing one way over the other (in other words a football philosophy). You can win both ways.

Pragmatists argue against romantics in this regard calling for decisions that sure up a match and lambast Wenger when he doesn’t make a defensive change. That said it is the thought that informs an argument that defines it as pragmatic or romantic.

A romantic argument would be we could have brought Theo on to score and kill the game is a offensive decision. Scoring occurring makes the decision absolutely correct. A pragmatic argument for the same decision reads: we could have brought Theo on to push back the Everton back-line opening up space for us to play a possession game which is a defensive decision. Had this occurred it would be absolutely correct. One thing could have happened which would have made both arguments satisfied.

My opinion is that as Everton were already losing they may have thrown caution to the win and just let Theo go in behind at which point if we couldn’t win the ball back it is just as likely they would have scored from a set piece as us scoring from a break away which is why Giroud was left on. If you view football through the probability prism what’s the difference in likelihood that Everton would have scored from a set piece and Theo would have scored on the break. Statistics and all that but there’s no way we can really settle the argument.

That’s because our expectations of what the way the game was going to play out largely determines how we feel about a win. To my logic shown above going into this match we could have won 3-0 by the first quarter of the first half. I’m a bit deluded like that. In fact my expectations were flipped on their head. Not a bad thing at all but it something that opens was open for discussing pre-game and now how we won is open for discussing post. Ffs Mark King we did win but ffs we could have won another way and ffs I’ll be damned if I don’t enjoy a good pub-session discussing our version of fantasy football after a game.

As long as we keep an eye on what really matters is that we won. That’s the fact. The rest is just opinions and a bit of fun.

Til next time.

Ramsey is Out and the Tuesday Club has Swag

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Evening or Morning all. Depending on where you’re reading this one from.

Are you over the Bayern win yet? Me neither. It was such a sweet week from an Arsenal perspective, we even got a new Tuesday Club Podcast featuring an added air of smugness. I loved it, Alan Davies always offers an interesting insight and as much as it is wishful thinking I do hope Santi Cazorla listens in on that pod and enjoys it when they joke about him playing under the table.

The Tuesday Club is great for many reasons and it’s changed over the past couple of years. It’s the one podcast I listen to regularly. The tone has gone from utterly defeated during the 2012-2013 season when Giroud regularly got a rollicking and van Persie had been sold to United to a hopeful timbre this year. My favourite moments have usually come in the form of serious Davies rants, when he rollicks the moral nature of the current game.

One rant that stands out was after Walcott was showered with coins in the 2-0 Sp*rs game. Davies railed against the notion of balanced reporting pointing out that making a 2-0 gesture should not invite a fistful of silver thrown at your face. That rant completely changed the way I consume my news and now I look for the “Balance” statements and try work out how skewed the article actually is.

I’ve listened to this weeks episode twice now and I love it. I do hope they put together some merch to buy. They tried to sell shirts or hoodies a while back but they looked like they had a piss stain on the front so I avoided it. I do hope they produce some merch because if it looks good and is clever I’ll buy it.

Anyway before I make this ramble sound like a Tuesday Club love-in I’d like to talk about the injury to Ramsey and what it means to the club. 2013-2014 was the season when he found his feet and absolutely tore apart the league playing in the middle of the park. It was his injury that brought about a run of bad results which turned us from title-contenders into almost-rans.

I worry about what this seasons injury means to us because of the scar tissue left there. In one sense it opens the door for the Ox to come into form and show what he’s made of but they are two very different players who balance our play in completely different ways.

The 13-14 season saw a few tactical experiments take place, one of which was having a fly winger on the right in Theo Walcott, Giroud in the centre as a target man and Santi Cazorla would make the most of this by becoming a kind of deep lying play maker. Santi would cut back across the oppositions back-line in a sort-of chaos agent way. By doing this we were always vulnerable to the break of our opponents but it added an element of unpredictability in the way we were playing.

As Ramsey was playing centrally his runs from deep would create a method of play to run off Giroud and because of the team shape we would end up with 4 big threats with which to score from.

While with the injury to Ramsey meant we lost one big goal outlet we also lost something else which was a defensive stability that he brought alongside Arteta. His almost bionic running would allow him to chase down any opposition that were moving through the centre of our pitch. The loss of Ramsey created a massive impact on this front because we started conceding more than we could score.

This season I don’t suspect we’ll see a similar loss. I think with Coquelin and Cazorla the two defensive cogs in the midfield we won’t necessarily be impacted in the same way. With the Ox we’ll have a higher output on the right in terms of pace but I do worry what that change will do to the shape of the team.

Ramsey’s attacking role this season is akin to Cazorla’s during the 2013-14 season, where Cazorla would float in from the left to create assists Ramsey was doing that from the right. We’ve lost the player who created an output of chances about 4-5 per game which is huge at this level.

My hope is that the Ox does the same, my suspicion is that he may not yet be that efficient. That said he is coming in with a point to prove and he is an exceptionally talented young footballer and if there’s anything Arsene knows how to do it’s make an exceptionally talented young footballer into an exceptionally potent one.

The major thing for me is that I do hope he doesn’t worry too much. I relate to Alex on this because every time I do anything I immediately feel it could be better. He has a fantastic head on his shoulders however he takes misses too hard. I don’t care if you miss Alex, just really fucking try, that’s all we want to see and if you give it everything we will support you. We did this with Fabregas, Bellerin and Walcott. If you’re feeling down go chat with Aaron Ramsey who for the 2012-13 season couldn’t have taken a crap right in the supporters opinion. We all make mistakes mate don’t worry about it!

The first few months might be him getting started and I do hope he doesn’t let his head drop. As supporters though it’s up to us to encourage him and it’s up to us to make him feel like he can do the audacious and make it not his season, but ours.

Just some nice tweets

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I thought I’d put up some nice Tweets that I was reading after the game. Kind of like a feelings board but you know, just a little less kindergarten (I hope).

First Goal

Second Goal

Post Match

It just feels great.

Post-Bayern

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Ha!

THIS is why we love football. Our tribe won an against all odds battle to drag ourselves back from the abyss of knockout in the champions league group. This will be a game that will live long in the memory if we make it out of the group stage.

Another win over a Pep side touted by us and everyone else as the best team in Europe right now. They had an incredible run of wins and all the confidence in the world and we beat them.

Hector Bellerin. Oh HECTOR BELLERIN. You were amazing. 20 years old, 5 years my junior and I want to father you. Thank-you very much Douglas Costa I thought I heard you say as you grabbed back not only what he took from you in the first half but taught him a lesson in how to cross the ball after committing a mugging.

It was an edge of the seat game as Bayern pressed us relentlessly. We couldn’t get out that first half and look it’s what teams who play us week in week out must feel. They dominated the ball and we made only 29% of the possession and a fifth of the passes. I have never watched a game where we had less of the ball, but our counterattacking was fierce and towards the end of the first half Theo began sorting out their backline and opening up space for our mid-fielders to counter into.

As the game went into the half we were the team on top but it was telling that we didn’t go out second half all-guns blazing and kept our defensive shape. Arsene set up the team to defend and we did that well enough. When our goal came it just kind of happened, it was weird and as much as I hate to say it, that first goal felt a little like destiny because I really don’t think Giroud meant it to go in off his hand.

From there on we dropped deep and held on, countering as we had. They were gone at that point, the wind out of their sales and their domination seemingly spent up. Hector made sure of that.

I very much hope we get something from the away game at Bayern. These are the nights we live for and I believe it would close the book on our European form. Our team played defensively and won because we knew we couldn’t out-swagger Bayern. It was the different Arsenal, the one which beat City last year which popped up again.

All the players did their bit and I could go on forever but instead I’m just going to enjoy the moment. Every content publisher in the world is going to give you in depth player ratings and post-match analysis but I’m going to go without all that tonight. I’m just going to enjoy the moment, I feel unbelievably happy at an excellent performance and I hope you do too.

Pre Bayern Thoughts – Reality Check

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If the feeling you have going into this game is an optimistic one I’d like you to consider a couple of things.

  • Bayern are widely considered the best team in the world right now
  • They just beat both their direct local competitors by scoring 5 goals in each game

A year ago we played Dortmund and scraped through a home game with a counter attacking move that Aaron Ramsey finished off. That team were beaten 5-1 2 weeks ago by this team and key Bayern players at the weekend. Honestly I am baffled at how anyone feels we can lose this one.

I feel optimistic about this fixture because we’re on such an upward trajectory in our domestic campaign. There is hope in my little heart that we can achieve another home victory on a big european night akin to our win against the best Barcelona team ever seen.

It’s worth bearing in mind that team was also managed by Pep and a win here would go some way to changing our chances of qualifying for the next European round.

All that said though I honestly don’t know if Arsene cares about winning in Europe this season.The team we field will go some way to shedding some light on how he feels about our chances in this years Champions League. In his pre-match conference he alluded to starting Ozil and Sanchez for the first time this week after talking about resting them before hand. If he feels we can win this game and bearing in mind Arsene is nothing if not an optimist I think they will start.

If Arsene rests Sanchez and Ozil and hands Bayern the win should he be lambasted for throwing away the game? Fans constantly call out for pragmatism from the manager and this is the kind of ballsy move that would be applauded by some quarters.

Arsene’s detractors will call him delusional if they don’t get rested and we lose but I feel that’s harsh. There are times when the underdog wins and if football is viewed within the probability prism it is starting our two superstars will push that figure a little more in our own favour.

Personally I hope Ozil and Sanchez start. Partly because I love watching them play and partly because I wouldn’t mind if we throw a little caution to the wind and we put in a good performance.

I hope this because stupidly being sucked into our glorious run at the moment I enjoy it even more by watching the post-match analysis on MOT. This week Alan Shearer brought up how being out of Europe will increase our chances of winning the title. Of course it will, but I don’t want to win the title because we were out of Europe, I want to win the title because we were the best team in England and I want us to get all the praise we can for that. You don’t win by losing.

But maybe no one will be saying that in 8 months time if we do finish top after going out of Europe. In hindsight no one at Liverpool cares that they had the least amount of fixtures to play to come second (HA!) in their best ever (HA!) domestic Premier League campaign. They had the time of their lives being up as high as they have ever been (also HA!) during the Premier League era.

I’ll do my best to hop up in the morning and live tweet the game. I can’t make any promises but I hope to see you all there.

Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Manchester United – Post-Euphoria – Hopefully not a once of performance

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In what was a stunning 20 minutes we scored 3 against a lineup that features more stars than almost any club in Europe. It was a stunning display from our players who pinged the ball around faster and more accurately that any side I’ve seen play. Make no mistake we ripped them to shreds, it wasn’t a case of our opponents not being good enough but rather a result born out of our performance rather than theirs.

Arseblog described it as a declaration of a title challenge, Walcott and Cazorla said after the game that it is something we must do every week and Coquelin has echoed these sentiments in his mid-week media rounds.

In his MOTD appearance Ian Wright was asked towards the end of the post-match whether or not he thought whether the Arsenal performance merited a title challenge and something to the effect of whether this year would be different. His response, bathed in classic Wright wit was that every year Arsenal announce a challenge. The other commentators chuckled but thinking about our one-off performances in the past it’s not hard to see that perhaps it wasn’t laced in the irony his co-commentators thought it was.

If you look to last year we had the late charge which involved 2 crucial must-win matches for Chelsea to keep us away from getting a sniff. Our announcement that year came in the dispatching of City, winning playing counter-attacking football with the Coquelin and Cazorla bossing their midfield. The year before anything that Aaron Ramsey did seemed to be a statement that we had a world-class player who could take us there, but our challenge collapsed when he suffered a recurring injury that robbed us of the dynamic goal scoring midfielder who seemed to be pushing us in every game but the big ones.

The year before we scared the pants of a Bayern team who went on to win the Champions League.

After the Bayern game the wave of optimism that swept around the club enabled us to be, similarly to last year the best club in England in that second part of the season. We’ve beaten top level opposition and it’s spurred a run but we ultimately failed to keep the consistency the next year.

Don’t get me wrong this squad is much, much deeper than those of the barren years. The question that remains for me is does Arsene’s style of play work against the clubs which sit back.

When I think of Arsene’s key words to describe his footballing philosophy I think of the trust that he puts in his players. I honestly don’t believe that he cares whether they play attacking or defensive football. I think it’s up to them. He guides them on technique and trains the players to want to win which invites their attacking play but he trusts them to communicate on the pitch and position themselves in a way to follow the feeling of the game. They just have more fun running forwards than backwards.

That is what brings us the sublime moments like the opening 20 minutes on Sunday (nope I’m still not over it) but it is also what breeds the absolutely daft goals we concede. As the players age they learn and I think Arsene looks for a balance in mentality and attributes rather than guiding them and disciplining the players on where to stand.

There is a constant criticism of Arsene stating that he doesn’t do “tactics”. The Tactics statement is incorrect because he still needs to balance the attributes, that is tactics on one level. What people mean though is that he doesn’t yell at his players to stand in a certain spot to stop a goal. That’s true he doesn’t, he never has and he never will because to create the team that he wants they all need to be almost telepathic with each other.

That doesn’t come from him describing what to do when, it comes from the players understanding the game and more so understanding one another. The next steps for the team is to understand each other all year round and whether or not they will develop the diversity of dialogue they require to be able to communicate on how to break down the West Hams and Olympiacosses as well as the Manchester United’s and the Manchester Cities remains to be seen.

We’ve done all the teams at least once before. Can we do them over again this year on a sustained run to lift the league title. Let’s hope so.

Couldn’t have asked for more

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Kicking off the weekend England vs Australia in the rugby world cup resulting in and English knockout. The Hawks destroying West Coast Eagles in the AFL grand final and then the NRL grand final followed with a try being scored past the last minute to level a very tight match taking it into golden point for a regional rugby league team to take home their first ever final victory.

To the premier league where we had Chelsea hilariously losing and Mourinho begging for his job, the Merseyside derby culminated in Rodgers sacking, the biggest match of the season in Germany between Bayern and Dortmund, the Madrid Darby between Real and Atletico, AC Milan played Napoli and numerous other derby’s in Spain.

Safe to say it was one of the most bonkers weekends for sport I’ve ever seen.

Most importantly in what was a rediculous weekend of fixtures we had Arsenal swashbuckle 20 opening minutes to bury United. It was the kind of 20 minutes that makes you proud to be an Arsenal fan. This was the perfect incarnation of Arsenal football, described as a fantasy version of Arsene’s ultimate style of play. The precise play between Ozil, Sanchez and Walcott was lightning quick and devastating to a United side we ripped to shreds mercilessly. At the 20 minute mark I began thinking we could do them 8-0 this match and revenge the ghosts of the thrashing that shall not be named.

The joy I got out of watching something perfect happening in front of my eyes was pure and wonderful, I laughed the laugh of someone who couldn’t believe their eyes. It’s such a rare thing when the wonder you experience on a daily basis as a child is brought back to you as an adult and that is exactly what I was treated to in those opening 20 minutes.

While we embrace the warmth that is football perfection our team delivered we must not and I say this so that you remember it let any Manchester United fan claim that they played poorly. We played perfectly those opening 20 minutes and that is what won us that game. It was not because they were fielding a weaker team full of inexperienced footballers in crucial positions like we had to at OT the year of the 8-2. United had Schweinsteiger, Carrick, Rooney and Mata in that side all who have years of experience under their belts, all who can play a mean game of football. United are not a club that was financing a stadium, they have spent over 150m pound on bringing in world beaters. But they could not keep up with us, not because they are not a good side but simply because we were much better.

Do not forget this. Do not forget that they had to kick us out of every counterattacking opportunity we had. There was no super help from the ref, he did his part to ensure the game was flowing, we had no penalties, no red cards to benefit us opening up space. We simply out-played them in a way which brought back the ghosts of glory days.

If you can’t enjoy football like that there’s no use. You never will enjoy football. Give up. Those were the best 20 minutes of an Arsenal game I’ve watched and close to the best 20 minutes of this year for me. I will remember those 20 minutes until my last moments on this planet.

The Wenger Presser and Comeuppance

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It’s usually regretfully that I take pleasure in comeuppance. It’s an act of taking satisfaction in someone elses failure and the reason why it’s so satisfying to watch is because you took pain from losing in the first place. A little “he got what was coming to him” would never be required if he never did anything wrong to you in the first place. It’s like admitting you lost once but now you’re taking pleasure in someone elses loss.

This week I indulged and god damn stepping down from the moral pulpit felt so so good. Watching Mourinho’s post-match was incredibly satisfying. As John Cross put it:

Maybe he wants the results to speak for themselves and if that’s the case great! Let’s replace Arsenal’s current season with Arsene’s worst ever Premier League start, it turns out he would have outperformed Mourinho to this point.

Enjoying this spectacle was made extra special as over the past few weeks I’ve been driven mad by the media and this week was no exception. As one journalist was applauded by a few Tweeters and pundits for taking a brave line of questioning during a press conference with Arsene, Jose’s team collapsed to their worst start in 20 years.

The hate chasing for headlines like “Arsene still fuming over Costa” is frustrating for several reasons. The acrimonious feeling between Wenger and Mourinho does not need stoking and it’s a story that has raged for several weeks. Worse still the story has played into Chelsea’s hands as the Eva Carneiro story was washed over with their superficial rivalry. The media waisting readers mindshare on a play-fight while there were claims of Mourinho referring to a female staff member as a whore and then taking actions to demote them for doing their job. These are the kinds of behaviours any self-respecting unionised workplace would sack a manager for. I look forward to Mourinho being sued into next week by Carneiro but my goodness is the media in general missing the forest through the tree’s. The big story is over there ladies and gentleman, not in this conveniently created distraction.

While I’m upset about the coverage and why there have been a total lack of questions about Jose’s distraction tactics I do think the journalist was right to question Arsene. It was a brave line of questioning and the journalist could have been kicked out of the presser. Perhaps if the writer had have kept Jose out of it he would have got an interesting answer. The worst part is it’s a question I’d love an answer to.

The fact is we don’t know what sort of pressure Arsene is under. Fans chanting for change at Stoke Railway station is no indication what the internal politics of the club are or if the club feel like they’re being sensible sticking by him. A brilliant article in the Guardian summed up the hierarchy challenges that would be faced if Arsenal were to bring in a new manager through sacking the current one highlighting the conundrum that United faced after the retirement of Ferguson. Of course there could be a difference in that after Ferguson’s retirement David Moyes came in and summarily sacked almost everyone on the training pitch and assistant managers to Ferguson.

As we approach this years AGM the pressure question is one I’d like to see answered internally. Surely an institution as prestigious and lucrative as Arsenal have a KPI to measure the manager on. Why not share it with the fans to temper expectations and answer the claims of lacking ambition. What are the clubs plans to replace Arsene when he retires? Is the club reducing his responsibilities outside of the first team with new coaches such as Jonker? Ferguson resigned after a discussion with his wife who was mourning the loss of her sister which United could never have planned for. It would be wise for us to learn from their mistakes.

There are questions that we need to see answered and this is a critical time for Arsenal as a whole. If Wenger wins at United it is not only a regular set of three points, but a statement of old dogs beating new tricks and will soften the tone at the AGM. If we lose however the AGM will no doubt be filled with hard questions needing to be answered by a mob fed up with nearly men.

The Guardian Article on Ferguson leaving United: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/oct/03/arsenal-fans-wanting-arsene-wenger-to-go-should-heed-uniteds-travails

Arsene’s worst start in a Premier League Season, article taken from Think Football: http://www.thinkfootball.co.uk/is-arsene-wenger-responsible-for-arsenals-worst-start-to-a-season-in-32-years/

Moyes article outlining staff from Everton to United: http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/man-united-confirm-new-coaching-2015034

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Frustration against Liverpool

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I got the team news late as I was slightly comatose heading into the 5am time slot. For a supporter based in Sydney the early season games offer somewhat of a warmup, it’s pre daylight savings time which means everything moves back 2 hours in a few weeks making it harder to watch the games. Still in pre daylight savings mode my brain was kicking into gear as the game kicked off.

After a shaky first half I’m now firmly of the opinion that Calum Chambers and my brains are locked in sync. It seemed we were both still waking up as the young defender made errors against a counterattacking Liverpool side. It probably came as a surprise to Chambers that he even got a call up, with Metersacker calling in a sickie and Koscielny suffering back pain. It was the kind of game he needed to grow into and I wonder if by sending the squad out early before the second half Wenger sensed a defender needing to get used to his surroundings.

Still that shaky first half produced some great Arsenal moments early on. Ramsey running through and finishing expertly for a goal that should have put us in front, only to have been ruled offside. It’s the kind of call that can go either way and it’s a damn shame that he didn’t finish as I think it would have settled us and we would have seen a much more composed half. As it was momentum shifted back to Liverpool and we stayed firmly on the hook as erroneous passing gave possession away.

They hit the bar twice, once through a snap Countinho shot and another time through a Countinho curler from the edge of the box which Chech just about got a fingertip to pushing it wide.

Coming into the second half Cech made two enormous saves. They’re the kind of saves we haven’t seen at Arsenal for a long time. Game and point winning moments that will be the talking point for much of this week. It is true that Benteke should have done better from point blank, but Cech still had no right getting to that ball which had almost any other keeper in the world been between the sticks would have gone in.

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsInto the second half Arsene made his usual no changes, instead preferring to keep faith in the players he had out. Chambers quietly got settled and this I believe was the major difference and driving factor in a much better performance. I could soon be proven wrong by a tactical switch I may not have noticed, but we performed much better throughout and I believe it was down to a change in our error count. 

In this regard Chambers repaid Arsene’s faith and in my opinion grew as a player. If you are a club that wants to grow talent you have to allow for these kind of halves from players, down the line it will repay itself when the next game he starts the errors don’t come.

Sanchez then went on to hit the cross bar from a Giroud layoff which was the moment we really should have won the game. In a couple of weeks he will be burying those, as it stands the Chilean looks a little tired from his tropes throughout the Copa America and could be suffering from a post winners medal hangover a-la post World Cup Mertesacker and Özil.

In the end we just lacked some cutting edge, as we seemed to be getting on top and ready to finish something Giroud was hooked for Walcott. This stands to me as a decision that needed to happen but it was one I wish hadn’t. We were gaining momentum at that point, Giroud had almost teed up Sanchez, had a few almost moments with a Ramsey cross and some fine Monreal balls in. But the game needed more incision and Walcott is the man for that. Would it have been better to replace Coquelin or Ramsey for Walcott I cannot say, they were both performing outstandingly at that point and the game was in the balance. The full-time stats read:  

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In the end we were forced to settle for a point which after watching Mignolet’s time wasting antics makes me wonder that’s what Liverpool had come looking for particularly in a second half within which we were firmly on top. Our error strewn first half will allow the media to gear this match in a negative light for Arsenal but it was the kind of game we easily could have won and left me feeling incredibly frustrated. Usually we have the better of Liverpool and this week so nearly could have.

Til the next time

Palace & Cabaye, Stoke & Shaqiri

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On a morning when one Australian has shamed himself for the name of a win against a Frenchman I hope my post somewhat atones for the mistake that is Nick Kyrgios’ despicable slur.

I admire Cabaye. On his day in Newcastle he was an outstanding player. On the Tuesday Club Alan Davies declared he could be like Arteta and Flamini but would offer ‘more of everything they offer’. His reuniting with Pardew can only be a good thing for him and Palace but it makes me wonder, as a player who is capable of changing the game, is Cabaye the evidence that all it takes is more money to flatten the premier leagues competitive bias.

He is moving towards the twilight of a mid-fielders career and at 29 he has been bought in by a Palace well aware they’re unlikely to see anything back on his re-sale value. It was the kind of transfer they would have avoided 2 seasons ago but as it stands he sits on the vanguard of the new TV money and represents the kind of player we are going to be seeing more of (I think).

Shaqiri it could be argued fits in a similar bracket. When I first saw the Shaqiri link there were many chuckles to be had. “No way will he ever go there” I thought. As the saying goes, “Can he do it on a cold wet night?” well, now he has to do it for a cold wet season.  Shaquiri represents an inspiring coup for Mark Hughes who has the Stoke team playing some very cultured football.

It will be interesting to see the knock on effect of the new money. No doubt players and agents will be clambering for higher wages from the new TV deals coming through. In fact we may even see a race on between players, their agents and the clubs transfer policies. For a player there is a benefit to playing in an inspiring squad and the triple A quality players clubs seek to bring in could provide a counter to the current player agent demands… I digress, because of course it won’t pan out that way, the window lasts 3 months, the season 8. The likelihood of us not needing to increase wages is almost non-existent.

And will these new stars change the dynamic of those clubs? Over the next 4 years will we see a change to the top 4? Will the money prove strong enough to bring more clubs up to the requisite level or will we just see more obscene transfer fee’s and wage demands?

It is an interesting debate and one which needs to be had. Player wage demands won’t cap, nor will transfer fees. So if clubs continue to seek to make investments in superstars they may not see a return on is it really the right path to progress? Would there be a change to the top 4? The window of opportunity with the new TV money will be small, especially considering how quickly a player can bring his contract into jeopardy.

I am doubtful but will be impressed if there is a diversity of investment. If clubs instead of spending money on the next “superstar” invest in their infrastructure. Southampton’s investment in a state of the art development centre was one of the most inspiring things I read last year. A club investing money made by selling its homegrown superstars to increase its output of homegrown superstars? It makes sense. As a club that can’t rely on match day revenue or afford a slew of superstars they have chosen to capitalise on the competitive advantage they already have even more.

We’ll only be able to gauge the success of transfer vs internal investment with hindsight but an interesting dynamic is being amplified. I applaud the bravery of Southampton for trying something they believe in and I hope they show the way to success by pulling away from the transfer circus. If nothing else they’ll be able to claim the moral high ground – as theirs is a club that was built with players the club produced, not bought.

Which brings me to the Arsenal. Over the past 10 years we’ve suffered the reaping of the seeds of growth I discuss above. We saw what happens when a generation of talented players brought through at young ages see more money elsewhere. It’s a real conundrum and one which we may well see the fruits of in the coming two seasons, as the extra hot sauce of Alexis and Ozil were brought in to complement a nucleus of home grown talent who, make no mistake if we didn’t have we wouldn’t be able to compete. We simply don’t have the 200m pound the Manchesters have each year to spend on transfers, or the sugar daddy billionaires prepared to invest.

What we do have is a model that takes time, to which hopefully this season we’ll reap the rewards. If not, is there really any hope?