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!!!

Arsenal vs Tottenham

A solid beating of Tottenham always brings tremendous joy to any Arsenal supporter! So, today was definitely an enjoyable day for all Arsenal fans. Does this win solve all the problems that we have? NO. Does this win change the fact that at times we are absolutely clueless defensively? NO. Does this win mean that Wenger has finally realized that he needs to change his tactics and squad rotation? Most likely not.

Overall i felt that with the exception of the first 10 min of the game, we were the better team hands down. But the way we got scored on both times was absolutely pathetic. Saha's goal was a fucking joke as far as the position of our defenders. Nobody knew who they were supposed to cover and Saha had miles of space even if he got lucky with the finish. There were a few more times where our defenders were clearly out of position. Especially in the first half, our pressing of the ball was so naive and panicked: two guys would run straight up at the Tottenham player with the ball, this way freeing someone else who had loads of space to work with. I am glad we were pressing the ball but we have to do it more efficiently than what we did in that first half.

Once Tottenham scored, we woke up and took control of the game. We actually created some chances with Van Persie missing a good chance and Friedel making a great save on Rosicky's header. The penalty for their second goal was again a result of our bad defending, but we responded with a great goal from Sagna. The build up for that goal was great and his header excellent. Too bad that until that goal, Sagna had his normal crossing ratio in full effect: 1 good cross out of every 5 he tries. Robin's goal soon after was pure class, great control of the ball and great shot. I thought the best player on the pitch in the first half was Arteta. He was pretty much everywhere, very active and into the game. He was pressing hard and tackling people all over the pitch. Gave some great passes, most notably the pass to Sagna for the first goal. 

We started well in the second half as well. I thought Redknap made a mistake by leaving Adebayor on the pitch the whole game. Even though he scored, he is slow and didn't pose any threat even on high balls. I thought someone faster like Defoe or Lennon would have given us many more problems. Anyway, i thought the goal Rosicky scored was vital. It gave us even more belief that we can win this game and kind of deflated Tottenham completely. It was a great build up for the goal and Rosicky's finish was world class! I am really happy for him because he is a player who has been playing well but never got over that hump of scoring important goals for us like he used to do for Borussia Dortmund. If Arteta was the best player on the pitch in the first half, Rosicky was the best player in the second. He was all over the midfield, giving great passes and trying to create chances. His pass to Robin was vital in Walcott's first goal.

In a way i am happy for Walcott as well, because he was struggling for a long time in the past few weeks. You could see in the first half, that he was lacking confidence big time. He misplayed at least 4,5 passes, didn't look comfortable at all. Missed a great chance when he ran past the Tottenham defense and instead of cutting inside toward the center and shooting the ball, he tried to go right and passed to RVP to no avail. I thought he would be subbed at half time and i would have approved that substitution. Luckily for him and for my fantasy team, he stayed on and scored two nice goals. You can see that he is comfortable when he has space to work with and can run past people and shoot at goal. That's why i feel it's Wenger responsibility to adjust his position when we play teams who sit back and defend and do not give us any space. In those games he should play Walcott as a striker and Van Persie right behind him, this way giving him a chance to out run central defenders and be a constant threat with his pace instead of putting him on the wing where he is completely lost and runs out of ideas.

Our defense was much better in the second half, specifically Vermaelen. He was out of position more than once in the first half and had a big fault in the build up to Tottenham's first goal. Second half he won pretty much every high ball and played much, much better. I thought Gibbs was pretty good except for the dive he decided to take in the first half in hopes of winning a penalty. Koscielny was solid as well. I am also glad Jenkinson is back, that kid plays with a lot of heart and has a wayyy better cross than Sagna, that's for sure :).

I have to give props to Wenger for trying to change things by starting Benayoun together with Rosicky, Walcott, Song and Arteta. Even though Benayoun was not exceptional, he did bring us more security and control of the ball in the middle of the pitch. The question is, why didn't he try this earlier in the season? The guy has been sitting on the bench for most of the campaign.

So, this was a great win for us but it doesn't change our situation much. We are still very very vulnerable defensively; we struggle with teams who don't give us space; Wenger's rotation policy is non existent with a few exceptions here and there; and tactically Wenger still doesn't always put the players in the best positions for them to be successful. But today was a win that we should all enjoy! We played some great football and got a result. Did i mentioned we spanked Spurs in the process :))? Another big game vs Liverpool next week, let's hope for another good performance! C'mon You Gunners!!

p.s. I normally don't write about our non Premier League games, but i just have to mention that players like Djourou should NOT be in this team, let alone give them contract extensions!!! This clumsy clown makes around 50,000 pounds a week! That has to be a sick joke. And we just gave him a contract extension??? Squillaci makes around 60,000 a week??? We have other examples like Vela, Bendtner, Fabianski and Denilson all making between 40,000 and 60,000 per week. Those guys, especially Fabianski and Denilson should not be making more than 15,000 a week. So, the bottom line is that we pay average to high wages to players who are absolutely not good enough to receive even minimum wages. And then we can't reward our best players with higher wages because we pay so much to bench warmers. Look at how much  Man U's Danny Wellbeck makes - 15,000 a week! Obviously now that he plays more regularly they will probably give him a new and improved contract but the fact is that until you prove yourself at Man U  you get minimal salary. Now compare that to Djourou's salary, a guy who not only is not good enough but he doesn't even play unless someone is injured. And Wenger rewards his clumsiness with a new contract, wtf.   

Sunderland vs Arsenal

Much needed win today! It wasn't pretty and it didn't look like we will get a win but fortunately for us we got it done. The game itself was pretty boring until the last 20 minutes. Sunderland decided that they will play with 10 man in their own half and see if we can get through. To their credit, they were very organized and pressed us non stop for 90 minutes. Which doesn't change the fact that we need to get better at creating chances and scoring when teams play us like this.

Except for the first 12 minutes in the first half when we had some very sloppy mistakes in our passing which allowed them to attack, Sunderland didn't create anything and were happy to sit back and watch us suffer. I am pretty sure we didn't create even one clear chance to score in the first half. Second half was pretty much the same scenario: a lot of possession for us but no chances to score. Then around the 62nd min they had a few corners and free kicks in a row where we looked absolutely clueless how to defend and Szczesny had to bail us out. We stack the box and then when we clear the ball there is no one around to block shots that are coming from outside the penalty area. We gotta do better than that! And then they scored out of the blue and i was fucking fuming. Not so much at Mertesacker because he probably tore something, otherwise he wouldn't have fallen like that. But i was pissed that Sunderland were up 1 having created pretty much nothing for the whole game. Not to mention with the way we were playing i thought that there is no way we were going to score 2 goals. So when Ramsey scored it was justice. It was a lucky goal in the sense that it came out of nowhere but that's how Sunderland scored too, so it was only fair. I am also happy for Ramsey because he hasn't been playing well recently. 

And then would you believe it: Arshavin out of all people gave a great ball to Henry and we were up 2-1. Henry can still score goals and i was ecstatic that we won the game but he is such a cocky bitch that he pisses me off. I give him credit for being at the right place and finishing the ball nicely but the rest of the time he was on the pitch, he was just jogging and not doing anything. So after he scored, instead of digging in and pressing defensively, he is mocking Martin O"Neil and then booming the ball 50 yards down the pitch instead of keeping possession and helping us close the game out. I remember back in the day when we sold him, i was quite happy because his ego at the time was bigger than the team and today we saw a bit of that again.

I thought Rosicky was the man of the match. Great work rate and had some great passes. He was one of the few guys that were close to creating something offensively. Walcott had another bad game and he continues to be lost on the wing especially when he has no space to work with. Oxlade didn't have a great game but you can't expect him to be great in every game.

I have to give credit to Wenger for his substitutions today. All 3 guys that came in had a huge impact on the game even if there was luck involved. Now, the big challenge for Wenger is to show me that he is learning from his mistakes: he better make at least 3 or 4 changes for the Milan game on Wednesday. Rotating the team has never been his strength and has always been something that makes me fume. I remember last year he kept the exact same team that played in the Champions League on Wednesday for a Premier League game on Sunday, and after the game he said "we were tired", no shit Sherlok! So i hope i see guys like Coquelin, Benayoun, and even stupid Arshavin start against Milan. The annoying sir Alex is a great example for squad rotations: he always shuffles his team based on what he decides for the specific game. An example is Hernandez who scored an important goals vs Chelsea but that didn't mean he was starting today.

Anyway, great, great, great result for us today!!! Very important win because we have some really tough games coming up: Milan in Ch. League, Sunderland again for the FA Cup and then Tottenham and Liverpool back to back. So today's result is very important, we just need to keep it going. C'mon you Gunners!!!

Arsenal vs Blackburn

I can finally write a blog where i don't have to bitch non stop throughout the whole article! Today was probably our best performance this season and i am not saying that just because of the score line. Even before Blackburn went down to 10 man we played really well. They barely had any possession on the ball and if it wasn't for the free kick which they scored from, i don't think they had one dangerous attack. I also really like the way we responded after Blackburn scored, we scored two quick goals and both were from great attacks.    That's why i feel we played a really good game even before we were a man up. Once Givet got the red card, it was obvious we will put some goals on the board. The only thing in the second half that wasn't as good as in the first was our press on the ball, but considering the score line i will let it slip without complaining too much.

 The defense was solid throughout the game, i was really happy how we were closing down on the Blackburn players in the first half, they barely created any chances. I was really impressed with Coquelin, he is very mobile and his passing is great. He gave a great ball to Walcott to set up RVP's first goal and had other great moves on the right. I guess part of his good passing is because he normally plays as a midfielder, so you can definitely tell that the guy is good with the ball in his feet. I think he is more than capable to play both as a right back or midfield. Koscielny was very good except for the foul he gave up for Pedersen's goal. Vermaelen was solid as usual, got a unnecessary yellow card in the second half because of a few silly fouls. Mertesacker is playing better and better with each game. I think next season we will really see his true qualities.

The midfield had it's best game of the season. We created a lot of chances and took most of them. This was something that was missing the whole season up to now. Arteta was solid and scored a nice goal. Song gave some great passes for a few of our most dangerous attacks. Walcott finally had a really solid game. Had three assists and was very active on the wing. Rosicky was solid, couldn't get on the scoreboard but played a good game. Oxlade-Chamberlain was the guy who deserves a bit of special mention. I think this kid has the potential to be very, very good! He has great pace, very similar to Walcott's but his dribbling and control of the ball are much better than Theo's. He is physically stronger and also has better vision and good passing. I think Chamberlain will be like Wilshere last season: once he breaks into the first team it will be tough to get him out of there. Robin was great as he has been the whole season. He was at the right place for the first two goals, gave a great pass for Chamberlain's first goal and was pretty much lethal throughout the whole game.

I know we played against Blackburn today. I know they were down to 10 man. I know most Premier League tams have better defense than Blackburn's. But today i am just going to enjoy the way the team played and the win we got. First time all season we were defensively solid. We created a lot of chances up front and we took most of them. Basically today was the first complete game we had all season and i am very happy. We really needed a performance like this.

The last thing that i want to mention is that if the team gets healthy with all the new players settling in we can have pretty much two very strong teams. You would have Sagna, Coquelin and Jenkinson at right back. Koscielny, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Miquel at center back. Gibbs, Santos at left backs. Arteta, Rosicky, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Song, Wilshere, Walcott, Gervinho, Benayoun, Frimpong, Miyachi, Diaby (if he is ever healthy) and Arshavin (i hope we sell his lazy ass) as midfielders. The only spot we need to improve is the striker position. I don't think Chamakh is good enough and i don't know about Park yet because we can't see him play. It's a good problem to have but Wenger has to do a good job rotating the squad, something he has proved he can struggle with. Anyway if we can keep improving our performances we will have a really good team next season. And hopefully we can squeeze into the top four this year, because until i see us put a few good games in a row, i will still be saying "Europe League" next year :). p.s.I do believe we can get into the top four and i bet $20 on it, so i hope my boys will help me win some cash. 

Arsenal vs Manchester United

This sums up my thoughts about the game!

I have always defended Arsene Wenger even though i have criticised him as well. Today is the first time when i am going to say it: If Wenger does not change the way he manages this team, he has to leave!!! I am tired of his inability to see his mistakes and learn from them. How many times has he made wrong decisions just to repeat them over and over again? This is fucking bulshit and i can't take it anymore. I have had enough!

I read his post game comments saying that Oxlade-Chamberlain had pulled his calf and that he was getting tired. Even if we assume that's true (which i am not sure it is) you DO NOT put Andrey Fucking Arshavin in there. I don't care if he is the captain of the Russian National team. I don't care if he is the captain of the Martian National team. He has played like shit for so long that he does not deserve to be in there. He had a chance to impress against Swansea by starting the game but he did fucking nothing. He is horrible defensively which he proved again by allowing United's 2nd goal.

The game itself was two sided. With the exception of the first 10 minutes, we got dominated in the first half. Defensively we were sucking just because we can't position properly. A good example is the chance Ryan Giggs missed on the right wing, when he got a through ball and two defenders just watched him and allowed him to go face to face with Szczesny. United had other chances as well and scored a deserved goal at the end of the first half. Ryan Giggs was again allowed to cross with no pressure on him and we got what we deserved for defending like that.

Second  half we played much better and created 3 chances that we should have scored: RVP missed a chance i never thought i would see him miss; Ramsey and Rosicky missed one each as well. Eventually RVP scored a great goal but because of Wenger's stupidity and Arshavin's "great" defensive skills we got scored on in the dumbest way possible.

Szczesny had a good game and saved us on a couple of ocassions. Djourou was fucking aweful and was getting abused, so thank god Wenger put Yennaris in. I am not saying he did great but i prefer to watch Yennaris than Djourou's clumsy ass. Mertesacker was up and down. He got exposed a few times, especially his lack of pace when Welbeck almost scored from a non threathning looking ball and Mertesacker himself had to clear the ball of the line. But he also had some good defensive stops. Koscielny was again our best defender, i love how solid he has been playing since the Man U game in the beginning of the season. Vermaelen got beat for the 1st goal but other than that he was solid as usual.

Rosicky was pretty good, showed a lot of energy but should have done better when he had his scoring chances. The same goes for Ramsey. Song didn't do much offensivelly but that's not his job anyway, he had a solid game as usual. Walcott was not great, second half he played a bit better but he has to do more. Oxlade-Chamberlain was probably our best player even though in the first half he wasn't on the same page with Rosicky and Walcott in the passing game. Regardless, he was dangerious and exciting throughout the whole game.RVP scored a great goal but also missed a chance that he should have scored.

I was actually excited at the beginning of the game because it looked like Wenger finally showed some balls in a big game by starting Oxlade-Chamberlain and then subbing Djourou. Little did i know it would all be undone with his stupidity to put Arshavin in the game. So this one is on you Arsene! As i said in the last post: Europa League here we some...