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Sunday, October 25, 2009

Bring Almunia back. Player analysis and ratings Vs West Ham

By 1970’s Gooner

It’s simply not good enough. To have blown away a lead once and then to go and do it again a few days later, in the same manner is beyond belief. Don’t tell me that we need to go three up to feel safe because this is what it looks like it at the moment.

It was really pathetic, going 2-0 up in the first half and not being able to close the game out. The players thought that the game was over after the first 45 minutes. They started playing in second and third gear, not really interested enough to put the game beyond reach.

So the young squad still has a lot to learn, apparently.

Mannone

I still think that he will be a great goalkeeper for Arsenal but he was clearly at fault for their first goal. He should have pushed the ball out for a corner not bring it back into play again.

This goal started their revival and it is almost impossible to move up a gear when you’ve been in a lethargic state for a big part of the second half.

If Almunia was fit he should have been brought back into the team. 5

Sagna

Was a lot better this game. Went forward enough and his crosses were much improved resulting in Arsenal’s first goal. 7

Gallas

Looks invigorated this season and got another goal today. 7

Vermaelen

The centre back that Arsenal needed. Intelligent, physical, a good passer of the ball as well as having an eye for goal. 7

Clichy

Had an average game defensively but was not as good going forward. The quality of his crosses left a lot to be desired. 6

Song

Was having another strong game with his ability to shield the defence and make the simple passes to his forwards or Fabregas. However he tends to foul unnecessarily sometimes and it was fairly stupid of him to do so in the box giving away the penalty. 6

Fabregas

Was playing in second gear from the beginning of the game. Drifted in out of the game and generally was not the usual Cesc we all know. 5

Diaby

Has cut out the fancy stuff in recent games and this has resulted in much better performances. 6

Arshavin

Looked disinterested and like Fabregas was not in the centre of things as we have come to expect from the little Russian demon. 5

Van Persie

One of the few that played well tonight. Scored the first goal and generally led the line well. Nearly scored the winner with a header that was saved by Green in the latter stages of the game. He was however no helped a lot by the below par performances of Fabregas and Arshavin. 7

Eboue

He is a much improved player this season but I feel his inability to make the right decisions at important moments will always hamper his effectiveness. Now if Rosicky was fit or even if Eduardo was in the team we would have probably won the game. 6



21 comments:

Anonymous said...

I said it before I'll say it again; It is time to return Almunia to the sticks. Feel sorry for Mannone cos it may affect the young keeper's confidence to be dropped after his howler today, but Arsene had his chance to seemlessly make the change and failed to make the call, today. This is no time for experiments with kids; what it has done is cost us two points which could have left Arsenal in pole position.

Anonymous said...

Every time we have a bad result people say that Fabregas played poorly. He actually controlled the game, nearly scored, and was by far our best midfielder.

Anonymous said...

SPOT ON 1970's Gooner!!! I called a fellow gooner 5 mins b 4 the end of this match absolutely ****ing losing it, to which he replied I was over reacting. My arse I was!!! The reality is, yes, its only a draw, our first of the season, but I swear when the 2nd goal went in "B 4" half time, I said to myself this is it, we're gonna draw this game 2-2...precisely what happened - WHY? Because this team think they're too good. Don't get me wrong, I love my Arsenal, but in any walk of life, complacency will undo you EVERYTIME! How many times have we seen what happened today in the last 4 seasons? I've lost count! They get paid to give THEIR ALL once/twice a week for """90+""" mins. But I'm afraid I don't see it enough on a consistent basis. I feel the manager must be blamed partly for this. When have you EVER known Arsene to publicly, constructively, critique any of his players? No-one ever gets "benched" at Arsenal for being below par - they just get mysteriously injured, a calf strain, a chest infection (since when did you hear of anyone getting a chest infection that isn't serious but keeps them out 4 6 weeks ala Almunia? Usually that's called Bronchitis(which is quite serious actually). For me it's a case of le Prof blowing tooo much smoke up this teams arse. "Van Persie is comparable to Van Basten. Arshavin is my Maradona". Is it any wonder! This team are soo cotton wooled it's a joke. Let them earn, respect, appreciate and WIN something FIRST before everyone starts kissing each others arses. If we carry on believing our own hype, b 4 we've REALLY done anything in this game we love, then I'm afraid we'll continue in the same vein as we have 4 the past 4 years. This ain't ice skating, this is """FOOTBALL""". I hope our team prove me well wrong come the end of the season, but I fear they'll be too much pirouetting that will eventually see us fall flat on our arsenal, as ever. NOT ENOUGH BLOOD n GUTS - TOO MUCH COFFEE n CROISSANT!!! I think I feel a bit better now.(God I hope I'm wrong).

Anonymous said...

rubbish match summary again. this team are bottlers full stop. they have done this before and will do it again. probably next week against spurs. the clown in nets is going to be a world class keeper. hahahahahaha

Anonymous said...

rubbish match summary again. this team are bottlers full stop. they have done this before and will do it again. probably next week against spurs. the clown in nets is going to be a world class keeper. hahahahahaha

Anonymous said...

this is the blog that said we were better than barca

Anonymous said...

I want Frey or Akinfeev, not Almunia, Vito...

MESSI said...

i agree with most stuff on this blog you wouldnt see man utd or chelsea, or liverpool or any other top club give away a 2 goal lead to draw the game its ridiculous seriously, i agree wenger needs to stop making these comments about this player is like maradona this player is like him this player is this enough with that please. like seriously where was arshavin in this game please apart from 1 shot on the line he was dead as a corpse. so we draw at az at west ham whats next shouldve been at 3 points behind chelsea now were 5points its fucking ridiculous, shouldve won this game going into the liverpool game full of confidence hopefully win then go into the game against spuds with confidence aswell fucking bullocks!!! ARSENE NEEDS TO START SHOUTING AT THESE PLAYERS I JUST KNOW ALMUNIA WILL START ON SATURDAY

Anonymous said...

anonymous cesc didn't control the game. he had decent moments, but i do wish people would accept that criticism of fabregas is sometimes justified- he's not always good.

Matt said...

Laughable that you rate Cesc lower than Diaby or Song.


Never ceases to amaze me how clueless people are, it seems everytime we lose or don't win, Cesc apparently wasn't trying or was below par, bad.

Well I don't know what game you people were watching, but the game I was watching saw Fabregas pulling the strings in the midfield (never gave a ball away in a dangerous area all game) and he put in a shift, and I believe put Sagna through who set-up the first goal, and it was Cesc's shot that led to the corner and second goal. The only midfielder that turned up for the match and can leave it knowing he didn't let the side down.

To illustrate my point about Abou Diaby had been giving stupid and dangerous free-kicks away all game, which would eventually cost us, he also gave the ball away far too easily:

Tackles

16 Tackles
6 Won
10 Lost

9 Aerial Battles
2 Won
7 Lost

So much for the so called aerial ability he gives us in midfield.


Free-Kicks

6 Free-Kicks
1 Won
5 Conceded

3 of which were just outside our box, and 4 in total inside our half.


Compare that with 'little' Cesc Fabregas

Tackles

6 Tackles
5 Won
1 Lost

Free-Kicks

1 Free-Kick
1 Won
0 Conceded



Try watching the games, please.

Anonymous said...

You're stupid. Fabregas was quality, always on the ball and trying to make the most out of nothing to be honest. Van Persie isnt a top man... he's an off-the-striker player playing as top man and Fab can hardly picking out the blinding runs of Diaby and Eboue can he?

barry the gooner said...

most gooners would have predicted the final outcome.Arshavin should have been substituted and while we continue to play both diaby and the diving eboue in our midfield these loss of points will continue.As for the position between the sticks until we purchase someone of quality we will struggle.So many of the goals we have let in were preventable.

Anonymous said...

This team is believing its own publicity ' the best footballing team in the world' Yes great to watch, but someone please remind them that the object of the exercise is to actually win the game after 90 minutes.
The strolling around we have witnessed in this week's two disappointments (and the seeds were there against Birmingham the match before) is an insult to the club and its great fans.
Can you imagine Ferguson putting up with this kind of malaise - he would be incandescent with rage. I recently posted the question should we just lay back and appreciate the wonderful football our team is treating us to at times and not worry about trophies. However I have an empty, short-changed feeling right now which must be blamed on weak management.
A really worrying problem is that Arshavin is looking completely disinterested. It appears that his mind is on the income tax he is paying in the UK

Anonymous said...

Am I the only one who thought we were just a tad unlucky in this game? Sure we should have seen it out, but at 2-0 with fifteen minutes to go West Ham were not troubling us, then the ref made the wrong decision to award them a dangerous free kick and then made a terrible call for the pen. I am really pissed off with the result but don't think the team is "a bunch of bottlers". I thought we got unlucky. Wait til we beat Spurs and then you will all be singing the team's praises again. We are going to drop points in this league so we are going to have to learn to deal with it a tad better than this! If we win our game in hand we are level with United. Calm down please everyone.

Anonymous said...

Gd ratings.
may be Arsenal SHOULD ENGAGE GEORGE GRAHAM AS SPECIAL ADVISER FOR THE DEFENCE. He is the best DEFENDER.
already leak 13 goals in EPL; 4 goals in CPL.
Always the same excuses: didn’t get final ball to kill the game. Where & when is the ruthlessness coming ? (always like to buy midfielder who can play wide & not deadly striker e.g Torres from LFC)
If the defenders can grind out, the game is already won. it’s better to win 1-0 than draw 2-2. Don’t understand y other teams can grind out 1-0 win. At the end of season they have trophies.
Today Arshavin was the worst, Cesc was not his usual self may be of family problem.
AW likes to play players out of position, y he didn’t do to diaby as a lone striker baffles me ???
If continue to let Diaby involve in defence, we will definitely get more similar result & forget about winning trophies.
Pls Mr AW don’t be TOO stubborn in substitution, learn from J. Mourinho
We Respect u

Anonymous said...

once a again a ref has cost us. you cant blame players for the incompentance of refs. if it was any other team the ref would never give the penatly yet alone the free kick. it not just the west ham game against az we should of had a pen when vela was hacked in the box and agaist man city adebyhore shud of been sent off and the double footed slide tackle on arshavin. its a joke how refs can cost us.

Anonymous said...

diaby is a clown 3 times this season hes cost us points man u ,alkmaar,west ham whens he gonna learn ,not good enough along with eboue who dives around its embarrasing does wenger not see this for gods sake or is it just blind faith he keeps playin them

joe said...

Mannone is a great keeper but, with all respect,he still needs to learn more between the sticks.So,Almunia should come back to the first team because in the premiere leageau there`s no room for mistakes that cost us points.

Anonymous said...

The press have gleefully swooped on Arsene’s comments at the AGM and it is now gospel, we are bringing home silverware this season.

Personally, I saw Arsene re-iterating the same position he has taken all season. Pundits are getting very fond of saying that we have more chance of winning the CL than the prem. We are not going to know much about the CL until we win our group.

The Premier League is however well underway. This season the league is wide open. We are a quarter of the way through and it looks like the breakaway bunch will be six or seven clubs. All of these have Title and or European aspirations. They also present a nice snapshot of the premier league as a whole.

So apart from Arsenal who are these upstarts, well, who are ya?

Man City are the new pretenders, bristling with new found wealth. The 200 million quid the new owners have spent since the start of last season seems to be paying off. They won their first four on the trot. They have blipped since then, with only one win in five, but with the depth of squad they have, and a january transfer window looming, City are going to spend their way as far as they can.

Despite all of their spending, I am unsure as to whether they are playing as a team or as a group of individually talented players. Is it just me or do their goal celebrations seem forced or stage-managed? They are undoubtedly a team to be contended with this term.

Man United on the other hand are the old pretenders. Been there, seen it, T-shirt etc… Without a doubt the most successful team in England, maybe the world. But like all old things, they need regular maintenance to keep them performing at the top level. The cracks are beginning to show in the great machine that is United. Riddled with debts foisted upon them by their American owners they were forced to sell their prize asset and were unable to replace him.

United without Ronaldo are a desperate crowd held together only by memories of recent success. The have lost twice and drawn once so far, but they were lucky against City, Sunderland and Arsenal, picking up five points more than they should have. When they are not the best team, they are generally the luckiest.

Liverpool have had a shocking start to the season with the only silver lining being the demolition of United last weekend. Whether it was the carrot or the stick that Benitez wielded, it did the trick and the papers, fickle as they are, are now announcing a new resurgent Liverpool, ready to challenge for the title. I think not, Liverpool’s aspirations this year will be the same as ours last season; qualify for champions league and keep the cash coming in.

On the pitch they have looked very unsteady without Bill (Gerrard) and Ben (Torres). The rest of the weeds have looked increasingly fragile when left to fend for themselves. Gerrard is playing further back than he was last season and isn’t as useful as he could be. If the failure to qualify for Europe doesn’t scupper them, the banks will.

Having failed to secure 5th or even 6th place last season, Villa are again riding high at the beginning of this season. Beating liverpool at anfield as well as a home win against Chelsea as well as a decent set of results in their other games would lead you to believe that they are in with a good chance.

But if you look closely, there are uncertainties. Are they able to score from open play ? Is the most obvious question. They have scored 13 with at least 10 from set plays. This is ok at the beginning of a season, but opposition teams soon catch on.

Villa’s American owner, Randy Lerner, (probably the best made up pornstar name in the football world) is quite content to throw a few quid at the team every season, but it’s never quite enough. Many of their players will play many games this season and this will inevitably take its

Anonymous said...

Randy Lerner, (probably the best made up pornstar name in the football world) is quite content to throw a few quid at the team every season, but it’s never quite enough. Many of their players will play many games this season and this will inevitably take its toll as the season draws to a close.

Chelsea are riding high again. Top of the league at home and played 3, won 3 in Europe. Their form is second only to their arrogance. The Lampard, Terry and Cole triumvirate that are the backbone of the English team endear this club to British press like no other. Even the two window ban on transfers was greeted by a couple of paragraphs buried between ads for incontinence pants and the like. They won their first six, and have only been beaten by Villa and Wigan. Although neither of those defeats followed a weekday CL or FIFA match.

As a model for buying silverware, this is the perfect one. Having invested close to ¾ of a billion quid, Abramovich has shown the world how to build a team of aging, gold plated stars that despite being able to win domestic titles find it impossible to crown Europe.

Arsenal have started the season well, scoring 10 and conceding just 2 in the first two games. The news of which was buried next to the aforementioned Chelsea news. Following a bitterly contested CL qualifier, and a double round of international matches, two Manchester teams, each playing with 12, stole points from us.

Our injury ravaged squad then proceeded to win the next four and suffer a draw at WHU.

This draw followed closely on the heels of a midweek away draw. At this point editors were told to hold the front page, the wheels are coming off. Steam has been seen pouring from the servers that host blogoshpere. The amount of negative ‘I told you so’ or ‘he will lose all the support he has recently gained if he lets this continue’ or ‘he didn’t make his substitutions soon enough’ pieces or comments that have surfaced is astounding.

Not as outstanding as the way our season has developed. True we dropped a couple at West Ham, but we’re above the Spuds, and three behind united with a game in hand. And we all know about the Suds yesterday.

Our injury situation is seemingly only on defcon 1 right now with only Wallcott, Denilson and Djourou being out for a month or more, although Bendtner is a further worry now. A week ago we were probably at defcon 2, and by the end of next week we probably will be again.

But that is one of the joys of being an Arsenal supporter, the best team this week isnt the same as the best team last week, but invariably they play sublime football and get results.

And this is what will see us through the season, the unerring ability to mutate and survive. As Villa and the Spuds and United lose their legs and city stage manage a disappointing end to the season, Liverpool having fallen by the wayside long since, Arsene’s vision and common sense will prevail.

Who are ya?… We’re the Arsenal.

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