Stoke City vs Arsenal 0-0

Mixed feelings about the result today. I am very pleased with the clean sheet we got at a place where we always have trouble keeping one. At the same time we needed to win today. We are playing Liverpool away next week and you know it will be hard to get points there as well.

The positives today were our defense and the limited amount of chances we gave Stoke to score. For a second week in a row, we looked solid defensively, and with one exception at the end of the game, City almost had not chances to score. Vermaelen and Mertesacker had a very good game. Won a lot of high balls, and didn't allow Crouch and co to bully them in the air. I am pleased that Mertesacker has been looking solid so far in the season. My only wish for him is to get a bit tougher during contact. For a guy his size there were more than 2 or 3 times today where he went down quite easily holding his head like someone punched him in the face. He has to get tougher! I thought Jenkinson had a better game than last week's. He made less mistakes in his passes and didn't look as nervous and rushed to get rid of the ball. I also like his toughness when taking on people. Gibbs did well as well, had a slight scare when Pennant went down asking for a penalty but there was limited contact. 

In midfield and attack similarly to last week, we weren't very effective. A lot of passing but not a lot of clear chances. I was a bit disappointed by Cazorla. He looked bright and lively in the first half and as the match progressed, he went away. His passing wasn't as creative today and he seemed confused as to what is the best way to unlock Stoke's defense. I am still expecting big things from him, today just wasn't his best day. Diaby was solid throughout. Did a lot of work defensively and helping out with the high balls; and was working hard up the pitch as well. I thought Arteta was our best player. In the first half he was playing deep and was doing a lot of hard work to cover for the front midfielders. And in the second half as Cazorla was less active, Arteta was pushing forward and trying to create something. He had a great chance in the 72min where he hesitated how exactly to shoot the ball and ended up hitting it in the stands. I would have loved to see him hit that ball hard and straight and see what happens. Regardless, he was the guy who didn't stop running for 90+ mins.

On the other hand Gervinho was absolutely awful today. His only strength is his runs on the flanks even though he never passes the ball well at the end of them, today he didn't even have that. He was pretty much invisible (not in a good way) the whole match. The one time he had a good chance in the 37th min, he did the move he ALWAYS does: run with the ball towards the goal kick line and fuck up the cross. It's the second week of the season and i can already predict where he is going with the ball EVERY single time! Not to mention he has chances to do a good pass early in his runs but he always wants to keep running with the fucking ball. He had an even better chance in the 50th min but his shot was way wide. I thought Podolski was better than the Sunderland game. At times his timing with the other guys is a bit off but he will get there. He is very feisty at times and i like that! The guy is a competitor and wants to win. And i guarantee you that when he gets on the same page with Cazorla and co, this guy will score goals and give assists. He is also quite fast and not afraid to take on people. Giroud had a good game overall. He worked hard most of it and was helpful in the air. I give props to Wenger for putting him in, i am pretty sure he wanted to start him because of his size. The one thing that annoyed me though, is that i caught him more than 4,5 times walking around and whining to the officials instead of helping his teammates to press on the ball. Hopefully in the future he will focus more on that, than complaining to the refs. He had a great effort towards the end of the game and almost scored a spectacular goal but he could have also crossed the ball to Ramsey.

The Professor was fucking late with his substitutions just like in the past. I thought he got rid of that habit last season when he was making them earlier, but today he waited until the 70th min to make any. Gervinho should have been subbed at the latest in the 60th min and Walcott should have been in. When he did came in, Theo looked lively and dangerous but didn't have much time for anything. Same with Oxlade, who looked a bit too eager to make an impact instead of keeping a cool head. Ramsey almost cost us a goal with his sloppiness again! I talk about this every blog post, that he is too casual with the ball when he comes in, and Stoke almost scored on us at the end of the game when he lost the ball in midfield and Walters (i believe) was through on goal! Aaron did have a few good runs up front and a decent shot wide and i will give him credit for those but that's about it.

To some it up, so far this season we look great defensively for a change but we are not creating enough offensively. And i don't care if RVP was still with us, we didn't create almost anything that was a 100% goal scoring chance. A lot of pressure and possession, huge amount of corners but no end product. We have to be sharper and quicker when attacking and at first glance of goal, we have to shoot the fucking ball! We need a win next week, C'mon You Gunners!      

Arsenal vs Sunderland 0-0

The new Premier League season is here and I am back! I meant to write a post a few weeks ago and give a review of our summer transfers but never found time for it. I will just kill two birds with one stone now.

Let's get the big pink elephant out of the rom first: Robin Van Persie. This will be the last time i write about him because he is no longer playing for Arsenal and i am tired of listening to the moaning of everyone! I am not gong to lie, selling him to Man U was very painful for me to experience and no matter how many great moments he has given us, i will never forgive him for going there. To me, that move just takes him out of the discussion of being an Arsenal great/legend. Everyone is blaming Arsene for selling him but in reality when someone does not want to renew their contract and wants to leave, it's silly to think you can keep them and they will be 100% commited to the club in that last year of their contract. So, i think selling him for 24 million was great business considering he is 29 and has had only one injury free season. Now what everyone needs to do is stop talking about Van Persie and focus on the players we have. p.s. Man U gave him 250K weekly salary which to me is absurd. I agree with Wenger when he says that one day this salary bubble will bust.

On the flip side: all these roumours, which might be confirmed by the end of this week, that we will sell Alex Song to Barcelona are something that i really dislike. If Wenger let's this happen it will be a big mistake on his part! Even though he keeps repeating that we have so many midfielders, we all know that Song brought toughness and some unexpected touch that none of the current crop has. The only guys i might compare to being as tough as him are Frimpong and Wilshere and they are both still injured. Song has three years left on his contract and hasn't requested a move. For us to sell him now will be just stupid and Wenger won't have the excuse that "we were forced to sell".

The last paragraph before analyzing the match today is about the players who came in this summer. We saw a glimpse of them today and i think we bought some good players. Cazorla will be an absolute stud and we already saw that today: great touch on the ball with both legs, good vision about the game and good movement. I think it's just a matter of time before he becomes one of our most important players! Podolski and Giroud will need some time before we can really judge them. I think Podolski will be solid and Giroud is a bit of a question mark. He had a really bad miss today which could have won the game for us, let's hope that won't affect his confidence and he will turn in a good season. I would have loved it if we had bought one good defender as well. Right now we only have Jenkinson at right back, unless you consider slotting Yennaris or Coquelin there. Hopefully we will be able to sell the clowns Djourou, Bendtner, Arshavin and Squillaci and bring another good defender in.

Now to the game today. Obviously a dissapointing result, no question about that but a lot of positives as well. I think first and most importantly the defense was solid, especially in the second half. The first half we got caught a few times with through balls and Sunderland had some chances but in the second half we shut them down completely. Our pressing on the ball was very good throughout the whole game and that was refreshng to see. I realy believe that if we can be solid defensivelly, we will have a good season. Let's hope today was a step in that direction.

Offensivelly, we need to play better. Many times we would run out of ideas and just pass the ball around instead being decisive and trying to play one touch football. Sunderland were defending great thoughout the game, and i gve them credit but we could have been more creative up front. Gervinho had a solid game as far as his movement and good runs on both wings but at times his decision making still sucks. Too many times he tries to just dribble past defenders when after his initial burst there are open players he can pass the ball to. In a way, he reminds me of Theo when he starts running with the ball and doesn't make great decisions with it. Talking about Theo, he didn't have a good game, was lost for big parts of it. Same for Podolski, he wasn't on the same page with the rest of the team but i think with some more time they will get better. Cazorla was our best player, even though he missed some passes, he was the brains when we moved forward and created the best chance of the day which Giroud somehow managed to miss. Diaby did ok, but it was apparent that he needs more matches under his belt. Arteta was solid as usual and was doing a lot of the defensive duties that Song used to do.

Vermaelen and Mertesacker both had a decent game, even though as i mentioned earlier they got beat by through balls a few times in the first half. I was happy to see Mertesacker have a solid game, because we will need all of our defenders playing well for the long season ahead. Gibbs was good as well, recovered decisively the few times Sunderland had breaks on his flank. Jenkinson dissapointed me a bit. His crosses weren't very good and last year i bragged so much that he crosses better than Sagna. He had trouble controlling the ball a lot of times, and spent portions of the game way up on the wing without recovering fast enough to the defensive side of the pitch. Ramsey and Arshavin were very dissapointing and mostly because of their carelessness with the ball!! Both of them lost the ball in the middle of the pitch more than once and mainly because they were too casual with it. If you are a subtitute and the coach gives you the chance to come in and impact the game, you can't be lazy and careless with the ball.

So, tough start for us but some good signs from this team. If we start clicking offensivelly and we stay strong defensivelly we will have a good year regardless of what people think. We do need a good result next week in Stoke though, and we all know it's hard for us to play there, so let's hope it will be our first positive step of the season followed by many more! C'mon you Gunners!!!

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.      

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.