Stoke City vs Arsenal

Nothing new today. Typical game between us and Stoke: a lot of physical play; shit load of crosses and throw ins from them; goal from a cross for them; both teams battling for possession all game long with us having the majority of it. I feel that the day we can come in here and beat Stoke comfortably, will be the day where i know our team is really good.

The Britannia stadium is always been a tough place to come and play, not only for us but for any of the top teams. Today was no different. We actually started the game pretty well with Benayoun and Van persie both missing great chances. Our passing looked sharp but next thing you know, a cross from the left and Crouch scores...I felt Szczesny could have done a bit better. He didn't even dive, almost as if he wasn't expecting the ball to go in. Our response to Stoke's goal was good and the goal we scored was brilliantly worked. Good couple of passes on the left, great cross from Rosicky and an easy tap in for RVP. It was important for us to score quickly after them because otherwise they would have defended deep and try to catch us on the counter. 

The rest of the game was back and forward. We had way more possession than them overall but they had spells where they put us under pressure as well. Gervinho missed a great chance in the 21st min when Sagna gave a great cross and all Gervinho had to do was tap it in with his head but he got too scared of colliding with the keeper and pussed out! He had another shitty game today and even though he showed good pace on a few occasions and was active in the first half, his finishing was god awful: hit the ball in the stands at least 3 times when he was trying to shoot. Simply put: he was not good enough. Ramsey was in the same boat. Another poor performance by him. He has abilities but right now he is playing shit. Last week in the second half of the Chelsea game, he showed some signs of starting to play better but today he was back to playing poorly. He continues to make dumb decisions like playing back hills and so on at the wrong moments.

Benayoun was decent, very active in the beginning; had a great chance in the 6th min and i feel he should have done better and scored. He continued to look for the ball and tried to create chances in the first half. In the second, he faded away and the one thing that bothers me, is that sometimes he doesn't come back and help the rest of the team to press on the ball. He takes breaks from time to time and just watches everyone else run. Benayoun also blatantly dove for a penalty. I saw Arsene make a big deal about the penalty claim but when i saw the replay, that was a clear dive and they should not have even complained about it.  

Rosikcy was out best midfielder today. Gave a great pass to RVP for the goal and was very active the whole game. He almost gave him another great ball in the first half but slipped and ended up hitting it too close to Begovic. Song was solid, had to do more defensive work today so he didn't go forward as much. Should have shot at the last minute of the game instead of trying to pass the ball but he had a decent game. Robin was good as well. Scored a nice goal and gave some great passes in the first half. In the second he disappeared a bit but so did the rest of the team. Sagna, Koscielny and Vermaelen all had a good game. Had to fight all game long with the aerial presence of Crouch and a big amount of balls being crossed constantly into our box. We did better than normally in dealing with those, even though right at the end of the game we could have gotten punished. Delap had everyone scrambling in our penalty area after a long throw in the 91st minute. And then Sagna allowed Walters ( i think) to pass him easily on the left, and he should have done better and scored.

Gibbs was the defender that i was most disappointed with today. He likes helping the team to press on the ball and sometimes he forgets he has responsibilities in the back. In the 41st minute Benayoun was pressing someone from Stoke in the midfield; Gibbs rushed to help and after a couple of quick passes Stoke has two players vs two in front of our penalty area because Gibbs had no one to cover behind him. He also gave a really bad back pass in the 52nd minute and thank god Szczesny was alert! I like Gibbs and his pace and athleticism but he has to be a bit smarter and use his skills better.

So at the end a draw was probably a fair result. We definitely didn't create enough chances especially in the second half to feel that we should have won the game. And Stoke had some chances of their own as well. The good news is that Newcastle got hammered at Wigan and this point we won today can be very useful. Our faith is in our hands now! If we can win our next two games, 3rd place is ours!! C'mon You Gunners!!!        

Arsenal vs Chelsea

Mixed feelings about the result today. Considering the way we played i will take a draw. I think we got lucky not to get scored on after we got caught on the counter attack numerous times. At the same time we had the better chances to score a goal and we hit the post twice. Depending on how other scores go, this might turn out to be a valuable point. But we also can get punished for another under performance at home.

The first half we got outplayed, there is no question about that. Chelsea were very compact and were doing a great job of denying us space in the middle of the field and on the wings. We missed A LOT of passes and most of them led to dangerous counters and a few penalty appeals from Chelsea. In all honesty i don't think there were penalties but i have seen them given as well (Man U normally gets those calls). So kudos for the ref today who didn't make a dumb ass decision and ruin the game. Chelsea were lacking the final pass to finish those counters, otherwise we allowed them plenty of space to work with. And even though we sucked in the first half we had the better chances: in the 13th minuteTheo put a great cross in from a free kick and i couldn't believe RVP didn't score. Same thing happened a bit later when Koscielny hid the bar after another good cross.  

Second half we played better. We put more passes together in a row and had more possession than we did in the first. Ramsey, who was absolutely awful in the first half and was one of the players who gave away the ball consistently, all of a sudden woke up and started making some great passes. First, he gave a great ball to RVP who miss-hit it badly. And then his game started flowing better, gave a few more good long passes to Gervinho and Santos. I was ready to bash Ramsey for his performance in the first half which was shit, but he finally played a good half of football in the second one. Van Persie was poor today. Unlike the match with Wigan, today he had more than a couple of chances to score. On a few of them, he miss-hit tough balls, but they were still chances he was scoring a few months ago. And then he had a great chance in the 85th min when he should have shot the ball with his right foot after he put the defender on his ass, instead of trying to go back to his left. So for his standards that was disappointing performance. Until he got injured, Theo was doing decent; gave a great ball for the first chance of RVP; covered a lot of ground defensively as well but since Chelsea had closed the wide areas well, he couldn't do much. Oxlade did decent too, nothing great but also showed discipline at coming back and covering on defense. Rosicky wasn't much of a factor, maybe the illness he had this week took it's toll on him.

Song also missed some passes today but overall he had a good game and gave some great balls. Gervinho was NOT good AGAIN. After he came on for Theo, i think he lost the ball at least 3 times in succession. He has to be much better than that. Except for one run on the left when he gave a decent cross he didn't do almost anything at all. Diaby was not bad, made some good runs through the middle but his final pass was lacking. Considering he has played once in like 5 months, we will give him a pass. Santos did decent but wasn't able to be a difference maker either. In all honesty, even though we played better in the second half, Chelsea had more than a couple of great chances as well. Koscielny did really well in the 87th minute to take the ball away from Sturridge's foot when he was about to shoot from the small penalty area. Sturridge also missed some other good chances, mainly because he was too greedy to shoot himself instead of trying to link up with his teammates. Torres was a constant threat as well and we did well not too give him too many chances. 

Except for the fact that we were too open when Chelsea countered, the defense was solid today. Both Vermaelen and Koscielny had good games, Gibbs was good for the most part. Sagna struggled a bit in the first half when they broke away a few times on his side, but he did better in the second half. Anyway, draw was probably the fair result. The problem with that is, that we can't make any more mistakes until the end of the season. The away games at Stoke and West Brom should definitely be a concern for us, and since Newcastle won today, if they win their game in hand, they will be tied with us at the 3rd place. And so would Tottenham. So, hopefully some results go our way and we clinch that precious 3rd spot before the last game of the season. C'mon you Gunners!

Arsenal vs Wigan

Where do i start on this one? How about that we have taken big steps in improving as a team over the course of the season, but we are still capable of producing fucking awful performances like today. If there is one thing we can not afford, not just this season, but overall going forward into the next one, is games like today's.

I also really, really, wish that somehow Johan Djourou can be sent back to Switzerland and never return. Ever. It's not like the absolutely comical goals that we conceded today were specifically his fault, but more the fact that every time he is on the field our defense is shit. He is clumsy and unoriented and if Moses had not rushed his shot in the second half it would have been 3 goals for Wigan after Djourou completely misread the situation. The way we conceded the first goal was an absolute joke. How can you send 9 players into the penalty area for a corner kick and no one can realize that we need at least 3 players to stay back? Just in case there is a counter...The second was not much better even though there was some luck involved. I don't care if you play against Barca, going 2-0 down in the first 10 minutes because of your own mistakes/stupidity is unacceptable.

I will give credit to Wigan because they kept the ball and passed it around under pressure like very few sides can. Especially in the second half. Normally when teams are protecting their lead, they would do anything to clear the ball out of their half of the field but Wigan did a great job of passing it around and keeping possession. Thus forcing us to work really hard to get the ball back.

They also did a great job of time wasting which was absolute horse shit. They started time wasting in the 20th minute!!! Fucking Al Habsi should have seen yellow in the first half and that would have hopefully prevented some of his antics. Every goal kick/throw in took 5 minutes to be taken.

Once we pulled one goal back i really thought we had a shot at at least a draw. But in reality we created better chances and more pressure on Wigan in the first half than in the second. For some fucking reason almost everyone today tried to be like the real Ronaldo (the brazilian one) and walk the ball into the goal. There was very little one touch football played. Ramsey who was absolutely horrible today (and i really like the guy) took 10 min every time he touched the ball. He would turn left, right, left, right, left, right and then pass it 5 feet away from him. Not just that, he made so many mistakes and bad passes today, even tried back heels and shit like that when we are losing and are having trouble creating chances. I like the guy, i think he has a lot of potential but his last 6,7 games have been awful. And i don't see a sense of urgency from him to improve and get out of his slump.

Rosicky was also taking forever on the ball but at least he was more effective. Gave a great ball to Vermaelen for our goal and also a great pass to Theo which was Walcott's only real chance of the game. 1 fucking chance! As i have said a 1,000 times already, Theo gets lost on the right wing and has no clue what to do, especially against teams who are defending for their lifes. I don't think it was coincidence that both the penalty and the goal he scored against Wolves were from chances through the middle. Against teams defending so deep he should be playing as a striker and you can pull RVP a bit behind him. Walcott did change positions a bit in the second half but to no avail. He was poor all day. Benayoun started well and had a decent first half, until he got replaced Gervinho who did absolutely NOTHING. Tried to run with the ball every time he touched it and lost possession pretty much every time. Same with Oxlade, same with whoever had the ball from our players. It seemed we were determined to slalom into their goal instead of trying to keep things simple and pass quick and decisive. Robin was trying hard but he also never had any real chances.

Sagna was having a very tough time with Moses, and so was "the clown", i mean Djourou. Vermaelen was the only one having a clue what's going on and he also scored a great goal. Santos did not look as slow as usual but also tried to run through the entire Wigan defense when attacking. The bottom line is that we didn't play as a team today. There were patches where we pressed very organized and got the ball back quickly, especially in the first half. But towards the end of the game we ran out of steam and patience chasing those guys and that's why i give credit to Wigan for keeping possession of the ball so well. Going forward we were more like "every man for himself" than an organized attacking unit. 

After a great performance against City, we took a dump today right in the middle of the Emirates. Now the Chelsea game becomes even more important and with games against Stoke and West Brom away we made our life so much harder.I guess the only good news is the Koscielny should be available against Chelsea.   

Arsenal vs Manchester City

I am not going to lie, i really, really enjoyed yesterday's win for many reasons. First, i thought it was one of our best performances of the season. Second, watching us slashing Nasri and Clichy's dreams of winning trophies this season was also very enjoyable. I understand that every Arsenal fan has a different opinion on the transfers of those two players but i will always see them as traitors, especially Nasri. And third, i think we dominated the game and deserved to win, something that has not always happened for us when we have dominated games in the past.

The first half it was all us. City missed a decent chance from a corner kick in the 25th minute but other than that, we created most of the good chances. I still can't believe how unlucky were both Vermaelen and Van Persie when RVP had his header going into the net and Verma just couldn't get out of the way. The idiot Balotelli should have seen red for the challenge he made on Song in the first half and what baffles me is that this guy never learns. He keeps doing the same dumb shit over and over. And i don't feel sorry for Mancini at all because he should know that Balotelli is someone who you can't rely on. I understand that he has tremendous amounts of talent as a football player but as a person he is selfish and unreliable. I would choose a guy with less talent but solid character any day, over a supremely talented player with no sense of team play.

The second half, City had a 10 minute spell where they played better than us and missed a few chances but other than that we dominated the game again and we should have scored at least 2,3 goals. Van Persie had a great chance to score when he hit the post; then Theo hit the post and Vermaelen and Benayoun should have put the rebound in. At the end we got what we deserved with a great strike from Arteta. As soon as i saw the space he had, i knew he would strike it pretty well. Ramsey could have made it two at the end but his finish was lacking confidence. Regardless, it was a great win for us and it was good performance all around from the team.

Defensively it was a very good game for us. We pressed on the ball well throughout the whole game and that was very pleasing to see. After the horrible game Vermaelen had against QPR, against City he was great. Koscielny also did well, except for a bad challenge against Barry for which he deserved maybe even more than a yellow. He will probably miss a game or two because that was his 10th yellow for the season, so we will have to watch the dreadful Djourou in defense. Santos came in for a bit in the second half and his lack of pace is still very worrying for me.

Rosicky and Benayoun had a solid game. They were both very active and all over the pitch. Benayoun had a great chance to score too, he will be kicking himself for missing that one. Arteta was great and not only because he scored. Song also had a strong game and his pass to Van Persie when Robin hit the post was typical class from Song. Walcott was not great yesterday, this is the second game in a row where he is not really a threat and he has been up and down like this all season. I just wish he can be more consistent and creative on the wing. Van Persie was solid and should have scored at least twice but sometimes luck gets in the way.

So to sum it up: Great win for us yesterday!!! Not only it put us 2 pts in front Tottenham but after those jokers lost today, we have a good chance to make it 5pts if we beat Wolves on Wednesday. Getting 3rd place this year will be huge for us. So hopefully we will continue to play well and take care of business on Wednesday. C'mon you Gunners!!!

QPR vs Arsenal

A tough day in the office today, and i feel that we finally ran out of luck. In the seven game winning streak that we had, we got lucky more than once and won games that we didn't really deserved to win (the Liverpool game is a good example). So, today that luck ran out. QPR played a very solid game and were very organized but the game could have easily finished a draw or maybe a win for us if Van Persie had scored in the second half when he had a great chance and the score was still 1-1. To be fair, QPR were probably a bit better than us today, so when you add the fact that we were a bit unlucky as well, they got a deserved win.
In both half's we had spells of 10 - 15 minutes where we had good possession and we controlled the game but we never found our rhythm offensively. Our passing wasn't quick and sharp enough and besides one free kick from RVP we didn't create any chances in the first half until Walcott's goal. Both goals we gave away today were caused by defensive mistakes. I give credit to Taarabt for the way he scored, but if Vermaelen had not gambled and pressed him so high on the wrong side, he does not get that big opening that he used to score the goal. I was impressed by Zamora and i think his physical play had it's influence on the mistakes we made in the back. He is a big and strong guy and they kept passing long balls to him which he controlled pretty well and was putting Koscielny and Vermaelen under pressure throughout the whole game. Same with Mackie and Taarabt, they had very high work rate and created a lot of problems on both wings for us. After we went down 1-0, we still couldn't get anything going offensively and Walcott's goal came out of nowhere. Robin gave a good pass and Theo did well to score the rebound which wasn't as easy to score as it looked. Other than the goal and a few decent crosses from the wing Theo didn't have a good game. 

Second half we started well again and had a great chance when Robin was through on goal but wasn't able to score. I think that was the turning point in the game because had we scored, i think we would have held on and won the game. After that chance we didn't create much more and their second goal killed us. There is no question their pitch was a fucking "potato field" (we have a saying in Bulgaria about shitty pitches which translates exactly to 'potato field' in English) but we can't be sissies and we gotta learn to deal with that. Vermaelen slipped badly which allowed Mackie to set up their second goal. From then on, we tried to put them under a lot pressure but we never really created any real chances. 

Wenger's last 2 substitutions puzzled me as well. I get why Gervinho was brought instead of Ramsey but to put Oxlade instead of Arteta and Chamakh for Gibbs make absolutely no sense. The Ox ended up playing in deep midfield role and we basically asked Vermaelen to play both left back and center back (I am sure Song was supposed to drop back to center back and Vermaelen play the left back, but what's the point?). If you are going to put Oxlade in, take Walcott out and if you gonna put Chamakh in, take either Rosicky or Arteta out, but not fucking Gibbs. To summarize, we didn't play a good game at all. I can't really point out even one player and say he had a great game. Song was trying hard but his final pass was lacking; Rosicky was active but also didn't create anything; Ramsey was almost invincible but so was Gervinho when he replaced him; Robin did set up Theo for the first goal but also wasted a great chance but he didn't have many others; Theo as i mentioned earlier didn't do much besides the goal and a few decent crosses. Probably Arteta and Koscielny were our best two players. Arteta put a tremendous amount of work covering defensively when Vermaelen and Koscielny would go forward. Koscielny did well while under pressure from Zamora for big parts of the game. Vermaelen is a warrior and never backs down but he had two bad mistakes today and i am sure he will be unhappy with his performance. 

And before i go, i do want to mention Joey Barton who is still the same diving/acting/cheating/provoking piece of shit that he has been his whole career. Even though we didn't do anything stupid against him today, he was still diving and simulating any chance he got.

Unfortunately, as i predicted in my last post we have tough games coming up. I do hope Spurs will make some mistakes but i don't think it will happen. So, we really need a W against Man City next week if we want to keep third place and even fourth because if we lose, Chelsea would be only 2 pts behind us. C'mon You Gunners!!! 

Arsenal vs Aston Villa

First, i want to apologize that i didn't write about the Newcastle and the Everton games. Both games were during the week so i wasn't able to watch them completely because i was at work. I saw highlights of both and quite a bit of the Everton game but i didn't want to write blog entries based on highlights. I was really happy with both wins, and you can see how important they were, now that we are 3 pts ahead of Spurs!

Today was another great result for us. The thing i didn't like is that we had too many breakdowns defensively and Villa had more than 3 or 4 good chances to score against us. The first two were both runs by Albrighton on the right and he could have done much better with both of these chances. He had huge amounts of space and had he done a better job Villa would have been up on us because the score was still 0-0 at this point. We had at least two more bad defensive mistakes in the first half, and twice in the second half when Weimann should have scored as well. Some of those mistakes were caused by Gibbs pushing up the pitch and no one covering for him at the back and the rest were sloppy giveaways in our own half, like Santos's mistake for Weimann's first chance. All i am saying is that defensively we didn't have a good game. Having said all that, once i heard Djourou will play in the back because of Koscielny's injury, i was crushed because he is an absolute clown. To his credit he had a decent game. He didn't have any major fuck ups as he normally does, so good for him! That doesn't change my opinion that he sucks and Miquel should be playing ahead of him.
The one defensive aspect of our game that we have done a better job in the last few games is pressing better on the ball. It's still not great but compared to what we normally do, last 3,4 games we have pressed the ball great!

Defensive blunders aside, in midfield and attack, i thought we were great! We created a lot of chances; we looked threatening most of the time; had some great combinations and scored a great 2nd goal. The pass from Song and the execution from Walcott were top class. Theo has really played better in the last 5, 6 weeks. He is making better runs and positioning himself much better on the pitch. And he needed to start playing better because he had a patch where he was under performing for a number of games in a row. Rosicky was great, very active and had a great shot on goal blocked by Given. Gervinho didn't have a spectacular game but gave a good pass for Gibbs's first goal and on at least 2 important occasions he tracked people back and helped defensively which was great to see. Robin had a decent game, he was a bit unlucky not score today but i don't mind seeing different goal scorers on the board from time to time. Arteta scored a beautiful goal and had another great shot blocked in the first half.

So, overall it was another great win for us. I would have enjoyed it much more if we had not allowed Villa so many chances but at the end of the day a 3 goal win is always good. Now we are 4+ goals on Spurs in the goal difference department as well as 3 pts ahead. We have to be careful though, because i looked at the games we have left and Tottenham have easier games than us until the end of the season, so this will be a dog fight!The next 2 games at QPR away and City at home will be very very important for us. If we can keep the distance between us and Spurs after those 2 games, we will have a good shot for 3rd place. Not to mention that i would love for us to end City's title dreams by beating them at our house, so those stupid traitors Nasri and Clichy will win 0 trophies after they left "to win trophies". C'mon You Gunners!!!

Liverpool vs Arsenal

To those of you who have read this blog more than once, it might seem that i am a grumpy motherfucker who is never happy with Arsenal's wins but believe me: It's not true. I was ecstatic both this Saturday when we beat Liverpool and last week when we beat Tottenham. As a fan i am always happy to see my team win!

But as a blogger and a person who really wants their team to be one of the best, i can't say that we deserved to win against Liverpool, heck, even a draw would have been too much for us the way we played most of that game. As i watched the first half, i couldn't believe how disorganized and sloppy we were with the ball. We couldn't keep possession (the one thing we do well even when we suck) partly because Liverpool were doing a great job of pressing us as soon as we got the ball, and our defense was being toyed with for most of that first half.

What drives me nuts is that Wenger can obviously see what's happening (this is his quotes after the game) " Liverpool had a very good first half and we were not in the game - what was flattering for us was to be 1-1 at half time.  Liverpool played with a rhythm and pace above us in the first half and our fluency was not there at all, we gave them too much room.  ". Let me re-read the second line: "we gave them too much room". We give too much fucking room to everyone we play against!!! This has been our problem for so many years and if he can see it, it would be nice for him to do something about it. I took some pictures in the second half of the game because i couldn't take it anymore. In the first half, Downing was firing crosses from the left non stop and Sagna (who actually had a good game) would just give him room to keep crossing the ball with no pressure on him whatsoever. How hard is it to close the distance and not allow a guy who is good at crossing to cross the ball? Even when Liverpool had possession in our half of the pitch we would still sit back a few feet away from them and wait for them to pass the ball around. Because i couldn't take it anymore, in the second half i took the pictures below:

This is Vermaelen in front of OUR penalty area being pressured by Henderson, he passes to Koscielny...

...and Kyut is already there closing down on him. The result was that the Koscielny kicked the ball forward and we lost posession...

...now compare the above picture to this: the ball is in our OWN half and look at the room Diaby has given to the guy with the ball...

76th minute - we are still not closing down on opposing players who are about to cross the ball, can Henderson have any more space to cross?

My whole point is that, too many times we allow teams do have space and time on the ball instead of closing them down. That creates pressure on our defense and if we weren't so lucky this Saturday we could have lost 3 or 4-1. So yes, i am very happy we got an ugly win but our luck won't last forever.

I was really disappointed with Benayoun, Rosicky and Arteta. The last two had a great game against Tottenham, and on Saturday they couldn't string two or three passes in a row. I expect more from senior players like them, not one good game and then a complete meltdown. Benayoun was even more disappointing   to me because he started a 2nd game in a row (most of us think he needs more games to show his true potential) and not only he didn't improve from the previous game but he was unnoticeable the whole game. Theo was not great either. Szczesny was the man of the match with Van Persie right next to him. They both played great and gave us a win we didn't deserve. I definetely want to mention Sagna's cross for the first goal because i always bash his crossing, i hope he keeps proving me wrong. And Song deserves mention for another creative pass, for a defensive midfielder he keeps showing great touch and vision in the final third.

Last but not least: i really hope Wenger makes some changes for the AC Milan game, these 11 guys are tired and some of them injured, we need some fresh legs and this is a great opportunity for guys like Miquel and Park to step up. Hopefully Djourou won't play because we don't need clumsiness on the field on Tuesday. Huge game against Newcastle coming up as well. C'mon you Gunners!!!