Arsenal vs Bolton

So we finally got a good win. Don't get me wrong, it's obvious Bolton going down to 10 man helped a lot but overall as a performance both offensively and defensively this was our first good match of the season. The defense looked shaky the first 10 min and if it wasn't for Szczesny's great save we would have been 1-0 down. If "good old" Almunia was our goalie, that ball goes in. After the first 10 min, we took control of the game and Arteta had a "Fabregas" like through ball and this is the 2nd week in a row when Gervinho should have passed the ball and we would have scored. He is either fucking unaware that Van Persie was next to him or he just doesn't care which pisses me off. Not to mention even if he doesn't want to pass the ball he should score, not kick it in Jaskeelainen's hands.

Arteta was very sharp again, his passing is really intelligent. And this game he didn't disappear in the second half like he did against Blackburn. Ramsey had a really good game as well, gave a good pass to Van Persie for the first goal, and was solid throughout the whole game. Song was his solid self and scored a great goal. I thought Walcott had a really good game even though he should have scored at least twice. The red card was a bit questionable because the contact was minimal but we have seen those given a lot of times so i don't really care if it was a red or not. That situation just shows you how much more dangerous Walcott is when he is on top of the attack. There are no central defenders in this league that can keep up with his pace. The sooner Wenger realizes that and starts playing him on top of the attack the better Walcott will play and produce for us. Gervinho did not have a great game and as i mention cost us a goal for a second week in a row.

Sagna was solid as usual. Mertesacker looked good even though you can see he doesn't have the speed. Koscielny was alright but i never feel relaxed when this guy is in our line up. Today he actually looked a bit more decisive and made some good tackles but if you read this blog you know i don't think the guy is good enough. Until he proves me wrong with CONSISTENT performance against good teams i am not a believer. I thought Gibbs had a good game as well. Made a very important close down on Eagles when Bolton had their best chance of the second half, if that was someone else with less speed Eagles would have been one on one with Szczesny. So overall with the exception of the first 10 min, the defense looked ok. But let's not kid ourselves: we played against 10 men for 35 mins and this was against Bolton who are not a powerhouse upfront anyway. 

                                                       
I left Robin Van Persie for last because the guy deserves to have his own paragraph after his 100th goal for the club today. He scored 2 great goals and was close on 2 more occasions. He finally got some good deliveries and took advantage of them. We all know he is a phenomenal player who just needs to stay healthy. Congrats to him and i hope he stays in Arsenal until he retires. If he does and is healthy, he will break some records before he is done.

Good win today, but right now we need consistency more than ever. Let's hope we can show a good performance next week and spank a Totennham team that is playing well. Go Gunners!!!

Blackburn vs Arsenal

Laurent Koscielny is not good enough to play for Arsenal. I am sorry if this sounds a bit harsh but i have been watching the guy for over an year now and i am convinced he just can't get the job done. This by no means excuses the rest of our defense but Koscielny slipped and gave away 3 balls in the first half that could have been costly mistakes and we just got lucky that Blackburn didn't capitalize. How the fuck do you slip 3 times and give away the ball? Once, i can understand but 3 times?? When i watch him play, it seems to me the game is too fast for him. He can't make a decision fast enough and be decisive, instead half of the time you see him hesitate and look unsure of what to do. I am going to say it again: If Wenger has any balls he should start playing Miquel instead of him.
                                                 
Now, the rest of the defense was also comical for a Premiership team. Mertesacker didn't have a good game but he works hard and still plays with confidence and calmness. He just needs to get used to the speed of the English game. Santos didn't look great. Was way behind the line for the Yakubu equalizer. But he also hasn't played much lately and even more, he hasn't play for Arsenal at all. So i am going to give him at least half an year before i create an opinion about him. He looks skilled and probably will turn out to be a good option on the left. Sagna was the only one who had a clue what was going on in the back but got injured. Djourou has been playing shitty as a central back, imagine as a right back! He got abused a few times by Hoillet but he tried hard and i give him credit for that. The problem is that he is also not good enough, unless he improves tremendously.

Wow, i finally have something positive to say about our attacking game! Saturday was the first time this season, where we looked really dangerous going forward. (Everybody relax, i am talking first half only). Maybe the fact that Blackburn's defense is not the greatest helped us a bit, but both goals that we scored in the first half were after some great passing moves. We also missed at least 3 or 4 good chances to score more. Especially the chance at the end of the half where Gervihno should have passed the ball to Van Persie and we would have been up 3-1 for sure. Instead he opted to shoot and fucked it up.

Now i have to mention two people that i regularly bash on here: 1) Sagna made two good crosses in the first half!!! One high and one low which Gervihno blew. But i give Sagna props when they are due, it's not every day when he can actually execute some dangerous crosses. 2)Arshavin's first half performance finally reminded me of how he can play, today was his best performance in quite a while.


Arteta looked great in the first half, was very active and made some terrific passes. And then in the second half he just disappeared. I don't know if he got tired but i expected much more from him in the second half than what he showed. Gervihno had a really good game and a really bad game at the same time. Really good, because he scored a great goal; he was very active on the wing and overall played a good game. Really bad because if he had made a few good passes instead of shooting the ball we could have been up 4-1 by half time and then no matter how shitty our defense is i think the game would have ended with a different scoreline.  I would have liked to see Benayoun in the game at some point because i think he can give us some sharpness up front. Chamakh scored a good goal, he needs to do that more often :).

The crazy part about this whole game is, that even with our horrific defending we could have easily equalized at the end if Mertesacker or Walcott had taken their chances. I really hope that we are going to get it together defensively and start playing decent football. Imagine how little faith i have in our defensive abilities if i picked Vorn instead of Szczechny for my fantasy team. And unfortunately i was right. My brother in law said it best while giving me shit about our game the other night: right now our team talk about defense should be: "Guys, this is our goal and over there is their goal. We have to score in their goal, not ours. Got it?" Sadly this sounds like a pretty good advice.

Arsenal vs Swansea

Well, we got a win. It was ugly but a much needed win. However our performance was far from good. We looked extremely nervous defensively at the end of the game. Thank god Sagna made some crucial tackles and saved us from conceding. Koscielny had a decent game for his standards but in critical situations he panics and lacks that calm and confidence needed to be a solid center back. I remember a situation towards the end of the game when Gibbs went in front of him to try to stop a player, and Koscielny was just standing there instead of immediately switching positions and covering on the left. He looked afraid to make a decision and adapt to the situation. I like Ignasi Miquel much more than him and I wish Wenger had the balls to play Miquel with Mertesacker and let Koscielny and Djourou play for the Carling Cup or some other shitty tournament. Gibbs had a solid game but his problem has always been his durability not his skills. I think Mertesacker looked really good and solid. Nothing flashy, but you can see he has confidence and EXPERIENCE. He might not be the fastest guy out there but if we had him and Vermaelen the last few seasons, we could have actually won something. Szczechny made a great save in the beginning of the game and looked solid throughout until the last 10 min when I guess the whole defense decided to be shaky at the same time. We got really lucky when Szczechny tried to punch the ball and missed it and then Graham couldn’t put in the back of the net. So defensively we need to improve a lot but I like Mertesacker’s first game.

                                        

In midfield and attack it was the same old story. “1001 nights” passing (those of you who read this blog know what that means: shit load of passes with no end product), with very few good chances and not a lot of creativity. Walcott looks lost on the right, he just runs out of ideas there. It’s almost like watching Bendtner when Wenger used to play him on the right but with more pace. Walcott will be much more effective on top of the attack and Van Persie on the left or behind him. Arshavin had a bit better game than his usual shitty form, but the goal was pure luck, I still give him props for not missing it. Especially since it was the only goal we managed to score. Arteta was pretty good, definitely lacks pace but he controls the ball very well and was moving it around. With a few more games under his belt he will hopefully create more chances for us. Frimpong was not as impressive as he was in the Liverpool game but he had some important tackles and I love his desire and passion. Ramsey tried hard all game but also didn’t produce much. I think he should be playing in a bit more attacking midfield position, this game he played more like a defensive midfielder. Van Persie had a decent game and did hit the bar, but we got used to much more from him last season. Even though he didn’t play much, I like Benayoun, he has good movement and always looks a threat. To be honest, I prefer that he plays instead of Arshavin and we use the Russian as a sub.

                                      

To sum it up, this team needs games to improve. The fact is that we don’t look that impressive defensively or offensively. The problem is that we need to keep winning and improve at the same time. That might be tough to do but Wenger brought it on himself by not doing his business early in the summer. The thing that I like is that we again have some depth. When Gervihno, Diaby, Vermaelen and Wilshere are available the squad is starting to look pretty solid and we are going to need it to compete on all fronts.