A Shambles Three Months in the Making: It's time for a Change

Welcome to the new season! What fun! Thoughts as follows:

* It was good for five minutes. Rosicky received the ball, spun and released; Chamberlain played a delightful outside of the boot pass into the box; Giroud timed his run to perfection, and neatly slotted home. All was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

* And then we all woke up. The tantalizing five minutes of hope evaporated, and what we all knew came to pass - the club is a shambles, and so is the team. We can bang on about the terrible refereeing (and it was bad) but, again, it benefited us to an extent, such as when Woj rushed off his line and gave away a penalty through sheer, bloody-minded, terrible decision making. He should have been sent off, but instead had to suffer the indignity of saving a terrible penalty, only to palm it straight back to the penalty taker. Good times, 1-1.

* After the equalizer, did we ever look like winning it? I don't know. We seemed to get progressively more and more wound up, that's for sure. We bossed possession, but ended up with just four shots on target. That's pathetic. The referee, while terrible, can't be held to blame for the totally mediocre performance that we saw today.

* As for Szczesny - can we finally agree that he's just not that good? He was all over the place today - sprinting off his line for the penalty, rooted to the spot for the third goal, attempting to play midfield at one point when he came charging out of his box for no apparent reason. At this point, I don't care how good he might be - I want someone who's good today. We haven't bought a world-class keeper since 2003 - that is a disgrace, and who knows if Arsene even thinks it's a priority. Crazy. Begovic is openly available for around 15m. Buy him.

* After releasing almost all of our defenders this summer, and buying no-one in return, it was fitting that we got a defensive injury today, and a red-card for Koscielny. I'm almost surprised that chickens didn't literally come home to roost on the pitch, because the defensive shambles we saw today was months in the making.

* Koscielny was unlucky, but both cards were the result of us being overrun in midfield. Koscielny is a reactive defender, and if there is chaos, he reacts in turn with more chaos. He has now had multiple red cards during his time at the club, and, in all honesty, they all seem to be because of the chaos that is strewn across our side.

* The third goal - well, we're down to ten men and chasing the game, so it was almost inevitable. Szcz's positioning was so poor he might as well have just ushered the ball into the net.

* A few remarks on indviduals:

  * Giroud scored. Other than that, he was utterly, totally, completely useless. Still, one more goal for      the statisticians! Who cares if he moves slower than a snail, repeatedly misses the target, ambles        around the pitch without a care in the world! Giroud will never, ever be good enough to start for a    team with pretensions towards the title, but don't worry, he scored twice against Brighton last year!
  * Walcott - what do you do, apart from the occasional useless set-piece? I wish we'd sold him last  summer.
 * Rosicky is the ultimate Emperor's new clothes player, a shining beacon of the mediocrity that has  engulfed the club. He missed a one-on-one chance today by a margin that would have embarrassed  Chris Kiwomya. He runs around a lot, has a nice few flicks, but he is a fundamentally limited player.  Look at his goals and assists record for Arsenal - it's pathetic. He's mutton dressed as lamb, a Carling  Cup player masquerading as a Champions League one.
 * Wilshere - less aggro, more actual contribution please.
 * Ramsey - a squad player. No more.
 * Cazorla - so anonymous he could have committed the Zodiac murders.
 * As I write this, van Persie has just scored a second goal for United. Two words: footballing. reasons.

* When the third goal went in, the boos rang out, and rightfully so. This is *The* Arsenal, one of the greatest sporting clubs in the world. Yet we have a dictator as manager who has now completely, lost the plot. One so wrapped into his world of absolute power, he vetoes deals for players that would manifestly improve the squad. Higuain? Pah. I refuse to pay his fee. Gustavo? Pah. Why pay his wages when we could get *three* Bendtner's for those wages.

We have all known, all summer, that this squad is not good enough. Spurs, who finished one point behind us last season, have spent big under the auspices of a young, energetic manager with new ideas.

I want, and have always wanted, Arsene to succeed. But it's time for a change. He has had three months to prepare for this date, and, instead, we put out a team that embarrassed Arsenal Football Club. That is dereliction of duty. That is allowing your own ego to outweigh the good of the club. Wenger was a genius. Now he is a sad, almost ironic, parody of his former self, a reactionary figure spewing falsehoods to keep himself in the job.

He has two weeks to do the job he had three months to complete. But, whether he finally gets the players we need or not, it's time for a change. The Emirates turned on Wenger today, and I think this is the beginning of the long, sad, slow end to his time as manager.

And I honestly think he only has himself to blame.

Season Review: You Can Ask For More.

The end of the season is usually a time for reflection, but I wondered this year how much I really wanted to reflect on what had just come to pass.

Let’s be honest, this season was a bit rubbish. Yes, we again won the top-four trophy, and, yes, again, we humiliated Spurs in the process – but is this enough? I suppose it depends. It depends on what you want from football. Do you just want to use football as an excuse to socialize, develop friendships with people you otherwise wouldn’t meet, and sink a few pints in the process? If so, I suppose any season would satisfy you. Don’t get me wrong – I love all the gooners I’ve met around the world while supporting this club. But I also want to be proud of the club I support, not just the people with whom I support the club.

In that sense, I don’t think anyone can say this season is going to be remembered as any sort of triumph. Smashing Spurs again was obviously fun, and a 2-0 win against the now European champions at their home ground is also something to be savoured, even if occurred in a match that was, to all intent and purposes, a dead rubber.

We got to watch one of the world’s best players, Santi Cazorla, play for our team on a weekly basis, and he provided a host of magic moments that enlivened a multitude of otherwise dire matches. It was also nice to see the club rediscover the art of defending, although you could argue this was a necessity to make up for the lack of firepower at the other end of the pitch.

Beyond that, and a few other games, like Liverpool away or West Ham at home, it’s hard to take too many positives from this season. It supposedly gives us the basis from which to kick on – but have we not been in this position for some time? The stadium payments haven’t really gotten any more or less onerous this year, even if new commercial deals, and TV revenue, will imminently start boosting our finances.

I simply feel that, as Arsenal fans, we have been sold the future for almost a decade. We have been told to celebrate each top four finish in that period, as it supposedly allows the club to attract and retain the world’s best players. Instead, we’ve lost a host of top footballers, and done the bare minimum to paper over the cracks, and keep ourselves in the Champions League cash-cow.

For me, this season ended the moment we sold van Persie to our supposed rivals. The club hoisted the white flag before a ball had been kicked in anger, and we still haven’t entirely recovered from this rank act of cowardice. To those who say we scored more goals without van Persie this year than with him last year – please, get a grip. If we keep van Persie, and add Cazorla with either one or both of Podolski and Giroud, we score MUCH more than we did last year. In fact, I think we would have had an outside chance of the title had we kept van Persie. After all, look at how far United pulled ahead of City simply through the addition of one world class goalscorer. Instead we sold him, and the title, to a club that operates under some form of bizarre, kleptocratic regime, and yet still shows more ambition than us in the transfer market.

Our season was only saved by Arsene’s realization that we could only get the results we needed by grinding them out. And grind them out we did, with a series of almost unwatchable, narrow wins against the detritus of the Premier League. Yes we did it, but surely we can expect more from a club with our resources.

And this is what this season review ultimately comes down – you can ask for more. Setting aside all blame for the moment, we can ask for more from the club than we currently get. We can ask for a club that treats the most prestigious domestic cup competition with respect. We can ask that the club, as a bare minimum, challenges for the title, even if it doesn’t win it. And we can certainly ask that our best players are not sold year-in, year-out, to teams that we are supposedly competing with for the highest honours. The failure of the club to do all that led to this mess of a season.

And this is where we do have to start playing the blame game. Because someone is primarily responsible for this mess. Is it Stan Kroenke, our absent owner? A man who doesn’t seem to understand the magnitude of responsibility that he has as owner of THE Arsenal Football Club. We are not some two-bit franchise – we are one of the world’s most historic social-cultural enterprises, a sporting institution that deserves an owner that at least regularly attends matches, and pretends to understand why fans might be a bit peeved by his refusal to say anything to us about his intentions for the club, beyond the usual, bland corporate statements.

Is it Ivan and his backroom team? Are they dropping the ball when it comes to closing deals? How many other Juan Mata’s are there – deals we should have completed, but failed to do so?

Or is it Arsene? And ultimately, it perhaps has to be Arsene. He is the one who makes ludicrous statements about the top-four “competition”. He is the one that chooses to let us meekly slip out of the FA Cup, year after year, despite the fact that he must know how much this trophy means to the fans. And he is the one who was critical to the sale of van Persie, taking a call from his former Scottish nemesis when he should have hung up and told Robin to shut up, and get back to work, potential transfer fee be damned.

Some fans will read this post and criticize me as negative. Fair enough. But I simply feel that many of those fans that are deemed “negative” are actually optimistic. They believe that Arsenal can do more. That this club can actually compete on all four fronts each season. That we don’t have to consistently sell our best players. That we can be more ambitious in the transfer market without going into some Portsmouth-esque spiral - and as side-note, even if we did, if the club came out owned by the fans, would that be so terrible?

So Arsene gets one more season. One more season to prove that he still has the guts to be ambitious, and the guile to change his approach and make us competitive again. I hope he has it in him. With Chelsea, and both Manchester clubs in flux, now is the time to go for it in the transfer market. Because if he doesn’t, and we’re here again next season, celebrating fourth place like a trophy – it’s time for him to go. Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that. But let’s also forget that no one is replaceable. Given the number of top players sold during his tenure, Arsene surely knows that more than anyone else.

Gb.

Time for Some New Ideas: Thoughts on Arsenal 1 Sp*rs 2

Another week, another defeat. Thoughts as follows:

* The line-up was probably as good as it was going to get, given our current squad. Personally, I would have started Podolski instead of Giroud, and Koscielny instead of Vermaelen, but more on that on a bit. The amount of poor players in the squad has reached such a point that it's actually quite hard to rotate the team. Gervinho may, be the best player in Africa, according to Arsene, but he can't even get off the bench at the moment. Oxlade-Chamberlain's form is in the toilet. Who else is there to choose?

* We started well, for a change, but weren't able to turn our dominance into goals. This isn't a surprise, given that we have a painfully average striker as, seemingly, our first choice forward. Giroud did practically nothing all game. He's incapable of dropping deep to help make things happen, and he can't capitalize on the kinds of half-chances that RvP used to thrive on. There was a moment before Spurs scored where he was fed the ball in a promising position, and preceded to miskick it, and lose the opportunity. It summed up not only his game today, but possibly his entire season. Also, given that he's a pretty big bloke, he has a bizarre reluctance to get in the area, and try and win headers. I've seen enough of him this season to know that he's not going to turn into a world class striker we need, and that we can't rely on him to win us games. I feel like I say this every week, but replacing RvP with Giroud sums up our entire season - when excellence replaces mediocrity, standards slip, and games are lost.

* So, naturally, despite dominating the early phases of the match, we spectacularly self-destructed. When a suicidally high-line is mixed with a complete lethargy towards tracking runners, goals follow. Frankly, watching Vermaelen stand there, nonplussed for both goals confirms the lunacy of making him captain, and thus an automatic starter. He is, simply put, not a very good defender. Koscielny deserves a run in the team. Also, Szczesny hardly covered himself in glory, once again, by neither coming for the ball nor standing on his line for the first goal. Standing in no-mans land, Bale was able to easily prod the ball past him. Another error for the Pole in a season littered with them - but hey, we can't kill his progress and buy an experienced pair of hands. That's cheating!

* At half-time, the game felt like it was lost. I know we've had a lot of great recent comebacks against Spurs, but this did not feel like one of them. For the 5-2 last season, we had the likes of Sagna and van Persie in the mix to create huge moments that swung the game back in our favour. We also had the advantage of facing a Redknapp-managed side - an individual with even less tactical nous than Wenger.

* So, I was a little surprised when we scored almost immediately after the interval. A nice freekick from Theo was flicked into the net by Mertesacker, with assistance from Bale. At this point I half expected the commentator to start sobbing, as the whole things had been portrayed as the Gareth Bale show up to that point. He's obviously a great talent, but the idea that the entirety of Spurs' recent good form is down to him is simply not true. Their midfield and defence was very well organized today, and AVB even dropped his defensive line in the second-half that ultimately helped to keep us contained. All joking about Spurs' history (or lack thereof) aside, this is a good Spurs team, who could be even better if they had managed to pick up a striker in January (sound familiar?). As it stands, I see no evidence that they are on the verge of the typical Spurs end-of-season implosion, and I fully predict them to finish above us come May. They may not have won the league for fifty years, but they look like a club going in the right direction at the moment, which is more than can be said for the current shambles going on in our part of London.

* I suppose you could say we dominated the rest of the match, but what did we really produce? Two shots on target in the entire game is not good enough. Ramsey should have scored when put through, but Spurs also had very good chances to go three ahead. Even when six minutes was held up by the fourth official, there was no real scramble in the box, or last-ditch defending by Spurs. Other than our goal, our set-piece delivery was again abysmal, and Lloris and his defence was able to deal with most of it with relative ease.

* Another game, then, where we self-destructed and largely handed the victory to our opponents. And at some point the question has to be asked: who is more to blame? The players or the manager? If we consistently make the same types of ludicrous defensive mistakes, surely this is a case of the players not being drilled properly on the training ground, or playing in a system that allows opponents to regularly open up our defence. Even at our best under Wenger, he's always built teams that leak goals. The problem is these leaks have become more and more frequent in recent years, and, bereft of a world-class striker, we are no longer able to overcome goalscoring deficits.

Watching Spurs today I was struck by how astutely they have acted in the last twelve months. They got rid of manager in Redknapp who was ultimately lacking in the requisite tactical ideas to make them into a top side, and took a gamble on a young manger with new ideas about the game. This appears to have played off. In addition, they recruited a host of good players for very reasonable prices - Lloris, Vertonghen, and Dembele. All three of those players should have been bought by Arsenal. We weren't priced out of buying these players - we simply made poor decisions. We failed to do the necessary business in two transfer windows, and now we staring at the very real possibility of failing to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in a decade.

As Amy Lawrence put it, there is a weariness to this Arsenal side. Not necessarily in their energy levels, but in terms of their whole approach to the game. A tired, outdated approach to the transfer market, combined with tired, tactical inflexibility has led to this point. There's no sign that our downward slide will be arrested unless a big change is made - a takeover, a new manager, or a real clearout of the squad. Who knows if any of those things will happen - but we all know Wenger has a job for as long as he wants it, and as long as he does, it's hard to see us really challenging for honours again. It's time for change of ideas, and if Wenger isn't capable of that, we need to find someone else to take the club forward.

Getting Away with It - But for How Long? Thoughts on Arsenal 2 Villa 1

A scrappy win, but a win nonetheless. Thoughts as follows:

* I didn't like the starting line-up, and the midfield looked particularly shaky. There didn't appear to be  much of a sense of balance in that eleven. Yes, it might only be Villa at home, but who was going to do the dirty defensive work in midfield?

* But, for once, we got off to a good start, with Cazorla knocking home a shot at the second time of asking. I have been critical of Cazorla at times this season because I think he has the potential to play at an even higher level to the one he's currently at. Yes, he's not helped by our paper-thin squad, which necessitates that Arsene has to play him every week. But he's been wasteful with his shooting, particularly when he seems to snatch at opportunities from outside or near the edge of the area. Both his goals yesterday were measured, placed shots. He has a good goal tally this season - I think he can score even more next year if he continues to place his shots like he did yesterday, rather than thrash at them like he has done a little too often this season.

* The remainder of the first-half, and indeed the game until Villa scored, was a little odd. Both sides had chances to score. We were, overall, on top, but there was a clear sense that we could be opened up with relative ease. As mentioned above, there was essentially no sense of who should be playing defensively in our midfield. Normally this would fall to Arteta, but it's now become abundantly clear that we need a dedicated holding midfielder, not a converted attacking midfielder, like Arteta. The space between our midfield and defence was constantly exploited throughout the game, and if Villa were not absolutely terrible they would have scored more than the once. When up against better teams, like Bayern, our lack of defensive organization as a team, is fatal. More on this later.

* Regardless of our defensive failings, the game shouldn't have been as close as it was. However, until we get a new striker who is clinical in front of goal, we will struggle to see out matches such as this one. Yes, Giroud has got a fair few goals this season - but he is not good enough to lead us to trophies. It's notable, in my opinion, that barely any of his goals have come against opposition in the top-half of the premier league. He looks like what he is - a player with one good season under his belt in Ligue Un, who has struggled to adapt to a much higher quality league. He's a good back-up option, but he should not be consistently starting games. Unfortunately, that miss against Sunderland on the opening day of the season was a fairly accurate representation of his level of ability.

* But Giroud can't take all the blame. Walcott is as consistently inconsistent as ever. Yes he has 18 goals this season, but the fact that he has become the team's main goal-scoring threat is slightly terrifying, given his propensity to completely hide during games. I have said this a few times - Walcott's representatives played Arsenal perfectly - they were able to achieve a deal that reflected the club's fears that the fanbase would not tolerate the loss of another "star" player. Until he consistently produces, he's not worth whatever inflated wage he is now on. If any good comes from the Bayern game, it's that hopefully the absurd experiment of deploying him as a lone central striker is now at an end.

* Podolski must also come into some blame for a lack of prowess in front of goal. I have heard conflicting reports on the reason for his absence yesterday. There is the suggestion that he has been struggling with an ankle injury for some time that will require surgery at the end of the year. Others, have simply said he was dropped yesterday after a string of lethargic performances. So, what to make of Poldi? He's our most clinical player in front of goal, and I still think he deserves a chance in the central striker spot. But, does he deserve the chance if he can't even be bothered to run for a full 90 minutes? It's a tough call. In defence of Giroud, I know we're getting 100 percent effort and commitment from him, despite his failings as a player. I'm not always sure that this is the case with Podolski, unfortunately.

* So, after squandering a series of chances, it was inevitable that Villa would score. And, being Arsenal, that they would score in risible fashion. After another wasted corner, Villa countered. Total chaos reigned in our defence, with Monreal not knowing whether to move to the player, or move to his position, and Jenkinson generally not having a clue what to do. But, Weimann's shot was not a spectacular effort and should have been saved. Instead, it went through Szczesny and into the net. It's now clear beyond any shadow of a doubt that we need a new goalkeeper. I love Woj's spirit, and he has had big games for us this season. But the mistakes now clearly outnumber the positives, and he has cost us games and points this season. Let's man up and make Stoke an offer they can't refuse for Begovic. If this "kills" Szczesny, so be it. We don't owe any of these players a career. If they're not good enough, they're out. Enough coddling.

* The same goes for Jenkinson. Yes, he's a gooner, and celebrated our winner with enthusiasm. But so what? Is he good enough to replace Sagna as our starting right-back. No way. At the moment he is a mid-table player, at best, who would actually benefit from a loan. If we do make the mistake of letting Sagna go this summer, I really hope we have a plan beyond Jenkinson.

* But the defence can't take all the blame for the goal. The chaos in our back-line stemmed from a certain unearned nonchalance to defending in our midfield. The question is - what type of players are Diaby and Wilshere? There role within our midfield yesterday was not clear at all. Wilshere is a brilliant player. But is he meant to be staying deep? Is he a box-to-box player? Does he have a free role in the side? And as for Diaby, is he some form of bizarre attacking midfielder who never contributes significantly to our attacks? What does he really bring to the team? Not a lot, in my opinion. I hope that we finally get rid of Diaby this summer, but he's clearly a pet project for Wenger, who'll be at the club as long as Arsene is. Unfortunately, our bizarre reliance on a player who continually suffers from injuries will probably mean we won't buy the dominant central midfielder that we've needed for years.

* Our second goal was a moment of absolute joy in a much otherwise characterized by dross. Wilshere floated a ball over the top to Monreal, who cut the ball back to Cazorla, who then finished with a neat curling effort. It's easy to forget at the moment, but it's moments like these which make it so difficult to turn against Wenger. At his best, he produces teams in which players express themselves, and create moments of beauty on the field. It was nice to see Nacho pop-up with an assist as well.

* So, a win. A poor win, but a win. And as we try and climb the mountain to fourth place once more, it's a vital three points.

But it's a win that raises a lot of questions, especially in the light of our defeats to Bayern and Blackburn. From around 2006 to 2010, I was firmly of the belief that Arsene was the right man for the job, and that we were simply 1-2 players away from greatness. Now, I'm not so sure. The total lack of organization and tactical discipline that we've seen on the pitch time and again this season hints at wider faults in Wenger's management that signings potentially don't rectify. There's only so many times you can see a poorly defended set-piece, huge swathes of space left open by disorganized players, or a lack of resolve to get the job done before you start to wonder whether the players on the pitch are the only problem in terms of our performances.

I'm fairly sure that we'll up our game in the next few weeks, and we will probably get fourth place. But this season has really shaken my belief in Wenger. For the first time I wonder whether new signings are enough to make us title-challengers again, or whether more substantial change is required at the club in terms of how we approach the game. Maybe we don't need a new defender - we need a new attitude towards defence. And maybe we don't need to replace Giroud - we need to rethink the entire way we tactically approach a match. Does Wenger have this in him? I don't know.

Gb.  

The Best Man for the Job? Thoughts on Arsenal 0 Blackburn 1

I had, by accident, scheduled to have my cable replaced during the game yesterday. This meant I missed about a third of the game, for which I should probably be grateful. This was another season-defining moment, in a season that has largely been defined in terms of absolutely dreadful results. Thoughts as follows:

* The team selection was fine, other than Coquelin starting at right-back. He's not a right-back, and clearly doesn't want to play there. Indeed, I'd go one further and ask what Coquelin brings to the squad. I'd genuinely rather have Denilson in his place at the moment. As Arse2mouse put it, Coquelin's main ability seems to be running around a lot - i.e., the minimum of what you should expect in a game that is fundamentally based around, yes, running around a lot.

* So, I missed most of the first half, but that's not really a problem with Arsenal nowadays. Our first-half performances have become the equivalent of an extended warm-up. We saunter around a bit, stretch our legs, hit some range-finders. The days in which we put three goals past an opposing team in the first-half are long, long gone.

* Still, we certainly should have gone in at half-time at least one goal ahead, with Gervinho scuffing the ball wide when put through one-on-one with the keeper. He may well have lit up the ACN, but he still looks rubbish in the Premier League. I fear that he is soon going to be added to the lengthy list of recent signings at Arsenal who we can't get rid of once it's become apparent that they are not good enough for top-level football. Yes, he probably was really good at Lille. And I'm sure he has stood out while playing for the Ivory Coast. But the standard of much of Ligue Un, and, to be frank, international football, is not anywhere near the level of the Premier League or the Champions League. He looks out of his depth, and we need to ship him out in May.

* There was no marked increase in urgency after half-time, which was strange. You might have thought that the team would feel somewhat embarrassed at not being able to dispatch a very mediocre Championship side, but no. Rosicky, who I still feel should be no more than a squad player, did at least try to make things happen, and was unlucky not to score with a thunderous strike from outside the area which smacked against the bar.

* So, naturally, Arsene took Rosicky off when he finally decided (20 minutes too late) that we needed to make some substitutes. Abou "lovechild" Diaby was naturally left on, for reasons unknown. So far this year, Abou has played about two good games of football, both at the start of the season. Then he, predictably, had a "3-4 week" injury, that saw him miss three months of a 9 month season. Since he's returned, he's gone back to default Diaby mode. Tacking 50 touches of the ball where two will do, and generally strolling around the midfield, slowing down play. For some reason, I've always thought of Diaby as a young player - but he's now 26. Considering the position he plays, he should be dictating matches, and dominating in the midfield. He doesn't really. Our baffling, continued reliance on Diaby has meant that we haven't gone out and done the business in the market that we really need to do. Another one that needs to leave in the summer.

* The goal, when it came, was a predictable comedy of errors. Where to start? Coquelin being all over the place? Walcott not bothering to track his runner? Or Szczesny palming the ball straight back into the danger zone? It was that classic mixture of incompetence and laziness that has seen us concede so many goals in the last few years. It's one thing to be beaten by moments of brilliance by the opposition; it's quite another to consistently self-destruct in the manner that we do all so often. It's pathetic and embarrassing.

* We have to sign a goalkeeper in the summer. Szczesny needs more than Mannone and Martinez as competition. Szcz may well grow into a brilliant keeper, but at the moment he costs us more points and more games than he wins. Yes, he was amazing at Sunderland last week. But how many times has that happened this season? And how many times could the opposite be said? Too many.

* But, in fairness to the defence, their errors are always going to be magnified if we can't score at the other end of the field. And when Theo Walcott is your leading goalscorer, you know you have problems. Giroud, well, I just don't think he's good enough to be our starting striker. A willing back-up, yes. But nothing more than that. I think we've again got a player who looked fantastic in Ligue Un, but who has struggled when introduced to a higher level of competition. It drives me mad that we have one of the most clinical strikers in Europe, Podolski, but we refuse to play him centrally, and instead seem to have given this season over to developing Giroud.

* There was a bit of a scramble towards the end, but for once I just didn't see a comeback occurring  and it didn't. The boos were loud at the end, and expected. Another trophyless season beckons, and this time it's happened with an extra layer of humiliation. Knocked out of the League Cup by a League Two side, and out of the FA Cup by a Championship side. And, in both cases, we put out teams that should have had enough to win the game. We may well get a draw or even a win on Tuesday, but anyone who thinks we will win the tie over two legs has a level of optimism with which I have no empathy.

* And so, here we are again. Arsenal's most successful manager is now presiding over an era that will go down as one of the most barren in the club's history. The quest for fourth place has now become more bizarre than ever. If we, supposedly, don't have the resources to compete on more than one front, then what's the point of qualifying for the Champions League. The pay day that the group stages bring?  Because that's all we've really been getting over the last few years. A few good performances against group stage teams, then a swift exit in the knockout phase.

At this stage, any other manager at any other top-level club would have been sacked. No other club has given their manager as much power or as much leeway as Arsenal and Arsene. Yes, Chelsea and City are committing the equivalent of financial doping. But are United? No. They just have a vastly superior manager who refuses to accept mediocrity in the way that Arsene has at Arsenal for so long now. Would Ferguson allow players like Squillaci and Almunia to hang around the club, picking up paychecks for doing F*ck all for years? Would other top managers play the same tactics week-in, week-out regardless of opposition? Would other top managers continue to see defensive organization as a mere afterthought in comparison to pretty, possession football? No.

I have wanted Arsene to turn this around because he clearly loves Arsenal, and he has taken this club to a level that few could have dreamed of in 1996. But he is now stuck in a rut. The flaws have piled up and multiplied, and I don't know if he is capable of performing the sytematic overhaul of the playing and coaching staff that is required to make the club successful again. Because, as much as we can argue over the finances available to him (and really there is no argument - just look at the annual report), if players aren't "focused" or motivated, or continually play "with the handbrake on" that is largely due to his coaching and his management of the squad.

The final nail in my belief that Arsene is the man to take the club forward was the January transfer window. Yes, we signed Monreal, of whom the jury is still firmly out. But that was it. We still haven't replaced Song. We are still, essentially, gambling on Giroud gaining the consistency that has eluded him thus far. Wenger essentially said that left-back was the only position in the squad that needed strengthening. That, I'm afraid, is mental. We are 21 points behind Manchester United - everyone's position in the team should be under examination.

Ultimately, the question is simple: Is Wenger still the best man for the job? I think it is very hard to answer that question positively at the moment. And, for the first time, I think a majority of Arsenal fans feel that way too.

Either Wenger Strengthens the Squad, or We Get Someone Else who Will.

Oh January, you've been great so far. Thoughts as follows:

* I thought Arsene again picked the wrong team, which is a worrying trend from games this season. There were three decisions that I thought he got wrong, and I'll go through them separately:

 - Koscielny and Vermaelen are not an effective partnership. I think Mertesacker's form has dipped in recent games, and he was made to look a bit of a mug by Michu last week. But he does, overall, bring a calmness and sense of nous to the defence that is always badly missing when he is absent. TV and LK together just seems to be a purely reactive partnership that frequently descends into chaos. I imagine that Wenger was worried about us dealing with city's extremely mobile forward line, but, and just like against Chelsea earlier this season, it was the wrong decision and it cost us.

- Diaby's selection was ridiculous. To be frank, it smacked of desperation and arrogance in almost equal measure - desperation that we don't have better options in central midfield, and arrogance in that Arsene appears desperate for his prolonged faith in Diaby to be repaid. Diaby, on his day, is a fantastic footballer who brings a unique blend of qualities to his midfield. Unfortunately, those days are few and far between because of his appalling injury record. The fact that Diaby was removed after 60 minutes, in what appeared to be a pre-planned move, was incredible. This was not the type of game that you use to re-build a player's fitness. Players are either fit enough to play and compete, or they're not. His performance while not terrible smacked of a player who hadn't played a league game since since September. He is a player that badly needs to be released, and with talk of Fellaini having a release clause at about £22m, this would appear to be a no-brainer for me. But then I suppose I am actually somewhat ambitious.

- Diaby's selection raised big questions about Coquelin - is he good enough to be a part of this Arsenal squad, or not? For me, if he can't be trusted to fill in for Arteta, he shouldn't be at the club. He is taking up the space of a player who could contribute. Personally, I think Coquelin is not a the level required for a club that's serious about competing for trophies. Arsene either needs to give him a chance, or get rid of him at the end of the season.

- A final point about Diaby's selection - it meant that it was not clear who was meant to be playing as the holding midfielder. Given that we operate with almost zero tactical discipline, Silva was given the freedom of the Emirates to run about in the space between our midfield and our defence. It frustrates me hugely to see this, because this is down to a simple lack of coaching.

- Lastly, Theo started centrally again. More on this later, but perhaps some tactical flexibility would have been nice here, given that he was going to be playing against Kompany. Giroud should have started, in my opinion, and I say that as someone who has serious doubts about Giroud's ability.

* People will probably have forgotten most of the game's first nine minutes, but City were already on top when the pivotal moment of the match occurred. It's never a good idea to play the "what if" game, but I think they would have won narrowly with or without the sending off. That's not just me being pessimistic - it's based on the fact that our defence was already a mess, and City have better players than us. That's all. It's also worth remembering that City were without Yaya Toure and Kun Aguero today - I can only imagine the carnage if they had both played.

* Should Koscielny have been sent off? Yes. If Kompany or Lescott had done that to Giroud, we'd have been fuming if they'd escaped without a red. It was an obvious goalscoring opportunity, and Koz deserved to go. After a brilliant, apparent breakthrough season last year, Koz seems to have regressed this year. He always seems to have a calamitous error in him, and he needs to be taken out of the firing line for a while.

* Which brings me onto Vermaelen. Maybe it's the captaincy, but he seems to have regressed as both a player and a leader since August. His positioning is frequently terrible, and directly led to the first goal. Can he improve? I'm not sure. And, at a certain point, you have to wonder whether any player could come in and magically improve the defence, or whether we have a systemic problems that require a complete approach in terms of how we approach the game as a team.

* After the first, a second appeared to be only a matter of time and so it proved. The scoreline ultimately did not reflect City's dominance in the match. Only a few bizarre passages of play in the second half, where they procrastinated over who was going to take the decisive shot on goal, meant that the scoreline stayed at only two. It always felt that they had another gear within them, and I think they will come away from the game with the feeling that it was a closer much than it should have been for them.

* Gunnerblog joked on Twitter, and it's probably true - Theo's wretched performance was undoubtedly evidence that he's signed a new deal. Theo is infuriating - he frequently drifts out of games almost completely, and, I feel, he often outright hides in certain matches, which is unacceptable given the fact he is now an experienced player. I think the "Theo through the middle" experiment has had decidedly mixed results - notably, when up against quality players, like Kompany today, Theo was almost completely out of the game. That said, he almost scored when he did pop-up late on. Ultimately, it says a lot how far the club has fallen that we are being held to ransom, effectively, by a player of his calibre.

* So, Giroud should have come on. But not for Podolski, who remains the only reasonably clinical finisher at the club. Instead, Cazorla should have been removed, who was having, not for the first time, an extremely quiet afternoon. Santi is obviously a great player, but we needed him to step up today after the sending off, and he didn't. It seems that substituting Podolski is Arsene's go-to move at the moment, and I wish he'd leave him on the pitch because he is someone who will take that half-chance when it arrives.

* We were much improved in the second-half, although, as I stated earlier, I do think City were very wasteful in possession. Wilshere stood out and had probably his best game since returning from injury. Not only did he show a huge amount of talent, he has character and determination, which is more than can be said for a lot of other individuals at the club at present.

* It seems that we are really missing someone who can make intelligent runs in the final third. Our play often seems to reach the edge of our opponents penalty box, before breaking down. Losing van Persie has robbed us off someone who creates goals through intelligent movement off the ball. We desperately need to get someone who can open up space in the manner that he used to do.

* What it all comes down to, for me, is this - we need substantial investment in the squad. We are weak in almost every area of the pitch. We have three centre-backs who all seem to have one fatal flaw. We are incredibly reliant on Arteta - someone who has now finally broken down after being massively over-played. Cazorla is knackered and his form has dipped. We lack a spark in the final third. We have a goalkeeper who, penalty save aside, had a mixed game and distributed the ball terribly.

We need new blood and lots of it. If Coquelin and Frimpong have their careers at Arsenal "killed" by bringing in an experienced central midfielder, so be it. If Gervinho, Oxlade-Chamberlain or Theo complain about a lack of opportunities because we bring in new attacking options, so be it, etc., etc.

If Arsene claims, as he did today, that it's too hard to find quality players in January, then he needs to go, and be replaced by someone who can find quality players in January. If not Arsene, then our scouting network needs to improve. If it's not the scouting network, then Dick Law, or whoever negotiates our myriad, failed deals, needs to go.

After a disastrous summer transfer window, which perfectly set up this mess of a season, I cannot tolerate another window where we fail to make the necessary improvements to our squad. As 7 AM Kickoff said this week, Arsenal's 2004 side was almost entirely built through astute purchases in the transfer market. Much as it pains me to say this, if Arsene is incapable of effectively operating in the transfer market anymore, we need to find someone who will go out and get us the players we need.

As far as I can see, we have two weeks to find the players to save our season. Otherwise, a humiliating experience at the hands of Bayern awaits, as does the Europa League next season. Because too many of the players that we currently have are simply not good enough for a club like Arsenal, and that's why we are where we are.

Gb.

Where do we Go from Bradford? Painful Times Ahead for Arsenal.

As is customary for me now with midweek games, I turned off all contact with the Arsenal world on Tuesday afternoon, and waited until I got home to watch the game “as live.” Since moving to America I’ve discovered that while getting up early on the weekends to watch games is a pain,  missing matches, or having to watch them on delay, because they’re played midweek while I’m at work is even worse. It’s a major reason why I think some form of European competition will start to be played on weekends sooner rather than later. Anyway, I digress.

I accidentally loaded Facebook at about half-time while the game was playing, and was surprised to see no updates about the match. This meant that Arsenal hadn’t scored, or that we were behind, as Arsenal’s Facebook page apparently refuses to allow for the existence of opposition goals. When I sat down to watch the game, I thus had an inkling that we may have started it poorly.

As the game started, I tried to explain to Mrs Goonerboy the rules of the League Cup, and that Arsenal were almost certain to win because we were playing a team in the fourth division. She nodded, and then looked on in bafflement as Arsenal conceded, and played out the remainder of the first-half in some sort of deranged, half-baked manner.

I don’t have the energy to replay every moment of the game, so here are just a few of my thoughts on the game:

·        *  Gervinho. When Gervinho signed, I felt much better about losing Nasri. The ridiculous fee that we received for Nasri from Manchester City has led to an inflation of his actual worth as a player – I maintain we got about six months of good performances out of him over three years. Gervinho, I hoped, would provide a more consistent goal threat. Instead, he’s been rubbish. A few instinctive goals aside, he just doesn’t look good enough to play at the highest level. This had been, I hate to say, my opinion of him when I had watched him play for the Ivory Coast in the 2010 World Cup. He runs down blind alleys. He almost constantly chooses the wrong option. He not only misses the target with headers, he usually puts the ball out for a throw. His shooting, when not instinctive, is almost comically wayward. Maybe he has a future as a squad player, but as a member of the staring XI – please, be gone.

·        

*  * Podolski. I mentioned this on Twitter the day after the game, but it’s well worth re-reading Goonerboy correspondent Bobby’s scouting report on Podolski, as he basically nailed him. Bobby said that if we played Poldi on the left: "his mobility, fitness, and defensive abilities will be open to question." Check. Bobby also said Poldi was like RvP except "only heavier, less destructive, who moans more, and who is slower." Again, hard to disagree. Gervinho, for all his many faults, is a trier. He never hides. Part of the reason we think he’s so poor is that he’s constantly on, or showing for the ball. I have a degree of respect for Gervinho because, in a tough season, he’s never gone missing, regardless of his ability. Podolsksi? Almost the opposite. He clearly thought this match was below him. And he has been, if we’re being charitable, “inconsistent” since his arrival at the club. His inability to finish 90 minutes has become a joke and it’s only December. Poldi needs to start pulling his weight because he’s beginning to annoy me.

·        *  Szczesny. He has a winner’s mentality, but does he have a winner’s ability? If Almunia had collapsed into the net in the fashion that Szcz did for the Bradford opener, there would be pitchforks and torches outside his house the next day. Yes, Szcz made a few stops in the shoot-out, but I continue to believe that he has fundamental problems with his positioning, hence why he fails to save so many shots from outside the box, with players taking advantage of the fact he is in the wrong place. I would put a goalkeeper fairly high on our list of transfer priorities, because, at the least, we need someone better than Mannone and Fabianski to challenge Szcz.

I could probably go on for some time listing individual player faults, such as Vermaelen’s periodic inability to defend, or Cazorla’s failure to hit the target with about 90 percent of his shots. But the defeat at Bradford really came down to higher issues – the management, both in terms of the team and the club as a whole.

I said this on Twitter immediately after the game, and I stick by it – almost any other manager in the Premier League would have been sacked if he were in Arsene’s position. I desperately don’t want Arsene’s time at the club to finish on a sour note, because he is a demi-god. But, it’s hard to escape the feeling that, leaving all other things aside, another manager might be able to get better performances out of the current squad than Arsene can at present. And, it’s also hard to escape the feeling, that the majority of signings that Arsene has made since about 2008 have been poor. As 7AM Kickoff asked on Twitter, can you really name any signing that Arsene has made in the last five years that has been an unqualified success? I can’t. Arteta, maybe? Nasri, maybe? The majority seem to have some form of fatal flaw – Koscielny’s own goals, Cazorla’s shooting, Arshavin’s laziness, and that’s before we even get on to the Deadwood Saloon of Squillaci, Park, Chamakh, and former patrons such as Silvestre. In short, even if money is available, should Arsene be the one to spend it? It’s a legitimate question.

What is becoming increasingly apparent, is that the board are pushing a line that money is there to spend, and that Arsene is unwilling to spend it. During the Q&A with Gazidis and other management figures, this line was firmly put out by the club – Arsene doesn’t want to spend. The AST has predictably lapped this up, rushing to make some very strongly worded comments about Arsene in the press yesterday. I fear this is the beginning of an extremely messy stand-off between Arsene and the board, and if Arsene decides to take the gloves off and fight back, an extremely difficult period in the club’s history could be approaching.

But it isn’t all Arsene’s fault. Not even close. During the Q&A, Gazidis said that Stan was “obviously […] not happy with the way the team is performing” (quote, possibly paraphrased, via Darrenarsenal1). Why is it obvious that Stan is unhappy with the way the team is performing? We are still well on course to challenge for fourth, thus keeping our place in the Champions League, and keeping the value of Stan’s shares ticking ever upwards. That is his only motivation for owning the club, as far as I can tell. Stan has said virtually nothing to supporters. He has attended fewer home games than Park Chu-Young. There is nothing obvious at all about how Stan is feeling because Arsenal fans have virtually no knowledge about what this man wants from Arsenal football club.  We are a ship with a silent captain, with no idea where we’re going.

For a competition that supposedly our lowest priority, the League Cup has been fairly devastating to the club in recent years. In 2007, Arsene perhaps submitted to his greatest moment of hubris by putting out a side of kids and reserves in the League Cup final against Chelsea. In 2008, we suffered a morale sapping 5-1 defeat at the hands of Spurs, just before that promising season began to unravel. And, of course, most of our current problems can be traced back to that fatal moment of miscommunication between Szcz and Koz in Wembley in 2011. The quality of the squad has diminished at an incredible rate since that day, and we’ve never really recovered as a club.

So, where from Bradford? Who knows. But it’s clear that Arsene’s actions during January are now not just pivotal to the club’s future, but also to his own. Or, at least they should be. But it’s also clear that Stan needs to drop the “silent” façade, and make clear that he actually gives a damn about this club before we spiral further downwards.

Black Scarfs and a Dire Performance: 9 Thoughts on Arsenal 0 Swansea 2

A historic defeat, or the new normal? Thoughts as follows:

* Whether we had won or lost, this match would have generated headlines of "Arsenal in crisis", owing to the Black Scarf march (or "walk", or whatever) that preceded it. Judging from photos, a fairly sizable amount of people joined the Black Scarf leadership as they walked to the ground, and it's clear that their views can no longer be ascribed to a lunatic fringe. I may write about them in more length as and when they grow further in size, but I have to say that I agree with a large number of their aims. Ticket prices should be cheaper, whether we are winning or losing, and there should be a wider variety of options available to supporters to help them pay for their season tickets. And Kroenke should be made to make a firm commitment that he will not take money from the club. Some of their other aims are ill-conceived, however. If they are opposed to greed in football, why are they so keen to get another billionaire on board, especially one who has a somewhat less than transparent past, shall we say. And while I understand the notion of a "season ticket lite", whereby season ticket holders wouldn't be forced to pay for tickets for cup games, could we then blame the team for not taking these games as seriously as those in the league, if the supporters themselves openly claim them to be a lower priority? To sum up, I see the Black Scarf movement exists because of legitimate grievances, but they need to think through some of their stated aims a little more clearly before I can give them my full backing.

* It was pretty obvious from early on in this game that we were going to struggle to win. I tweeted at half-time that Swansea had almost completely outplayed us in the first-half, and that we would need to substantially up our game in the second if we were going to come away with a victory. Angel Rangel and Nathan Dyer both had golden opportunities to put the Swans ahead, owing to defensive mistakes on our part, and only a decent double-save and a last ditch block from Vermaelen saved us from going in behind at the half.

* Indeed, Szczesny had an excellent game in goals - perhaps helped by not having to save shots taken from outside the area - and was the only reason we weren't trailing at the break. While I am still unsure about Szcz, on days like this it's hard to argue against his potential to become a really top keeper. 

* We upped our game a little bit in the second half but not enough. Swansea weathered a period of pressure from us, and then promptly turned the screw again. Whether Arsene had blasted the team or not at half-time, it was disappointing that we only really looked like the better team for a perhaps 10-15 minute period of the entire game.

* As the game sloped towards its conclusion, I thought that the game did not "feel" like a 0-0. It was a far cry from the dull, uninspired fare that had been served up at Villa Park last Saturday, and, if anything, we were the team who were luckier not to be behind. 

*So, of course, Swansea scored almost immediately. Michu - who is surely the signing of the season, given his immediate impact and price - took advantage of the total chaos in our defence caused by a reasonably straightforward through-ball, took his time, and expertly put the ball in the net. Watching the replay of the goal is cringe-inducing. Vermaelen and Mertesacker appear to be playing for different teams, such was the total lack of coordination between the two over whether the line was stepping up or not. Tim at 7am Kickoff remarked that our high-line is now becoming a major defensive liability, and it's hard to argue otherwise, especially if we're not even going to get the offensive benefits that such a tactical deployment should bring. Until we can regain some defensive solidity, perhaps it's better to sit a little deeper, and prevent the chaos that seems to occur every time we try and play the offside trap (oh for a new Tony Adams...).

* The second goal said a lot about the problems we currently have. Jenkinson couldn't find a forward pass, and so was harried backwards, where he was dispossessed, allowing Michu to easily finish. Only one Arsenal player bothered to try and make it back and stop him, Rosicky. I.e., problems arise when you throw a still inexperienced, young defender into the Premier League, and when the rest of your team is so knackered from over-playing that they don't even attempt to track back. 

* Speaking of the final point, the extent to which Arteta and Cazorla are not being overplayed is now verging on the ridiculous, and this was a problem that could be foreseen back in August. Whatever quality our first xi has is being frittered away by a lack of options in the squad. Aside from his demolition of 10 man spurs, cazorla has recently looked like a shadow of the player who lit up the league in August and September.

* At the final whistle, there was a huge amount of booing, coming just seven days after Wenger was subjected to "you don't know what you're doing" chants at Villa Park. 

This is all terribly sad, but Wenger's future as manager is now a question that is legitimately up for discussion. We are enduring our worst start to a season for almost twenty years, and you have to wonder, leaving everything else aside, whether a different manager could get more out of this set of players than Arsene. Our tactics seems stale, and trying to pigeonhole players into a 4-3-3 that doesn't seem to benefit very many of them is increasingly maddening. 

Moreover, there is the issue of the January transfer window. Even if we assume that we have the proverbial "warchest" of funds to spend (why always the military metaphors?) should wenger be the one to spend it? At the moment, his success rate with transfers is hardly dazzling - do we want another 20-30m wasted on the likes of Chamakh, Park, Santos, Squillaci, Gervinho, etc.? And if the money isn't there, for one reason or another, now is surely the moment for Wenger to go public, and stop fronting for a board that don't deserve him.

All I will say is that things are probably going to get worse before they get better. How we're possibly going to cope with the density of games that we're going to face over the Christmas period is truly worrying. We may be relying on the January transfer window to save our season, but how much damage could be done before then? All in all, worrying times. 

The 17 Minute DVD: 13 Thoughts on Arsenal 5 Spurs 2

Well, what to make of that? Quite a game of football, and another classic match in a derby that seems to produce more goals than any other I can think of. Thoughts as follows:

* If you had told me after ten minutes that we were going to win this one 5-2, I have to admit, I'd have been skeptical, even after last year's shenanigans. Tottenham were all over us in the opening stages, and simply overwhelmed us at times. After a goal was (correctly) ruled out for offside they sliced us open again almost immediately, with Szcz producing a good stop that Adebayor was quickest to react to. And while we began to pull ourselves back into it, Spurs looked good for a second until about the 17th minute.

* The reason for Tottenham's early dominance was relatively clear. Villas-Boas sprung a surprise by playing 4-4-2, and, in practice, the formation was pretty similar to that which MUFC employed against us so successfully two weeks ago. Defoe dropped off a bit, and was attempting to do to Arteta what Rooney had done to our metronome at Old Trafford - harry him high up the pitch, and thus stop us from building out play from the back. Moreover, Spurs seemed content to largely knock the ball directly to their forwards, or to Lennon and Bale, who would then come forward as a four and overwhelm our defence.

* Now, this worked well for the opening few minutes, but this was an incredibly direct way of going about things. Villas-Boas may have planned to just try and stun us during the opening stages, and then hold on for a result. So, I don't necessarily think that Spurs would have won without the sending off. I don't think Defoe would have shackled Arteta as effectively as Rooney, and I also think that, eventually, we would overwhelmed them in midfield. Moreover, we saw last year in the 5-3 against Chelsea that we like playing against Villas-Boas's high line in defence. We wouldn't have won 5-2, but it seems fanciful to me that Spurs could have kept up their initial period of dominance for the entirety of the game.

* Anyway, whatever might have been was abruptly ended when Adebayor flew into a ridiculous tackle on Santi Cazorla. On first glance it wasn't clear just how ridiculous this challenge was, but it was clearly a red card, and an utterly absurd thing to do. For me, Adebayor has always had the ability to be a world class attacking player. He has strength, is good in the air, can link up play well, and can finish. However, he's clearly a self-obsessed moron. You do not change clubs with the rapidity that Adebayor has if you have the "mental strength" that top players need. Our fans in particular seem to really wind him up, and it's hard to imagine that he would have made a similarly stupid challenge in any other game. So thanks, Ade.

* After any red card, it's important to score as quickly as possible, before the opposing team have time to reorganize and shut the game down. It was great to see us do just that, and I was particularly overjoyed to see Per get his first goal for the club in such a big game. Per was at fault for the Spurs goal, by stepping up at the wrong moment, and leaving space behind him for Adebayor to exploit. So it was great for one our better performers this season to atone for his fault, and put us ahead with a monster header - one that reminded me greatly of Sagna's goal during the 5-2 last season.

* After that came one of the most joyful periods of football that I've witnessed for some time. For about twenty-two minutes we absolutely battered Spurs, who completely, and hilariously fell apart. Any credit you give Villas-Boas for the way he initially organized Spurs must be tempered by the fact they looked all at sea after they conceded the first goal. I had fancied Podolski to score before the game, and he did - another Ljungberg-esque effort inside the area, and Giroud added a glorious third through a combination of skill and desire, outmuscling two Tottenham defenders to slide the ball home gloriously past Lloris. At that point, if the ref hadn't blown for half-time, we could have added another ten goals - we were seriously that dominant.

* The importance of getting those goals before half-time was clear once the second half started, because  Villas-Boas made some clever substitutions, and tactical adjustments, which put us on the back foot for the opening stages of the half. Tottenham had little to lose at this point, and that was a palpable edge to the match on our part. Reading Zonal Marking, it seems that Tottenham's shift to a 3-4-1-1 in the second half, rather than the 4-4-1 that they had played in the closing stages of the second half, did cause us some difficulties, with Tottenham again attempting to overload us with direct, attacking play, and Dempsey seeking to limit the influence of Arteta at the back.

* Once we had weathered this opening storm, it became clear that there was an ocean of space behind both Lennon and Bale, and Cazorla's goal reflected this, with Podolski driving down the wing on the left, before switching the ball to the right flank for Cazorla to slot home. Cazorla deserved his goal for a wonderful performance that was aided by the extra space he could find against ten men, and he was, on balance, the man of the match. We need a tactical system that gives him time and space on the ball, because he destroys teams when he has this.

* After our fourth went in, I thought we could relax, and perhaps even look forward to a real tonking - but, of course, we then conceded. It was very disappointing goal - Bale was giving about fifteen minutes on the ball, in which he advanced into a dangerous position, picked his spot, and scored. It's disappointing to see Szcz concede from another long-range effort but Bale is clinical if given that amount of time. It worries me that even at 4-1 up, we still didn't have the discipline to stop Spurs from scoring.

* Indeed, there was then an extremely nervy period, and a profound, debilitating sense of deja vu. Thankfully, somewhere around 77-80 minute mark, we woke up and realised that we were playing against 10 men, at home, and 4-2 up, and so there was no need to let the game be as stretched as it was. The introduction of Ramsey helped us put our foot on the ball, and slow things down. And once we took the sting out of the game, Tottenham gave up, and we got a fifth via Theo, after some marvelous work from the Ox.

* The game was so odd, in many ways, that it's hard to produce a rational analysis. What I will say is that almost all our attacking players played well. Theo, Poldi, Giroud, and Cazorla all tore Tottenham apart at times, and all produced world class moments of attacking ability to produce the five goals we scored.  Elsewhere, however, we were a bit more suspect. Neither Wilshere nor Arteta really stamped their authority on the game, despite our one man advantage. And our defence was decidedly ropy. Vermaelen does not look comfortable at all shoved out on the left, Mertesacker made a rare mistake for the first goal, and Szcz hardly radiated confidence after being out for so long.

* Theo has now shown that, without a doubt, he is worth a new contract. I really wish the club would take into account the cost, time and effort it will take to replace him, versus the cost of giving him a new deal. If he is to leave in January, which I stil think is likely, we are effectively losing out best attacking player this year for what will be probably next to nothing. Also, a new deal for Sagna please.

* So, what to make of it all? It was a thrilling match, and, at times, it was utterly glorious. We showed that, in the right circumstances, we have the attacking talent to rip teams apart. Giroud is now starting to stamp his authority on games, and Cazola showed again that he has the potential to be a huge player for us. We were aided by the sending off, but I have the feeling that we would have won anyway. The sending off simply ensured that we would win by a large scoreline. Hopefully, we can build on the confidence this game should produce going into our must-win game against Montpellier on Wednesday.

And, if nothing else, thank goodness for Spurs. Never change.

Gb.

Four more Years? 11 Thoughts on Arsenal 3 Fulham 3

So, there was no post after the Schalke game on Tuesday because I flipped straight from watching the game to the results of the US election as they started to come in. Thankfully, my newly adopted country decided to not elect a sociopath - but more on that in a bit. Thoughts on Fulham as follows:

* As in Germany, we started well, racing into a two goal lead. The first was a brilliant bullet header from Giroud, from an equally great corner from Theo. Podolski then managed to get himself into the right place at the right time to put us two up. It was an important goal for him, and only his second in the league this season.Things seemed good, right?

* Well actually, no. Seeing us go two goals up with such apparent ease was bizarre  and felt undeserved. But, in the immortal words of Mr Eastwood, "deserve ain't got nothing to do with it" - if we'd somehow eaked out a two goal win, I doubt anyone would have cared. But when Fulham pulled one, then two goals back, it didn't feel like an epic collapse. It just felt, well, normal. Painfully normal. That it would have been a bigger surprise to see us protect a two goal lead at home, rather than collapse in such a manner, is incredibly dispiriting, and a profound indictment of where the club is at the moment.

* The Fulham goals themselves show what a shambles our defence currently is. Surprise, surprise, dropping Santos has not led to use suddenly tightening up at the back - with TV at left-back, we've conceded five goals in the last two games. The corner was, AGAIN, an occasion on which a player had, basically, a free header in the six-yard box. The second goal saw Berbatov tear Podolski and Vermaelen apart, before somebody headed home, again, under virtually no pressure inside our box. Personally, I think Mannone should keep the second out, and you could make an argument that he could have dominated his area for the first goal. But our defensive problems are now systemic - I truly believe that they are down to coaching, and tactical philosophy at this point, and even if we picked up Lev Yashin on a free transfer tomorrow, he'd struggle behind our back line.

* Having conceded two, it always felt like we had the capacity to concede a third, and so it proved. Arteta produced a crazy tackle in the area, and Berbatov swept home the penalty so cooly that I'm surprised he didn't spark-up a cigar during his run-up. It seemed like we had, yet again, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Against Fulham. At home.

* I tweeted at this point that it seemed like the current side had no team spirit, and I stand by that point despite what happened next. Giroud and Podolski both seem to spend most of their time on the pitch throwing anguished shapes in the penalty area each time they don't get the ball. Now, if you're Henry, or even van Persie, you can do this. After a couple of months at The Arsenal, you can't. And even if we did score a third, a team with a real fighting spirit doesn't concede three goals after going two goals up. If you think that statement is unfair, you have incredibly low expectations for one of the biggest clubs in world football.

* Giroud dragged us back into the game with another header, after he had failed to finish with his initial chance. Fair play to him, he was a handful all match, even if I could do without the dramatic moments of anguish. It was also hard to know what to make of his celebration. If I scored for Arsenal, even if we were 10-0 down, I'd probably run fifty victory laps until I was hauled off the field. But when Giroud got our third, it should have been the classic scooping the ball out of the net, and sprinting back to the centre-circle routine. Again, this is Fulham at home.

* As others have said, it's hard to concede to Theo's demands for a central striker position when he's so good on the flanks. I've never been a huge Theo fan, but I feel he's done enough to earn a new contract at this stage, especially because I don't trust the club to replace him with anyone approaching a comparable level of ability. It has also struck me this season that Theo could be on the verge on gaining the consistency that he's struggled to find for so long. Maybe a stint on the bench has done him good.

* Without wanting to be harsh, a quick word on Chamberlain. Can anyone remember the last time he played well? It's been a while.

* People complain about rubbish referees, but rubbish referees have frequently benefited us in the past. The penalty we were awarded at the end was a total joke, and Fulham probably didn't deserve to lose, but who cares? Big teams win games they don't deserve to win. Yet, there was almost instantly a bad vibe about the whole affair. No one wanted to take it about from Santi, and then Arteta snatched it from his hands. He had a good record from the spot for Everton, so fair enough. But this really felt like we were stealing something we didn't deserve, and Arteta's fairly meek penalty was saved by Schwarzer. It didn't really feel like a calamity - just another moment of farce.

* In the end, a draw was the right result, and I wouldn't have argued against a Fulham win. They were excellent, and in Ruiz and Berbatov they have two brilliant attacking players. One might wonder why we weren't in for Berbatov over the summer, but, then again, I suppose this would "kill" Chamakh's career. When you see players like him play so well, who were signed so cheaply, it's hard to argue that the club has got a full handle on our transfer policy.

We, on the other hand, produced another clown car performance. Yes, there were thrills and spills and goals, but it was all a bit embarrassing. I play in defence (badly), and was brought up under the George Graham regime, where defence was considered an important part of the game. It genuinely seems an afterthought for us on days like this, and against Schalke. Seeing a bang average goalkeeper behind a ropy defence just doesn't seem like something a top club should have to put up with - at least not year, after year, after year. Does anyone still think we can win the title?

* And so, back to the beginning of my post, where I talked about the American elections. After FDR was elected to the presidency an unprecedented four times during the 1930s and 1940s, a constitutional amendment was passed in 1947 that stated that a person could only serve as president for a maximum of two terms. There have been a number of presidents since then who could have served for more than two terms - Reagan, Clinton, maybe even Eisenhower. But the US decided it was unhealthy for any person, no matter how popular they were, to hold the office of president for more than eight years.

Sometimes, this seems unfair. If a person is good in a job, why remove them? If it wasn't for this amendment, we might not have the total disaster that was the administration led by George W. Bush. But, generally, I like it. It recognizes the fact that change is a necessary part of life. More specifically, it recognizes that it can be unhealthy for any one person in a position of power to hold an office for too long.

My point is this - it is now abundantly clear that we need change at Arsenal. I don't know the exact nature of the change required, but we can't go on like this. The same mistakes happen week after week, but, if anything, they seem to have gotten worse over the last year or so. We seem stuck, caught in an endless loop of bad, predictable tactics, and inadequate replacements for top players. Where the fault lies for this, I don't know. Having an absentee owner doesn't help, nor does the fact that we have an enormously well-paid CEO who seems incredibly naive about the world of football finance. But some of the blame now has to rest at Arsene's door. Could someone do a better job than him? I would now say "probably" rather than "possibly". And, most pertinently, does Arsene deserve a new deal? Should he sign on for "four more years", as it were. Again, I'm not sure. All I am sure about is that new ideas and new people are needed at Arsenal football club - and, for the first time, I have to say not just on the field, but off it as well.

-Gb.

No Longer a Rivalry: 14 Thoughts on Manchester United 2 Arsenal 1

Another trip to Old Trafford, another defeat. The site of some of our greatest victories, is now becoming the place where we no longer seem to put up a fight. Thoughts as follows:

* How many times over the last few years have you looked at the respective team-sheets for Arsenal vs. Manchester United and thought, "Y'know what, they aren't actually that much better than us?" only to see us promptly beaten. I think there is a lesson there about tactics and management ability, and I'll get onto that later.

* In the history of probability, van Persie's goal was perhaps the closest to a sure thing that you could ever imagine. The only question was how and when, and it was disappointing to see us give him such a helping hand. As we know, he doesn't need one. He's the best out-and-out striker in world football, and as recently as a few months ago he was doing that for us. Still, £24 million in the bank is much better, as Gazidis et al. will all tell us.

* The goal was marked by another profound defensive error from Vermaelen. I don't know how many times I can say this in one season, but the decision to make him captain was a blunder. Vermaelen should not be an automatic starter in our defence, owing to the large number of mistakes that he continually makes. Koscielny has been forced to the bench because of Mertesacker's form, and has lost his own form in the process. Central defence is now a mess, and it's a mess largely of Wenger's own making.

* A word for our other defenders. I can't believe I'm about to write this, but a fairly convincing argument could be made that Mannone was our man of the match. He pulled off a number of great saves, including one from van Persie that was genuinely world class. He's obviously not the answer in the long-term, but credit where credit's due. Sagna was solid without being spectacular. Santos was predictably pilloried on Twitter, but I thought he was far from being our worst player. None of the fault for United's goals can particularly be attributed to him, he did his best to be involved with our attacks, and Valencia was actually relatively quiet for much of the game. Swapping shirts with van Persie at half-time, though, while still on the pitch perhaps sums up a lot of the frustration fans have with this current bunch of players. They often don't seem to "get" it.

* In total we created very little. Untied barely had to break sweat to contain their lead, and we didn't get a shot on goal until the stoppage time at the end of the game, just like against Schalke. A big part of this was United's effective stifling of Arteta, who only complete around 60 passes - around 2/3rds of his normal amount. The fact that Mertesacker made over 100 passes shows that United were happy to let us have the ball in non-dangerous areas, knowing that we would do very little with it. We actually finished the game with the majority of the possession, but did so little with the ball when we had it.

* I tweeted in anger that Cazorla was overrated today, and I only stand by that remark in terms of what Arsenal fans expect of him. He has two assists from ten premier league games - he's not exactly pulling the strings in the way I thought he might after the first few games of the season. A huge creative burden appears to have been placed on him, and it's not clear that he's fully up to the task - at least with the current personnel.

* That said, Arshavin created as many goalscoring opportunities as Cazorla did all game in his ten minutes on the pitch. Is a recall for the little Russian beyond the realms of possibility? Yes, he's lazy, and drifts out of games. But he has the ability to create something in a manner that very few other players do in the current line-up. His performance against Reading showed that he can still change games against Premier League opponents on his day.

* The not so subtle elephant in the room is the form of Podolski and Giroud. The latter may have had a barnstorming game against Reading on Wednesday, but did very little today. He should have scored at least one of the chances that he was presented with, and, I hate to say it, but Robin would have gotten at least one goal from the service that Giroud received. Podolski is now a problem. Shoved on the left he provided Santos with almost zero coverage again, while also producing nothing of note offensively - no shots on goal, and no key passes. I worried about Podolski's flakiness before he signed, and I really hope he shakes off this current poor run of form, because he is still the best hope for goals that we currently have in the squad.

* Of course, at half-time there were no substitutions. Despite a performance almost entirely lacking in redeeming features, there were no changes, as ever, until Ramsey appeared to be forced off with injury. Why would Wenger change the habit of a lifetime? He obviously knows best. Ramsey again came in for a lot of flak before coming off, but does anyone know his role in the team? Stuck out on the right of our attacking front-three, I struggle to find the tactical rationale for his deployment in this position, other than defensive solidity that would seemingly waste his main creative strengths. After a great 120 minutes against Reading, Walcott did nothing after coming on - perhaps a sobering reflection of the level of his ability.

* At 1-0 we were still in it, somehow, and after Rooney missed another penalty against us, there was a small feeling that we might be able to walk away from Manchester with a point. Unfortunately, we decided to let Evra head the ball in, unmarked, from the six-yard box. Again, whatever the wider problems at the club, the fact we CANNOT MARK is down to coaching. Our consistent propensity to self-destruct defensively comes down to Arsene, ultimately. It's he, more than anyone, who decides how important defence is to our team, and how we defend. And I feel that until we have a coach that cares as much about not conceding as scoring, we ain't going to win many trophies.

* The red card could have been prevented. The fact that Wilshere was still on the pitch was a reflection of the total desperation in terms our squad options. After totally overplaying him in his first full season at the club, Wenger looks set to run Jack into the ground again. It was a tired challenge, born from frustration that was totally foreseeable, especially after he'd already been warned by the ref. Cleverley was lucky not to go in similar circumstances for a rash tackle when he was on a yellow. But let's contrast the reaction of the two mangers. Ferguson immediately removed his youngster, recognizing that he'd become a liability. Arsene left Wilshere on when it was clear he was tired and frustrated, and he was sent off. Yes, the player has to take a huge chunk of responsibility. But this is the essence of MANAGEMENT. Ferguson is a better manager of his players than Wenger is, and has been for a very long time now.

* The late goal was a great finish from Cazorla, coming almost immediately after Giroud should have scored. Having not bothered to get out of first gear, United had failed to kill the game, and the goal did little than completely flatter us. The final score may have been 2-1, but United's domination was almost as complete as in the 8-2 last season. And at least on that day we had a wreckage of a team on show. This was ostensibly relatively close to our starting XI, and we did not compete at all.

* I do wonder how much of this season's strategy hinged on Diaby's fitness. Since he disappeared at the beginning of September, we have slumped. I'm by no means Diaby's biggest fan, but he brings something a bit different to our midfield that is otherwise composed of midget passing machines. If Diaby was meant to be Song's replacement, this strikes me as insane. Whatever his talents as a footballer, Diaby has now proved beyond doubt that he can't be relied upon to stay fit. On the long list of new players we need, I would argue something different in the centre of the park is needed as well. A big bid for Fellaini would not go amiss in January, even if it will obviously not happen.

* Since 2004 - which now seems like a generation away, let alone eight years - we have only beaten United four times in the league. This used to be a great rivalry - it isn't anymore. United have effortlessly pulled away from us for a variety of reasons. They have a better transfer policy than us, without having the resources of an oligarch. Fundamentally, they have a better manager and better coaches than us. To go back to my opening point, Ferguson gets more from his players than Wenger does. He is tactically flexible. He doesn't coddle his squad. While van Persie's decision to move there may hurt tremendously, it's completely understandable. We are no longer at United's level, and we will not challenge for the league title, again, this season. Our greatest chance of silverware appears to be the league cup, but given how we've cocked things up in recent years, that's far from being in the bag.

I tweeted at the end of the game that we have the highest paid manager in the league, the highest paid CEO (especially thanks to his ample bonus), and yet we have a team that is quite clearly not the best in the league. Why does there appear to be a recognition that you have to pay for quality at a management level, yet not among the playing staff? If United had consistently sold their best players for the last eight years, and replaced them with others of lower quality, while refusing to pay top wages, I'm sure they would be where we are now. Instead, they don't reward potential too soon, and they pay their top players, top wages. Until we make the myriad repairs that this squad requires, which have now been needed for years, this game no longer constitutes a real rivalry. United are simply better.

Gb.