EPL Talk » Arsene Wenger

Is This The Arsenal Side to Redeem Wenger?

Brian Louie — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:05:06 +0000

Gooners should be forgiven for indulging in optimism. With 36 goals in 11 matches, talk of Arsene Wenger’s gun slinging side has done much to impress, and you can sense the Frenchman is a few wins away from making some sort of bold prediction, ala the Invincibles. To be five points from leaders Chelsea with a game in hand, and especially with such a heavily-populated injury list, the Professor must believe his seemingly eternally-young side has the best shot at a domestic title since the Gunners’ monumental collapse two years ago.

Two years ago, Eduardo’s injury, William Gallas’ tantrum and a successive streak of draws dismantled the North London side, and Arsenal fans were left with an empty, sick feeling in their stomachs, a bit like the minute Jens Lehmann got sent off against Barcelona in the 2006 Champions League Final. Only, this time, there was the horrific nature of the Croatian’s injury and the realization that Arsenal were a young and callow team that crumbled to pieces. Now, and the Gunners are playing some of their best football. Robin van Persie has become more of the striker he was when he first became a first-teamer for Arsene Wenger, Cesc Fabregas is a seasoned 22, and Andrei Arshavin can only be labeled a success, especially considering Wenger sold Kolo Toure for for about 2 million less to Man City.

36 goals in 11 games is impressive, reminding us of the old Arsenal, just after “1-0 to the Arsenal” became ironic after Wenger’s arrival. But the Gunners still seem a bit thin on the bench, especially in that back line. Thomas Vermaelen has been more than excellent, as Gallas seems to maintain his level of play despite all the distractions of having a crap personality and age. Once one of those two pick up an injury though, and Wenger is left to pick from Phillipe Senderos and Mikael Silvestere. Perhaps Senderos picked up incredible knowledge and quickness while he warmed the bench at Milan, and perhaps Silvestere will defy age and the two will be able to pick up the slack at times for the rest of a long season. Either way, the Gunners will have to keep scoring at will to catch Chelsea, who seem to be much tighter defensively, or at least don’t seem to fall asleep on set pieces as much.

It would be nice to see Arsenal regain a little bit of it’s luster, at least to break up the monotony of Manchester United and Chelsea. With Liverpool their own worst enemy, and struggling with a thin bench, they’re seemingly out of the picture. There’s very little staking-of-claims on the title going on between the Blues and the Red Devils, and the clash between them last weekend was akin to a pair of battering rams knocking each other senseless in the middle of the park, with a few little handbags thrown in. A push into the top four by Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur has seemed to have fizzled out, as the former spend their time performing in front of ownership in Qatar, and the latter deal with well, being Spurs.

The Gunners have yet to hold their own against a tough side. The season’s only a third of the way through, and who knows how durable Fabregas and Arshavin will be all season long. Perhaps we’ll know a bit more at the end of November, when Chelsea come to North London for a visit. With Jose Bosingwa, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole out, now’s the Gunners’ best chance to make up a bit of difference and become a threat for the title.

Arsene Wenger likes to talk about being patient, letting his young team develop, all the while holding that belief is the central tenet to winning. Gooners, do you have belief that your team can win the title this year? Have they matured enough, and does Wenger have the right pieces to bring some silver back to North London?

The Cold War For Arsenal Continues

Paul Bestall — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:54:24 +0000

Stan Kroenke has purchased even more shares in Arsenal today taking his holding to 29.9% of the club. With only another 0.09% required to reach the threshold to make an offer for the rest of the clubs shares, Kroenke has purchased 627 shares this week for the princely sum of £5.3 million. The oddest part of the share purchasing is that 100 of the shares were purchased from Arsenal chairman, Peter Hill-Wood.

Hill-Wood seems to have had a change of opinion about Kroenke, after originally stating that the club didn’t need his money or his sort back in 2007 when he purchased his first shareholding in the club. Now the club seem to be relying on him to protect themselves from a takeover from Red and White Holdings, the share vehicle of Alisher Usmanov and ran by former Arsenal vice chairman David Dein.

Now for me, there is no doubt that Stan Kroenke is man who knows his sport. He owns 40% of the St. Louis Rams, the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Rapids and Colorado Avalanche. Perhaps annoyed that he doesn’t own a MLB franchise, Kroenke set his sights on Arsenal and has quietly and effectively gone about his business with a minimum of fuss over the last 30 months. Now I know why they call him “Silent Stan”, as his refusal to answer questions about his intentions at the recent Arsenal AGM saw.

British football still has a somewhat rose tinted view of foreign ownership and with the comedy roadshow at Portsmouth shows, with such investment comes a high degree of risk. Yet, British football is littered with teams destroyed by English and Scottish owners who had no idea how to run a football club. Xenophobia is still alive and well in the Premiership, but it is something we English based fans have to get used to and since Roman Abramovich took over Chelsea, most fans would welcome any Billionaire to splash the cash at their club.

When you see the damage people like Geoffrey Richmond, Robert Maxwell, Ken Richardson, Darren Brown and Anton Johnson did to clubs, the chance to bring in proven sporting expertise from outside of the UK becomes an obvious option for me. I’m sure the fans of those clubs almost destroyed by such mismanagement would gladly pay for people to fly over and buy their beloved clubs.

Arsene Wenger must be getting a bit fed up about the constant questions about the share dealings going on, two press conferences this week seem to have missed the fact that his side have climbed nicely in to 3rd, tucked in nicely behind Manchester United and Chelsea and qualified to the next round of the Champions League. All questions focused on the money changing hands in the financial markets and quiet correctly, Wenger calmly and politely avoided answering the questions with a stock answer.

“I do not know what Kroenke will do,all I know is the rules, that if he gets to 30%, he has to make a bid for the club. At the moment, he flirts with the 30, but is not there. I do not know what his intentions are, I have not spoken to him about it.”

With his side bucking all the preseason predictions of falling out of the top four, playing some lovely football and with a Billionaire shoring up his stake in the Gunners, Arsenal could be on the cusp of a wonderful new era. In to the next round of the League Cup and European football once again assured after Christmas, Wenger has continued to keep his head when everyone outside of Arsenal thinks the dream is over. Shame I’m a Spurs fan but that’s life.

Arsenal Hit By Double Injury Blow Just As Walcott Returns

Paul Bestall — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:53:25 +0000

Just when Arsene Wenger thought his injury problems were behind him, with Theo Walcott looking likely to return to first team action this week, Nicklas Bendtner decides to off road in his Aston Martin on the way to training on an empty road and Denilson has had a fractured bone in his back confirmed by Arsenal’s medical team.

Thankfully, Bendtner seems to be simply bruised and battered and no doubt a little shook up by his little escapade on the A1 yesterday on his way to training. Wenger seems to be taking a safety first option with the young striker, whilst he’ll miss tomorrow’s Champions League game against Olympiakos he should be back for the weekend fixture against Blackburn.

It’s unfortunate as his performance in the comeback against Standard Liege was probably his best performance in an Arsenal shirt since he’s been at the club. He was fantastic, pulling the Liege defence all over the place and dragging the Gunners back in to the match. he’s certainly been playing well this season and it’s a disruption he could do without.

The news about Denilson sounds a little more serious and it’s unusual as its taken over two weeks to confirm the injury he sustained against Manchester City. He has been extremely impressive so far this season, capped with wonderful goal in the 6-1 rout of Everton on the first weekend of the Premiership season. His work rate, passing and distribution have kept Arsenal ticking along despite the defeats to both halves of Manchester’s footballing rivalry.

After the progress he made last season, and the consistency he seems to finally have added to his undoubted talent, it’s a real shame. He’s pencilled in to return in time for the clash with Chelsea at the Emirates on Sunday November 29th. To be honest, the run Arsenal have over the next 2 months, they’ll be happier with the quality of the opposition they face in the period he’ll be missing than later in the season.

December and January will be tough on most clubs, but Arsenal have to play Aston Villa, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Everton as well as their favourite away trip to Bolton Wanderers. At least they don’t have to go to Blackburn or play the return of the Gunners new grudge match against Manchester City.

Walcott’s return can’t come soon enough for the young lad BUT he really needs to ease himself back into action. Whilst he may have fallen behind Aaron Lennon and Shaun Wright Phillips in the England pecking order, he needs to focus on returning to a consistent level of performance for Arsenal first. He doesn’t need to worry too much about England, they’ve already qualified for the World Cup.

With his attributes as either a winger, a striker or even playing as right midfield, Walcott has options few other players can match. Fabio Capello is quite aware of the qualities Walcott can bring to the England team, he simply needs to concentrate on getting a good, consistent season for Arsenal. If he manages that, he should easily be in the 23 man squad that goes out to South Africa come June next year.

To Dive or Not To Dive? That is the Question.

Fletch Spigner — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:31:16 +0000

With the recent issues surrounding diving and simulation in the box and elsewhere, once again we are in a broiling debate over the use of re-play video technology to assist referees. This week, Eduardo clearly dove in the box against Celtic and it flat changed the game. Perhaps, had Celtic put the first ball in the net this week, they may have challenged for the aggregate win at The Emirates. However, the early penalty surely sealed the deal for the Gunners. Wayne Rooney’s dubious dance with Manuel Almunia this weekend at Old Trafford afforded the Red Devils a much needed goal in what was otherwise an Arsenal-dominated show—save that awful own goal. These are simply the latest incidents in a long line of potentially questionable tactics by today’s footballers—and questionable calls by today’s referees.

With these issues, the question of technology is always raised. Had the referees had access to video re-play, perhaps their calls, and ultimately the match’s outcome, would have been different. So the answer to today’s diving professional footballer and half-blind referee is video, right?

Wrong. Football, Futbol, Soccer, or whatever you want to call it, is not a game that needs video re-play. The beauty of football is the continuous play of the game. We don’t need timeouts to discuss strategy—we can take care of that on the field. We don’t have 400-lb linemen who need a break every four plays. Heck, we only need three subs! My point is simple: do not interrupt the flow of the Beautiful Game through a technology that is born out of un-classy dives from un-classy players that drive Bentleys and Aston Martins. I have no problem with a subsequent review of a play much like what happened to Eduardo this week. He absolutely deserves a ban—and a steep fine as well. However, the game does not need to be stopped for the inevitable 5-10 minutes of debating in the video booth over the referee’s call. I cannot bear the thought of 60-minute halves due to the constant stoppage of the game because someone has been wronged by an only-human referee. The game should continue and be played without interruption. This is what separates our sport from all others—especially here in America.

Think video will end the debate and make all calls unquestionable? Absolutely not. Look at Arsene Wenger’s defense of Eduardo this week. He conceded that it shouldn’t have been a penalty but that it also wasn’t a dive. Are you kidding me? I like Wenger but he is wrong. Eduardo dove to get the penalty because he knew it would change the game—and he was right, it did. Just admit it, punish the player, and sit him on the bench for a few matches. I love how managers cry to FIFA, UEFA, The FA, and every other group with letters in their name to “fix the problem.” The problem lies with players who get away with unsportsmanlike conduct and are defended by their bosses. Even with video re-play, someone’s feelings are going to get hurt and some mass of supporters will hate one of the four officials. Get over it! Or don’t—someone has to lose and someone has to win. It’s a game. Until that changes, video will only be good for confirming what we already knew: diving, and complaining about it and the referee’s call of it, is a part of the game.

Arsenal Beat Celtic 2-0 at Celtic Park, All But Assure Champions League Qualification

tyduffy — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:03:21 +0000

Arsenal beat Celtic 2-0 at Celtic Park, all but assuring their qualification for the Champions League group stages, with two away goals. It was not the presiding effort of their 6-1 away win at Everton, but the two deflected goals – from Gallas and Gary Caldwell’s foot – fulfilled the requirement in what was arguably the most important match of the season.

Celtic obviously came into match with an inferior squad. The Scottish Premier League nowhere near equates the English one. Celtic’s biggest signing was £4m Scott Brown. As was mentioned in the telecast, new Celtic manager Tony Mowbray did have experience against Arsene Wenger from his time at West Brom. Unfortunately, said experience was losing to Arsenal with an inferior squad.

The tactics came as no shock. Celtic pressed early to disrupt Arsenal’s passing, with moderate success. When the club tired, they kicked Cesc Fabregas constantly, resulting in two yellow cards and accomplishing nothing but placing him at risk for injury. Fabregas is too savvy to be addled by wanton lunges. Even if the tactic had hampered his effectiveness, Arsenal have four or five players who can create adequately with the increased space from diminished attention.

Wenger again opted for the 4-3-3, using the exact lineup that played against Everton. This time, however, players shifted positions more frequently and both Gallas and Vermaelen attempted runs from the back. This suggests we may be seeing some true total football at the Emirates this year.

Arsenal’s back four, fronted by Song were solid again. Though, they benefitted from Arsenal breaking up plays high up the pitch in both matches. The trio of Alumnia, Vermaelen and Gallas appear confident now. Will this change when they face a team that can down the wings and challenge aerially with crosses?

The weak point for Arsenal was Nicklas Bendtner. He shone with the ball at times against Everton, but against Celtic he was woeful. Whether playing down the right or in the middle, his poor off the ball positioning placed him consistently two steps behind his proper place. He has the technical ability, but does he have the football intelligence?

Theo Walcott should take Bendtner’s place when he returns from injury. Though, if Bendtner remains the fall back plan for the slender shouldered one, that should influence Wenger’s to buy. Could Wenger take Rafael Van Der Vaart off their hands for £6m?

For those tracking other transfers as we approach the deadline, Emmanuel Eboue was not in Arsenal’s squad, leaving that reported £9m move to Fiorentina an option.