*-Not targeted at any of our Saints wingers,..alright, maybe one of them.
1-2, doesn't sound as bad some pessimistic people make it sound. They might say that lose 0-3 and we will have improved on the 8-2. Whatever the result, it was as the cliché goes, a tale of two halves. We certainly improved on our 2nd half performance compared to what we did in the last 2 games. It was nice to see that we put ManU on the backfoot in the better half of the game. The only thing missing was the composure to finish off the game with a winner or at least a point.
I will try not bicker too much on the substitutions. Already too much has been said about it, last time a Russian sub cause discomfort was during the cold war. Don't want to reproduce that. The crowd already showed their reactions to that last night. I think it was a bit too harsh(funny how almost everyone is saying that it was a bit too harsh, even people from the stadium, but in reality no one held back their feelings during the game), to boo the manager that way, not to mention RVP's frustration on the substitution...I mean c'mon its Wenger not Steve Kean. This man is the reason for where the club is today, positively and negatively, more positively though. Sure, something must have ticked in his mind that he took off The Ox and the same ticker seemed to turn off when he put on Arshavin. It was not easy for Arshavin to cope with that and you could see that, but then again its not easy to earn 70-80K GBP per week. And his performances in the past year are certainly not worth it. Enough said though..the game is past and gone.
Even TV wasn't comfortable, understandably that he was out of his regular position and returning from an injury. But you could say that he was a bit at fault for both the goals. Such was the breakout during the substitution that people even blamed Arshavin for the 2nd goal, that he did not defend when in fact it was TV caught out of position. Anyways, I still think that with Ox still on the field we would still be attacking. Which again brings us to the same question, is AW going to spend at all in the winter? Where is the depth in the midfiled? After Ramsey/Rosciky, whom do we look up to, to come into the game and make an impact? Do we still wait for Jack and drop points till then? Like AW said himself, it would be stupid to drop points for not having regular full-backs. That goes for all positions. To be fair TR7 was very lively last night and you could see that flicker of fire that we saw when he came to the PL.
The goals are still not there and none from the midfield has contributed to the cause. It was RVP again scoring the equaliser and its surprising that no one has even mentioned the miss from RVP. I mean it was barely 10yards from the net and he blasted wide! But he has earned that leverage from this seasons performances. You net 20 and blast one wide not the other way around or in the case of Arshavin, blast 30 wide and score none! The best change would have been to put Arshavin in place of Ramsey. Ramsey's clearly exhausted and still his work-rate is phenomenal. But he needs a couple of games on the sideline but I guess that's not going to happen, given the depth of our squad, at least not till Arteta returns.
The immediate fix for this would be to buy, but whom do we buy? Is it too late to fix? If no one is available, do we look at the Reserves? Is there anyone capable? Personally I feel, Ox should start from now on, and why not try Ryo? Some might argue that that's too much of inexperience on the field, but look what 3 years of PL experience has done to Arshavin? He has been lazier than the Dormouse from The Mad-Tea Party. He can't even seem to put a pass together...but as the wise say "This too shall pass"...but will he??
There is still a lot left in this season to "turn a corner". But after a certain point you ask yourself, how many corners are we going to turn in a single season? Won't we land in the same place?.. which we already have.
I am in a fix, where exactly is the change needed, on the front-end or back-end?? Do we revamp our whole system? I surely hope not. What we can hope is for a good couple of next matches, at least think of getting to the top four now. I cannot imagine my Tuesday/Wednesday nights without the UCL. If we don't qualify through top four there is an outside chance that if we win the Champions League this year we gain automatic qualification. But with the Madrid's and Barcelona's of the world that's a very tough job...certainly not impossible given our form in Europe. It starts with AC Milan...
Before I wrap up, just word of appreciation towards Yennaris. An 18year old coming off the bench to make his PL debut against ManU and doing pretty well is certainly appreciable to say the least. +Per, Kos. They held Rooney quite well. Thanks to Song for elbowing the Orc-face and to Rambo for breaking his back ;-)
Oh and also to Mike Dean, handled the game pretty alright, even if that's another match we have lost when he's monitored.
Hope some sanity prevails in those oakwood panelled boardrooms of Arsenal.
From other news:
Nasri justifies leaving Emirates....yeah right.
The Ox speaks about his performance....we wish he starts and stars in every game.
No comments:
Post a Comment