Arsenal vs Reading 4-1

I am one day late with my post, but on Saturday morning i went to see the International Auto Show, so below i have posted a few nice looking vehicles as a compensation for being late.

I watched the game on tape today and to be honest, there is not much to write about. Reading pretty much didn't show up and allowed us to use them as a punching bag. With 70% to 30% possession and 26 to 5 shots, it's pretty obvious we dominated the game for 90 minutes. Reading rarely came forward and made a ton of mistakes at the back, which allowed us to create plenty of chances. It could have been worse for them than 4-1, but even that result is a good indication of how one-sided the game was.

As i mentioned earlier, our defense was rarely tested. Fabianski didn't have much to do most of the game. Throughout it, Mertesacker and Koscielny had to make one important tackle each and to their credit, they executed those tackles great. Sagna was also very lively and tormented Reading's defense non stop. Monreal was the only guy from our back four that didn't have that great of the game. He got beat once by Robson-Kanu in the 51st minute and then got beat again by him for their goal in the 68th minute. He is still wayyyyyyy better than the clown Santos and apart from those two mistakes he had an ok game. I definitely see him and Gibbs as two very good left backs that give us options for rotation without a drop in quality.

Cazorla was again the best player in our midfield. He has been in great form of late and he continued his great play yesterday. Almost every move we made went through him. Before he scored, he assisted for Gervinho's goal, and throughout the first half, had numerous shots blocked at the last second. It was just a matter of time before he got on the score sheet and he did it with a great strike in the 48th minute. Rosicky was our second best midfielder of the day. Even though he didn't score, he was constantly putting Reading under pressure and together with Cazorla was running things in the middle. He also played 90 minutes and i am always happy to see him on the pitch. Ramsey had a decent game. He continues to drive me nuts with his carelessness at times. The score was 0-0 and he back heels a pass in the 7 min, which ends up going to a Reading player and they catch us on a counter attack. He has a moment of stupidity like this, every single game he plays! I should stop writing about it, because by now i have to accept that's just the way he plays. It still pisses me off though. Anyway, the rest of the game Ramsey played OK. Arteta was his normal self, covering a lot of ground, passing the ball around. He took a very good penalty and pretty much finished the game off with it.

Let's talk about good old Gervinho. He did have a very good game for his standards and apparently everyone is super impressed with his performance. I don't want to be a hater, but to me, he is still an average player at best. Yes, his pace yesterday gave Reading tons of trouble; he was very lively and had some great runs that help set up two of the goals. He also scored one himself. But he also blew another 4 or 5 very good chances by doing what he normally does: ran himself out of space; took too long on the ball and lost it; his final ball/pass was fucking horrible. So to summarize: he had a solid game, but he is still super clumsy at times, and let's not forget Reading have the shittiest defense in the Premier League. For the money he is getting paid, he is definitely not the quality i expect.

Giroud didn't do much for most of the game. He missed a good chance when he tried to lob Taylor at 1-0 for us and he had some good one-two's throughout the match. His best contribution was the goal he scored and considering that was one of his few chances for the game, he took advantage of his opportunity.

So, great win for us yesterday. We can't make big conclusions, based on the fact that we were rarely under pressure from Reading, but another important three points for the race for top 4. Next week will be a good indication of how well we are playing, when we play West Brom away. If we can continue playing well and get 3 pts there, it will help us tremendously to continue put Chelsea and Tottenham under pressure.

p.s. On a side note: Diaby is out for ANOTHER 9 months. If we don't cut our losses and let this guy go, we are even dumber than i think. Nobody likes when players get hurt but we have supported him for the past few years with almost no return for us as far as the minutes the guy has been on the pitch. When healthy, he is a good player, but the simple fact is: ever since his first injury when he got his ankle broken at the Emirates Cup, he has never been completely healthy again!

OK, as promised, some of the cars from the car show are below. Enjoy

Swansea vs Arsenal 0-2

I have mixed feelings about the result today. I always want us to do well and win, but i also want us to go back to where we belong which is competing for trophies. I have made it clear that i don't think Arsene is the one who will get us there. I feel that as long as we can scrap for 4th place, Wenger won't be replaced. We will continue to be mediocre and wait for positive results, but our lack of tactical organization defensively won't allow us to do better than top 4 every year. So in a way, i am happy that we won, but i still see the problems and holes in our game and they won't go away until a change is made.

The game today was up and down. Swansea had a good spell in the beginning of the game, they kept the ball on the ground and controlled the pace. They easily opened up our defense a few times and missed a few good chances with Michu and Rangel being the guilty parties. We also kept giving the ball away the whole first half. Towards the middle of the half we started playing better and had more possession. Oxlade hit the bar twice with good efforts.

In the second half we started better and put Swansea under pressure from the beginning. Cazorla missed a good chance in the 51st minute. Eventually Swansea got back into the game and had a 10 minute spell where they looked like they might push for a winner, but we scored a bit of a lucky goal which turned the momentum completely in our favor and Swansea never recovered. A second goal from Gervinho after a Ramsey pass will make Wenger look like a genius, when in reality Gervinho shouldn't be on the field unless we can't field 11 healthy players.    

The defense was decent today. Not great because we got opened up too many times in the first half, but solid enough that Swansea didn't really have any chances in the second half. I thought Koscielny was great. He made some very important blocks and was consistent throughout the game. Mertesacker also had a good game. He has been playing well for a while now. Monreal was up and down. I know that he scored a very important goal, but he got beat more than once in the first half. Jenkinson was very good throughout the game and finally got to play 90 minutes, but he did giveaway the ball very dangerously and helped Swansea create one of their best chances of the game when Michu shot just wide of our goal in the 16th minute.

The midfield was OK. Cazorla was our best player in that part of the field. He was involved in almost everything that we did and his work rate never noticeably dropped which sometimes can be an issue with him. Diaby was fucking awful the whole game. He had some decent runs only to make a sloppy pass and give the ball away again and again. You can see that he has the moves and right ideas but his execution today was shit. Arteta was decent, he didn't play bad, but he continues to give away stupid fouls at the worst times possible. He did that at the end of the Bayern game the other day too. Oxlade had a very good game today. He was very active and hit the bar twice. I am glad he had a good game because the last few times he started, he had shitty performances. 

Upfront we were average. Theo was decent. He was active on the wing, but the few good crosses that he gave, there was no one to take advantage of them. He didn't have too many chances and at times was isolated on the wing. For me, Giroud was disappointing again. He had some good one-two touch passes, but he continues to be in the wrong spots when people are sending crosses in. Instead of always looking for that cross and attacking the penalty area (like he did for his goal against Bayern), he still waits for the ball to somehow come right to him.
Gervinho is clueless as always and him and Ramsey almost fucked up that counter at the end. I was actually impressed when we scored because Ramsey's pass to him was way too far behind him. And knowing Gervinho's clumsiness, i was impressed that he was able to squeeze it past the keeper.

So our quest for top four continues but for the reasons i mentioned earlier, i don't know if that's a good thing... 

Tottenham vs Arsenal 2 - 1

I am not going to lie. Losing to fucking Tottenham always hurts. It wasn't any less painful today. It was a very important game for us and even a draw would have been a decent result and kept us at a 4 pt difference. Now, the gap is 7 pts and we should probably try to catch Chelsea first, before we worry about Tottenham. 

I wasn't happy with the starting line up. When healthy, i think Rosicky should start as many games as possible and i would have put him in, instead of Ramsey. Tomas is miles ahead of Ramsey in every department. I would have started Podolski as well and left Giroud on the bench. Theo would have played as a striker. I know that didn't work against Bayern, but that was the wrong team (very strong and physical) to put Theo as a striker. Walcott gives us that speed on the edge of their defense when he plays up front. Giroud can always come in, if we go behind and Tottenham close themselves in the back, then we could use his size.

I thought we started the game pretty well. We had plenty of possession in the first half and only the final pass was missing. Both team were playing a bit cautious and until the last 10 minutes of the first half there only one or two chances created. So after 35 minutes of pretty even possession, our defense cracked horribly. Twice. In the span of 3 minutes. Both goals were conceded in terrible fashion and all of sudden Tottenham were up 2-0 with very little done to deserve it. Sounds familiar? It should, because we have been doing this for many years now: giving away cheap goals and digging ourselves a big whole.

Even though we scored, i feel we were much more disorganized in the second half. We created a couple of very good chances, but we never got into a rhythm, it was more of a good pass here and there, or a bad Tottenham giveaway that helped us create those chances. On the other hand, Tottenham should have scored at least two more goals on their counter attacks with Bale, Sigurdsson and Defoe all guilty of missing great chances. To top it off, we got 6 minutes of extra time and we spent 4 of them just kicking the ball high in the air and wasting time trying to get possession of it. 6 fucking minutes and we can't be smart enough to put the ball on the ground and try to create something, as opposed to just kicking it high up the pitch and hoping for the best?!! It just shows you that this team is in a bad state mentally. There is no clear direction given from their manager and it translates to the players. I will repeat it again: Wenger needs to go! I will keep repeating it, until the club wakes up and lets him go. 

Defensively we started the game decent, but then it all went to shit. We were play a very high line defensively and that's not the smartest strategy against such a speedy team like Tottenham. One mistake from a defender and you have a one on one situation vs the goalie. On both goals we had people switch off at the back:

You can see above that both Arteta and Monreal did not follow Bale when he started his run. Arteta had more fault because Bale ran right past him and he should have done all he could to stay close to him...

...instead he looks behind and hopes there is an offside call given, but correctly there is none...Monreal is also appealing for an offside instead of trying to follow the runner.

For the second goal, the situation is very similar:

This time Monreal is the guilty party and not only let's Lennon run by him, but does not alert Vermaelen that Lennon is behind him...

....before Vermaelen knows it, Lennon is behind him...

 .....and we are down 2-0.

If you look at Monreal here, he is at the same spot as on the first picture. You would think he would follow his man instead of hoping that Vermaelen has eyes on his back and will pick Lennon for him.  

Even though Monreal was partially at fault for both goals, i am not accusing him. It's the whole defense that does not communicate correctly. Everyone should be on the same page as far as who is following the run of who, or which area is every person responsible for, if you are going to do zone defending. Either way it's a shame that we gave away these sloppy goals because Bale had not really troubled the defense in the first half at all. I thought Jenkinson had another good game and i have no clue why Wenger keeps taking him off and puts Ramsey at right back. If it's because Ramsey has more attacking potential as far as shooting, he should think again: Ramsey missed our best chance to equalize in the second half (79 min), after a superb pass by Rosicky! While he was on the pitch i felt Carl played very well, had some good crosses, and was rarely beaten on his side of the pitch. Vermaelen, Monreal and Mertesacker were all in the same boat: played well for the most part of the first half and then broke down for the two goals. In the second half we were pushing forward so the defense was understandably cracking during their counter attacks.

The midfield was up and down. I felt we had control of the game and we were passing the ball well in the first half. But after the two goals, until the end of the game, we never got a good attacking flow in our game. I thought Wilshere had his first average game in a long time. He was trying hard as always, but didn't have his usual impact. Arteta fell asleep for the first goal but did his best throughout the game to disrupt Tottenham's passes in the middle of the field. Cazorla was very active and was trying hard to create chances for us, but the finals ball wasn't there. Ramsey was average. I liked that he was very physical in the first half and was trying to bullly people of the ball. But going forward he was not sharp the whole game. As i mentioned earlier, he missed our best chance to equalize; he had some bad crosses; and after he got moved to right back, he had a tough time running back, which could have resulted in third Tottenham goal if they were more composed in front of goal. After he came in, Rosicky started a bit slow, but then gave some great passes to open Tottenahm up. Too bad the manager does not seem to think he still has what it takes to start the game.

Up front, Giroud was disappointing AGAIN. I don't remember him showing up for a big game. He was trying hard, showed desire, but the few chances he had - he blew. He got a good ball in the 9th min and instead of shooting quickly he waited too long and Vertonghen blocked his shot. He didn't attack the penalty area strong enough when crosses were coming in and that's the main responsibility of a striker! He did give a good back heel to Podolski in the 78th minute but Lukas miscontrolled it. Theo was active the whole game. Gave a good cross for Mertesacker's goal. He was trying to run at the Spurs defense at every chance but i feel he would have done that better if he was up front. At times he was isolated on the wing and wasn't very effective. 

The only change that Wenger made after the Aston Villa game was to put Ramsey instead of Diaby (because Diaby is hurt). Did we have a great game against Villa to prompt him to use the same line up? No. But that's what he does: if we win, same 11 stay on the pitch regardless if we have played shit or not. Only exception: when we have a few games in a week and even then he makes changes reluctantly. We will stay mediocre until Arsene leaves. I wish he could prove me wrong. But after 8 years, i think it's obvious that we need change. Michael Laudrup was a phenomenal player and as a coach has shown that his philosophy of how to play football is similar to how Arsenal wants to play. Offer him the job now, or at the end of the season and he will walk away from Swansea. Wait more, and he might not be available just like Guardiola is taken already.