West Brom vs Arsenal 2-3

Marton Fulop. He is the guy we should be thanking for third place and Champions League qualification next year. I wish i could write an Arsenal player's name instead of Fulop's but there is no question in my mind that we didn't do enough to win today and the only reason we did, is Marton Fulop's horrible performance. It may sound harsh but we were poor again today. And before i continue, let me throw one stat at you: 0. That's how many saves Fulop had today according to the official statistics of the game. Which means we had no shots on goal that he had to save.

We had another great start just like we did against Norwich. Fulop had his first but not last horrible mistake of the game. Yossi was alert and took advantage of it so we were ahead after 4 minutes. And then just like we did against Norwich we had a horrible spell of 20 minutes where we didn't do anything worth mentioning. 10 seconds after we scored, Fortune was in our penalty area forcing Szczesny into a great save. Then came West Brom's first goal which was definitely offside, but Szczesny was also very indecisive to close Long down. 4 minutes later Koscielny defended a high ball very poorly and just like that it was 2-1 for West Brom. The frustrating part is that for the first 20 minutes of the game we did not create any goal scoring chances. After their second goal we started applying some pressure but still didn't create any real opportunities. Santos's goal came after a bad giveaway by West Brom and a good strike, but Fulop probably should have done better. Until the end of the half nothing really happened, Gervinho had some good runs on the right but once he would reach the penalty area he had no idea what to do, and would eventually get his pass blocked or would lose the ball while dribbling.

The second half was not much different than the first. Walcott came in and Gervinho continued his good runs with terrible end products, this time on the left side. Then Fulop came to the rescue again! Corner kick taken by RVP, Fulop miss punched the ball right to Koscielny who scored. What ensued after that was 40 minutes of us playing anything but Arsenal football. We couldn't keep possession of the ball, and more importantly didn't press much on the ball either. Our counter attacks execution was very poor. We had a few counters where we would get people forward and the last pass would be a complete mess. The end product of all this was 40 minutes where West Brom kept opening our defense up and kept missing chances, while i was biting my nails and wondering when we were going to concede. I am sure that if they were fighting for survival and had a bit more motivation we would have conceded at least one more goal today. Somehow we didn't and got a great result but nothing more than that.   

I think Wenger got the substitutions spot on today.  Rosicky was almost invincible, and replacing him with Walcott at half time was a good move. Changing Gervinho with Gibbs was also smart. By the 68th minute even the West Brom fans knew that if Gervinho made a good run, his end product would be shit, so no one was worried. Coquelin didn't do anything worth mentioning. Benayoun was definitely our best midfielder. Scored a goal and even though he had spells where he disappeared for a bit, he was all over the pitch, running his socks off. In the 78th minute gave a great pass to Van Persie as well. Song was decent, not great but not poor.

The defense sucked, so none of them did that great except Santos, obviously because of his goal. Gibbs had a very important sliding block in the 91st minute and i give him props for that. But in the 81 minute and 44 seconds ( i really wish someone has taped the game and can go to that exact moment) hit the pause button and look where Gibbs is. Mulumbu gets the ball in the middle of the pitch, Gibbs leaves his position and runs straight at him. In the middle of the fucking center circle!! And he is our LEFT back. Mulumbu chips the ball above him and Billy Jones breaks down the LEFT side where Gibbs is supposed to be!!! With a bit better executions that could be a goal for the opposing team almost every time. With the technology today, our COACHES should be able to watch the game, pause it, tell Gibbs to come to the office and ask him what the fuck was he thinking. And then he should tell them that it's obvious that no one in Arsenal FC has explained to him how to properly defend. Or what his responsibilities are. I am not picking on him, this is just an example. I can probably find hundreds of situations like this one, when one of our defenders is not doing the right thing, or is not where he is supposed to be.  I am not trying to make a big deal of this one situation, but it definitely shows that we are bad defensively. And that starts with COACHES! I really have been saying for years that we do not defend properly. I can count on the fingers of my hand the games this year where i felt that we are playing good defense and we are doing the right things: pressing the ball; being disciplined; communicating well. I really hope that Steve Bould knows his shit and will improve the way we defend. I am actually praying, not just hoping!!!

On that note, Jenkinson who i actually like a lot, also has a ton of work to do. He had some good runs and good crosses into the box today. But he also uses his hands way too much when chasing someone and trying to defend. Almost every time he had to fight for the ball with someone, his left hand was on them pushing and shoving. It's a bad habit to have especially when there is some space between him and the players he chasing. Because of that space the refs can see that he is pushing off and at a lot of places (Old Traford comes to mind) he can give away a penalty for shit like that. The second thing i noticed with him today was that he gets beat on the inside quite often. On at least 3 occasions he let the opposing player cut inside towards the goal and allowed them to shoot, instead of trying to close the inside and force them to the side line. Something he should be taught by his coaches not by some random fan writing his blog.
 

So when you add everything together, the only positive thing about the game today was the scoreline. In our last 5 games starting with the Wigan loss we have been very poor. To be competitive in this league and win a title (which is our main goal) we need to improve drastically. I could really say that the only game this year that i felt we played a complete game was the win vs Manchester City at home. They almost had no chances; we controlled the ball and subsequently the game; we created ton of chances and eventually scored as well. We had other good patches during the season, but in reality we are very very lucky to finish 3rd. When you look at Man City and the resources they have, they will be around for a while. Same with Man U, Liverpool and Chelsea. If we want to be the best team in the league, we need to IMPROVE!! We need to buy our players early in the summer and we need to bring in the right guys who are ready to contribute immediately.  We also need guys like Djourou, Squillaci, Almunia, Fabianski, Denilson, Diaby and so on to be sold. And we need to stop giving good salaries to average players like them. (Diaby is the exception because i think he is a good player but he is constantly injured). Unless you have proven yourself at this club you get a lower level salary and when you play well for a season or two you get a good contract. This way we don't have clowns like Almunia not even sitting on the bench but making 40,000 pounds a week.

Today was a rather long blog, but it's the end of the season so i should be cut some slack. We are in third place, we will play Champions League football next year and hopefully BETTER football next year!!!Let's hope for a injury free summer and C'mon You Gunners!!

Arsenal vs Norwich

The last time i remember being so frustrated watching an Arsenal game was last year in the Champions League against Farcelona, when we got robbed with a second yellow card given to Robin and we lost the game. Unfortunately, today my frustration was not caused by the referee but by our own shitty, shitty performance! I don't want to hear anything about penalties not given for us and so on because Norwich should have had a penalty of their own in the first half. The bottom line is that we were way to lethargic and casual for long periods of the game. It would have been very unjust if we put up a shitty effort and got a result today. I don't mind winning ugly matches but you can't expect to win matches with a lack of effort. 

We couldn't have asked for a better start. Yossi scored a great goal and you would think that is the perfect start for a comfortable home win. But for the next 45 minutes we got completely outplayed. We got pressed high in our own half by Norwich, the possession in the 20th minute was 53% to 47% for Norwich. We missed so many passes; players were not on the same page and we couldn't really get a flow offensively. Szczesny had a poor game for a second week in a row. He has to save the first goal. I don't care if you expect that shot or not, the ball was not hit hard enough to be a goal. And it was right at him as well. Defensively, today we were as poor as i have seen us play. Every time Norwich had a chance to counter we would end up with 3 (players) vs 3 (players) situations in front of our goal. Sometimes even 3 vs 2 for them. To me that's just lack of effort on part of the midfielders and the pretty much the whole team. At times it looked that players would switch off and be like "you guys take care of this situation at the back, we will take care of the attacking". Good teams play like a team and players don't take breaks because your team gets punished. As i mentioned earlier, Norwich should have had a penalty as well, when Koscielny pulled the shit out of Martin's shirt.

The second half started similar to the first: we were a bit more dangerous going forward but we kept getting caught on the break and we were lucky not to concede a third. A few key moments got stuck in my head:

1) in the 51st minute we get caught by a counter, Jackson from Norwich gets the ball in the middle of the pitch, Ramsey is right behind him, he chases him for a few yards and then slows down/quits. Jackson pushes up in our own half and we have him and Holt vs Vermaelen and Song (2 vs 2 again!). Quick change of direction = Vermaelen is on the ground and Jackson has a great scoring chance which luckily for us he shot right at Szczesny. This whole situation is preventable or at least reduced to being less of a scoring chance if Ramsey continues to chase Jackson and pressures him until he gets help. Instead i guess he feels that being down 2-1 vs Norwich at home is ok and decides to let Vermaelen and Song "handle this one". This one moments sums up our whole effort today: not good enough; not playing/defending as a team but rather as individuals.

2) 58th minute. Bad back pass by Vermaelen, Szczesny almost fucks up the clearance but somehow gets the ball to Gibbs who is on the left side, deep in our territory. Gibbs is immediately surrounded by 2 Norwich players and eventually loses possession. That's in the 58th minute, we are playing at home and we are losing 1-2!Again, something is wrong with this picture: we are fighting for 3rd place but Norwich are outplaying and out-hustling us at home!! Which begs the question, which team wants it more?

After the 60th minute we took control of the game and started creating chances. Norwich decided that they did their job and allowed us more time on the ball which proved to be a bad decision. We missed a few good chances but eventually RVP scored a great goal after a good pass from Song. That goal woke us up and we continued to press and create opportunities. The 2nd goal Robin scored was a bit lucky in the way the ball got to him but it was a well deserved goal to put us up 3-2. 

And this is when i still can't believe how naive we are. We decided that we did our job and Norwich will just lay down and accept defeat. They on the other hand, realized that not pressing us like they did for the first 60 minutes is a bad idea and started putting pressure on us. Coquelin had a bad back pass and Norwich almost took advantage of it. That should have been a warning sign. Then immediately after that Szczesny was shaky and spilled the ball from a regular cross. I guess even after this two warning signs, we still didn't realize that we will get scored on if we continue to defend like this. Howson gave a great pass to Morison and the only person back was Koscielny. I don't know why Vermaelen decided to play so high up the pitch in that situation considering that both Coquelin and Gibbs were further up the pitch and Holt and Morison were basically 2 vs 2 on him and Koscielny. Another bad defensive sequence led to a deserved punishment and i can't say i didn't see it coming. Regardless of the fact that we created at least 3 or 4 more goal scoring chances in the next 10 minutes or so. We didn't deserve to win today just because you can't be rewarded for playing hard 30 minutes out of 90. You can't be rewarded when you don't show desire and effort for 90 minutes.

It's still mind boggling to me, how can we not be motivated enough to put a strong 90 minute performance when we know our faith is in our own hands? I am not saying players didn't try hard. They didn't try hard as a TEAM. If you want to be a top 4 team in England, you have to be able to hold a lead for 10 minutes. Or at least make it hard on the other team to score. We didn't do either.

I do think we miss Arteta a lot. I don't think people realize how much defensive work he did and how well he controlled our pace when we had the ball. Ramsey was absolutely awful today and i can't believe how badly his form has dipped. He could have gotten a second yellow today; he can't organize anything offensively at the moment; and i think that influences him in the wrong way because he stops putting enough effort defensively. He should have been off at half time. Rosicky was our best midfielder today together with Song. Yossi scored a great goal and had another great chance to score with a header but for long periods of the game he was gone. Gervinho finally had a strong game. He made some great runs and gave some great passes for people to score. He was unlucky not to get an assist today. Oxlade was decent but needs more playing time. The defense was bad all around, i don't want to single out anyone. They were all bad. Robin seemed not into the game in the first half but exploded in the second.

I know this blog post is getting kind of long, but last thing i want to mention. Grant Holt today gave us a lot of problems just like Bobby Zamora did when we played QPR. His physical presence bothers both Koscielny and Vermaelen. For next season we will hopefully add another strong defender who can deal with players like that because even though tall, i don't think Mertesacker is physical enough to deal with guys like Holt and Zamora.

So unless we get really lucky, Europa League it is next year. Let's hope today's game does not turn out to be the game that Robin Van Persie decided that he will leave Arsenal. Everything was in our hands and now it's not anymore. We got no one but ourselves to blame.