Chelsea 2:0 Arsenal (A)

Another disappointing result, another defeat against a title rival. We lost to Man United and Chelsea both home and away, and that somehow reinforces many people’s perception that we are not a title contender. We will have an easier fixture after the Liverpool’s game, but can we bounce back from all these crushing defeats? We will have to wait and see how the lads react at the next game.

What’s wrong with us?

We suffered yet another crushing defeat at home to our title rivals, this time the opponent being Man United. Our records against Man United and Chelsea had been very bad in recent years, to the extent of embarassing. I was hoping that our lads could respond to last season Evra’s claim of “boys against man”, but was yet again disappointed.

So what exactly is wrong with us?

1. Lack of defensive organization and discipline

We have two excellent centre backs (Gallas and Vermaelen), and a very solid right-back in Sagna. Our left-back Clichy may be susceptible to occasional lapse of concentration, but overall he is rarely beaten in one-on-one situation. We do have a very average keeper Almunia who doesn’t command his area and inspire any confidence in his defenders, but that’s just one part of the equation. One problem with our defenders is that, they often bomb forward at any chance, even the centre backs! Someone should tell our defenders that their jobs first and foremost is to defend! The lack of discipline to stay in position makes us susceptible to fast counter-attacks. And if our fullbacks (Sagna and Clichy) do not add significant impact to our offensive moves, I think its better for them not to move forward so often.

If our defenders are more defensive-minded and stay in their position, together with our defensive midfielder, we would be able to deny opponents of the space they currently have.

2. Lack of ball winner

We used to play with two ultra defensive central midfielders in our unbeaten season. Patrick Vieira was an excellent ball winner, while Gilberto’s positioning and reading of game often denies opponents of space and options. Their backups, Palour and Edu, were all capable of winnning back possessions. Our current team is lacking ball winners, especially in midfield. The closest we have is Song. And that’s all we have. Cesc is trying hard but he isn’t strong enough. Denilson is average in everything he does. Diaby is not known for his defensive skills, while Ramsey and Eastmond are still very raw.   

3. Lost of fast counter-attacking ability

We used to be famous for our fast counter-attacking abilities. But we no longer possess that ability now. The ability to launch fast counter attacks will put your opponents on back padels, causing them to think twice before over-commiting on attacking us. It is both a defensive and offensive weapon.

To execute fast counter attack, you need either one of the following:

A. Long ball tactics plus a tall and strong target man

B. Fast wingers with great dribbling skills

C.  Telepathic combination among the front men

We do not have any of the above. We don’t play long ball and we do not have tall and strong target man (except Bendtner who was injured for most of the season). We do not have fast wingers, what we have is a bunch of attacking midfielders and playmakers. The closest we have is an off-form Walcott who have lost his abilities to beat his markers. We also do not have telepathic combination among our front men like we used to have in Henry and Pires, as they still don’t look like they are one attacking unit.

4. Too many similar players

How many playmakers do we have? Fabregas, Nasri, Rosicky, Arshavin, and even Denilson and Ramsey. Wenger accommodates them by playing some on the wings and as a result limiting their strengths. We also have too many supporting strikers and too few main strikers. Bendtner, RVP, Arshavin all likes to play supporting strikers. Vela and Eduardo can be main strikers, but both are not physically strong enough.

This coming weekend we will be facing Chelsea at Stanford Bridge. I can’t really see us winning this one, but hopefully we can put up a fight and nick a draw.

Top of the league

We fought back from 0-2 to overcome Bolton with a final score of 4-2, and now we are top of the league. Even though this most probably is short-lived, as Chelsea need only to draw their game in hand to reclaim the top spot, but it may well be a morale booster to our players.

To go down 2 nil to Bolton at Emirates Stadium is rather shocking, and I felt that Almunia had to take a big part of the blame. Rosicky had played really well and scored the first goal to kickstart our revival. Despite all his injuries, he still has this excellent change of pace that is very useful in attacks. Arshavin was working very hard and scored a beautiful fourth goal. Fabregas continued his superb form to score the equalizer, and I believed if he can keep up his good form we have a very good chance of lifting the title.

Eduardo was involved in the buildup of the goals, but I was quite disappointed that he was still not scoring. Eastmond came on as a sub and did well. But I am not so confident if he is to start against teams like Aston Villa, Chelsea and Man United. Its great to have Clichy back.

To comeback from 2 nil down to a 4-2 victory requires a lot of conviction and self-belief. Man United always has this self belief. Our invincibles also has this self belief. And I hope this current batch of gunners have the same self belief.

Bolton 0:2 Arsenal (A)

Its so good to have Fabregas around. Another superb performance from our captain saw us overcoming rough opponents at Reebok stadium.

No surprise, Bolton players resorted to using very physical style of play, and on a few occasions I think they had really cross the line. Our third-choice leftback had a very bad game, giving away possessions countless of times, allowing that korean winger to have a field day. Lucky for us, we did not concede and Clichy is close to coming back. Gallas did not have a good game either, where else Verminator was rock solid and covered for Traore’s defficiency. Sagna was decent, and while Almunia did manage a few good saves, he also committed some silly mistakes that could prove costly if we are facing a better opponent. Its apparent that our defence don’t have confidence in Almunia, as in one occasion Gallas was forced to give away a corner because Almunia did not come out to claim the ball, and the look that Gallas gave to Almunia afterwards clearly indicate some displeasure.

In midfield, Eastmond was given his debut much to my surprise. He did ok, but as a defensive midfielder he needed to grow more physically. Diaby had a decent game and added some much needed physical strength to the team. Arshavin and Rosicky were rather quiet and I think they really need to step up their games. Eduardo had two assists but overall I think he had lost a bit of pace and wasn’t strong enough to play centre forward against such physical opponents. Its good to see Merida getting a goal. A player with good potential, hope that he can be patient and doesn’t leave for Atletico Madrid.

Right now, the top three teams are starting to pull away from the 4th to 8th teams. We need to keep winning to keep pace with Man United and Chelsea.

Arsenal 2:2 Everton (H)

The first game we played after Alex Song was away for the African Nations Cup ended up in a 2-2 draw with Everton at home. I watched this match with anticipation, eager to see how we cope without our three most important players RVP, Cesc and Song. When RVP got injured, our frontline became blunt as there is no one else in the front three who is strong enough to hold up the ball and clinical enough to score goals consistently. We managed to cope somehow utilizing Arshavin and Eduardo with the help of assists and goals from Cesc. Then when Cesc got injured too, we lost much creativity from the center, but the emergence of Diaby and Ramsey somehow manage to see through the difficult period. Now without defensive midfielder Song, we are kind of exposed in the centre of midfield, especially against teams that adopt an aggressive pressing approach.

Credit to Everton, they had been pressing us throughout the match and denying our players of any space. Ramsey looked nervous and lose possession quite a few times. Denilson, though scoring a goal, showed that he was not strong enough to be our defensive midfielder. Diaby continued his good performance but he was also not the answer to our defensive midfield position. Third-choice leftback Traore was getting exposed for his inexperience by Everton’s Donovan. With the absence of so many crucial players, we were quite lucky to scrape a draw, and even more lucky to see Man United settling for a draw against Birmingham so that we don’t drift away from the other title contenders.

Almunia was still very average and never inspired confidence among our defenders. But I was quite sure that Arsene Wenger will not buy any keepers this January or even in the summer. Will we buy any players this January? I am not quite sure.  To me, our front line needs a strong and clinical striker, our midfield can do with an additional defensive midfielder to cover for Song’s absence, and our defence would certainly benefit from an additional central defender seeing that our backup for the first choice CBs is Silvestre. But knowing Wenger, we would probably just sign a couple of teenagers who would only feature in the first team after two years time.

Win over Portsmouth and West Ham (FA Cup)

We managed to register yet another two hard-fought victories as the schedule gets tighter in December/January. A 4-1 away win over Portsmouth saw us maintaining our third-placed position in the league with a game in hand and only 4 points behind leader Chelsea.

We also came back from behind to beat West Ham in FA Cup despite playing poorly for most of the game. Ramsey and Diaby had been impressive recently, giving us more options in central midfield. However the main test for the squad is yet to come. In January, we would need to play a series of difficult matches without key players like RVP and Song. In my opinion, Song is currently our most important player, simply because we do not have any replacement for him. For all the attacking strength of Diaby, I am still not convinced with his defensive ability to replace Song, while Denilson doesn’t have the physical strength of both.

The January transfer window would be interesting. Would Wenger brought in an additional striker as speculated? Would he buy a central midfielder now that Song is away to ACN and Denilson is injured? Personally, I would like to see a central defender as we do not have adequate cover for Vermaelen and Gallas if either of them got injured. 

Let’s hope year 2010 is a good year for gunners!

Fantastic Fabregas (Arsenal 3:0 Aston Villa)

With less than 30 min substitute appearance, Captain Fabregas changed the game for us by scoring two wonderful goals! And I especially liked that celebration he had after the first goal, where you can clearly see how passionate he is.

The first half was rather boring with few actions from both teams. Our midfield trio of Denilson, Diaby and Song were decent but clearly lacked ideas on how to penetrate Villa’s defence despite having superior possessions. The introduction of Cesc at second half immediately changed the tempo of the game and we started to become more threatening and penetrative in our attacking moves.

Our front three once again was quite disappointing. Eduardo really looked rusty and if he don’t step up his performance soon, I reckoned he would lose his place in the starting lineup despite the absence of RVP. Arshavin and Nasri were over elaborate in their moves sometimes, and the front three didn’t really work as a compact unit. Vermaelen had done a fabulous job of keeping Argbonlahor quiet and was surprisingly fast enough to keep up with the pace. Traore had a very good game, defensively solid and much more dangerous going forward than Sagna. Its amazing that our third choice left-back is this good.

Diaby scored a wonderful solo goal. I loved the way he run at defenders. Diaby is clearly an central attacking midfielder with excellent dribbling skills, very good shooting ability and superb physical strength. It is always his defensive ability and work rate that were suspecting. It is nice to see him on the pitch offering a more direct aspect to our attacks, but the lack of defensive skills might work against him if he were to claim a spot in central midfield beside Cesc and Song.

We are now four points behind Chelsea with a game in hand. That’s a rather good position at the end of the year and hoped we can keep up the good form and beat Portsmouth in our next game.

Arsenal 3:0 Hull City (H)

After a disappointing draw away at Burnley, our lads responded with a convincing victory at home against Hull City. With Man United registering their 5th loss (against Fulham) and Chelsea forced to draw against West Ham, we found ourselves back at third place with only 6 points behind leader Chelsea with a game in hand. If we win our game in hand, we shall overtake Man United and only 3 points behind Chelsea. This season is really getting exciting, with so many teams racing cloesly and the top 4 teams dropping points even before halfway through the league. And once again, Liverpool dropped further down with a lost against mighty Portsmouth. Its gonna be a long season for them.

Ok back to the Hull City game. We were playing without two of our best players (RVP and Cesc) and we did reasonably well. Eduardo got a tap-in goal and I really hoped it would do good to his confidence and he can finally prove to us that he is the lethal finisher that we bought him for. Arshavin and Nasri were quite average in this game. Diaby and Denilson, both heavily criticised by Arsenal fans, each scored a goal. Denilson scored a very good free kick. I believed this is the third time in the season that he scored from long range shots. Diaby was very good in his dribbling and forward runs, offering something different from our usual passing game. I do understand why Wenger liked to play Diaby, as he brought something different to the team. He has the strength, the pace and the dribbling ability. The only thing I questioned about Diaby is his consistency, his work rate, his decision making and his attitude. He could be a great asset to us if he can sort out all those issues.

Its good to keep a clean sheet. Gallas and Vermaelen did reasonably well. Silvestre was too slow to play as leftback. Hoped Traore can return for the Villa game. Eboue was very dangerous offensively, offered us much more variations in attack than Sagna. Almunia managed to save a penalty, but I still have my reservations regarding his calibre as our first choice keeper.

Liverpool 1:2 Arsenal (A)

Its a great weekend in terms of our results and our opponents’ ones. Firstly, Man City was again back to their drawing routine, this time having a 3-3 draw with Bolton. Then, Chelsea was held to a 3-3 draw with Everton, while Man United lost to Aston Villa at home. And lastly, Spurs also lost to Wolves 1-0 at White Hart Lane.

The win over Liverpool at Anfield brought us back to third place, with a game in hand and six points behind leader Chelsea. Which means, if we win our game in hand, we would be only 3 points from the top of the league.

Frankly speaking, we didn’t have a great game at Anfield. Our first half was horrible, and were lucky only to be down by one goal. Almunia, once again, caused us a goal. I had always thought that Almunia is an average keeper. He is never confident in his handling of aerial balls, and this is especially important considering the height of our centre backs.

Song and Vermaelen were solid as usual. Denilson was ok, while Walcott really needed to up his game to live up to his hype. Arshavin once again, provided us with the magic upfront that we badly needed since the departure of Thiery Henry. The shot was powerful and Reina simply had no chance.

Now, hope this win will give us the boost we needed and pushed for the trophies which had been lacking for the past few years.

Arsenal 2:0 Stoke City (H)

After three straight losses (including the one in Carling Cup), the lads have a point to prove against Stoke City. The players started brightly, launching attacks wave after wave. Arshavin’s cool strike gave us the lead. But subsequently, when we saw Cesc’s penalty being saved, while another shot at open goal blocked accidentally by Eboue, I feared that we might eventually loses points undeservedly. Ramsey’s late goal somehow settled the nerves of the fans, and ended Stoke City’s hope.

Arshavin was great in this match, and hope to see more from him. Cesc was dispossessed quite a number of times, and seemed frustrated at Stoke’s physical approach. Rosicky had a quiet game, Eboue offered some directness apart from all our central playmakers, while Nasri was pretty good with the ball too. Denilson was awful, and incredibly weak for a defensive midfielder. The defence stood their ground though I feared for the worst everytime Delap was doing his long throw-ins. Traore was very good offensively and didn’t make any mistake defensively either. Hoped his injury wasn’t serious. And finally, Almunia was still the average keeper that he always was. We really could do with a better and more commanding keeper.