No fault in our stars

Everyone has an opinion on what was most significant about Arsenal's 3-0 dismissal of Aston Villa. The first league clean sheet of the season? Yeah, I'd go with that.

Aside from Callow Chambers (sorry) near dismissal, the back 4 plus Szcz hardly put a foot wrong in what could've been a dangerous contest. Remember how Villa beat Liverpool (which is starting look less impressive by the day)? An early "smash and grab" counterattacking goal from Gabby Agbonlahor followed by 82 minutes of seat-of-their-trousers defending took the Villains to second in the league.

No such luck yesterday for the claret and blue boys. Arsenal's keeper--the maker of his own bad luck--kept them off the scoresheet early and his defending cohorts stayed a steady course the rest of the way. Gibbs and Chambers played a key role in the Gunners' possession game, whilst Per and Koz did the dull and dirty work of mopping up anything that got past a resurgent midfield.

Considering the cheapness of the goals surrendered this season, and the errors which often caused them, the clean sheet has to be the most important takeaway from this match. I've been very dismayed at the way Arsenal have conceded so far; more concentration and tenacity at the back could've easily garnered the club 4 more points thus far.

Switching off after conceding a free kick or corner has been a serious problem for this team. You can only hope yesterday was a platform off of which more success can be built.

Ah, you see, I have chosen the dull side of football for which to praise my Arsenal. That's the exact opposite of what most supporters would see and most likely what Arsene Wnger values the least, if you judge him by his transfer spending.

Defending is not something that is done by 4 players at the back and a keeper--it's a collective effort by the entire XI. And despite the attempts to falsify the contribution of Olivier Giroud by the Wenger-lovers, yesterday was clear evidence of what the long-term contribution of Danny Welbeck can be.

Giroud was often lauded for his "ability to clear crosses" or some such thing. Yeah, whatever, me neither. His work rate was often such that one was tempted to see if the famous inanimate carbon rod couldn't do a bit more in his place.

I'm going to just come out and say it right now--Wenger molly-coddled Giroud for two seasons and it was seriously grating on my nerves. Whether it was out of a sense of Gallic solidarity or a myopic inability to see him for what he really was, for some reason Wenger stuck with Giroud when even Chuba Akpom started to look like the more effective option.

In two seasons, Giroud probably ran less than Welbeck did yesterday. I can see SAF's dirty fingerprints all over him. He knows no other way to play than 100% effort. Giroud looks like a Peruvian cart mule compared to Welbeck.

Ferguson would never have tolerated the Frenchman's lackadaisical (Laconic? Languid? Some other L word?) style, more than likely switching on the hair dryer after one game and then shipping him back to the French 2nd division after two. Welbeck still plays like he can hear a drunken old Scot screaming in his ear.

Giroud's classic move--to amble to the top of the "D" and then stop--grew to be so frustrating that I would simply scream "What are you stopping for?" at the telly and then it was a race to see whether he or I would end up howling first.

So I have to say, not being forced to watch him at the present time makes Arsenal matches just that little bit more pleasant. Oh, and not having to listen to the pro-Wenger spin merchants tell me about Giroud's so-called greatness (or Sanogo's, for that matter) is also a relief. It certainly must clear their consciences not to have to lie for a few farthings from the club.

Welbeck's efforts yesterday pleased me to no end. Whether he was dropping back to receive the ball whilst his teammates ran forward, forcing himself between defenders in front of goal, or constantly harassing the Villa defence, he was in constant motion.

The goal was simple--what you'd expect of a centre-forward, really. It was the product of working hard enough to put himself in the place where a talented midfielder could get him the ball. He didn't lope to the outer edge of the 18 yard box and stop like a United Nations observer. He went for it and he was rewarded.

The assist, however, was not common. It wasn't even what I'd expect from Welbeck. It combined vision, timing, and ability. What a beauty. Again, you can see the way he was raised in football. If he had missed that pass back at United, SAF would've blasted him with a profane outburst, not a pat on the back and a polite defence in the post-match presser. Iron fist, etc.

One other thing that's now apparent is that if Ozil and Cazorla are to coexist, it means the wee Spaniard is going to have to play on the left. Oz looked like a man reborn yesterday. Shame on him for not playing like that before, but if playing him in the 10 spot is what it takes to unleash that talent, then by all means do it.

As for Santi, it's a shame as he's such a delightful playmaker and creative presence in the middle, but let's be fair, he's no bug-eyed Germanic wizard. His efforts on the left yesterday were crucial and of the two options, it's clear that the only way to get him involved is to play him there and let Ozil do his thing through the middle.

I fairly well destroyed my living room when I saw Ozil run into the clear for Welbeck's pass. That was the 2010 version of a player who has looked a bit bereft recently. His first touch was sublime, and the finish was so simple that I felt bad for my compatriot in the Villa net.

All I really want to say about this match is "More, please." More switched on defence, more Welbeck, more Ozil in the fashion we saw them. More energy, more intelligence, more effort, more simple finishing, more breaking from deep (as opposed to sideways passing around the box).

More like that. Just keep doing it. We'll all be happier if they do.

Switch to southpaw

The sequel is almost always worse than the first. That's some kind of rule that is only really proved by its exceptions: The Godfather Part 2, Rocky II, The Empire Strikes Back, Gremlins 2, Superman 2, The Wrath of Khan...

Each has its iconic moment--Michael kisses Fredo, Darth dares Luke to join him, Brain Gremlin referencing Susan Sontag, Zod telling Superman to kneel, and hell, Kirk screaming "KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!"

Today's story, however, is about that moment in Rocky II when Mickey demands that his big dopey stubborn fighter switch back to "southpaw," and how Rocky sits there and says "No tricks, I ain't switchin'!" 

Strategy, it seems, is always a tricky thing.

Mickey decided that Rocky's left-handed fighting style had become too predictable, and too easy to counter. He was a one-pace, one-tactic fighter and Apollo Creed could easily handle him.  A change was required.

Mickey went so far as to tie Rocky's right hand to his side in order to force him to learn to jab with his left. Suddenly, a left-handed fighter who had come so far in that style was now a right-hander, so much so that even the Italian Stallion himself couldn't bear to switch back to his natural style, deriding that as a "trick."

You see where I'm going with this.

For 7 years at Arsenal, M. Wenger achieved remarkable success that was founded on a strong defence and Patrick Vieira. I've never made a secret that I believe that PV4 was the greatest and most important player of Wenger's tenure as manager. That, however, is another story for another day.

Since the self-imposed destruction of the invincibles, Wenger shifted from that foundation--in a sense, he switched from fighting southpaw. He has no defence to speak of, and he certainly has no player comparable to Vieira, and he hasn't since 2008-09.

But beyond just personnel, that switch also includes a style of play, most notably in attack. In boxing, as in tennis, going up against a left-hander may be predictable, but it's also awkward. For the first part of Wenger's tenure at Arsenal, the style seemed to be based much more on quick and devastating attacks that capitalised on the movement and pace of players like Pires, Ljungberg, Henry, Bergkamp, and Vieira.

No player in the history of the Premier League started attacks like Vieira did. I don't care who you throw up in argument against that statement, there isn't one. People often compare Vieira and Roy Keane, which is fair enough, but in style they were completely different. Keane didn't break up an opponent's attack and then drive the ball forward in the same manner.

Vieira wasn't so much a defensive midfileder in the Makelele role as he was an engine for an entire side. He was at his most effective when playing alongside Petit or Gilberto Silva, players who could do the dirty work and impose themselves physically whilst PV4 launched another assault.

This is not to discount his tackling ability or how he could break up play because he was excellent at that, but for those who have come to know Arsenal since his departure, he shouldn't be classified as a "defensive mid."  He was a unique player in that he could defend and then easily start a counter attack from deep that could result in a shot on goal.

But Vieira represented the style of Arsenal back then--first it was the Graham hangover defenders behind him, then Wenger replaced them with 4 new players (more than 4, really, because he actually invested in defenders up until 2005), but no matter if it were Spunky and Tone or Jens and Big Sol, there was a solid structure back there that was fronted by strong mobile central midfielders.

That has to be classified as Wenger's southpaw phase.

But now? Wenger switched to fighting right-handed, with diminutive midfielders--most often five at a time--and a single "target man" up front. This is a style that is compounded by a very narrow attack through the middle, fullbacks who are most often almost standing on the opposition's end line, and centre halves who are positioned so high up the pitch that they are at or beyond the halfway line.

Since the end of the 2012-2013 season, when fate more or less forced him to finally adapt, Wenger sets out his teams to play the same way every minute of every match. Last season this cost Arsenal quite a few points that they surrendered from winning positions. Aston Villa, Swansea, Southamption, Everton--this represents 8 points that could have won Arsenal the league if Wenger had been willing to mix it up a bit.

I can't understand why, with trainer Mickey yelling in his face "Switch back to southpaw," Wenger persists with the same formation and tactics from minute 1 to minute 90+. It's fairly clear that everyone has this sussed. Care to mix it up, Arsene?

"No tricks, I ain't switchin'!"

It's a shame. This sequel (Arsene Knows Part 3) is looking much more like "The Matrix: Convoluted" than any of the ones I listed above. Welcome to Jaws 3D, without the camp Michael Caine to liven things up.

Broken

Not much to say about a performance as abject as Arsenal put in yesterday.

The bigger picture is that the club seem to be in trouble. Each match is punctuated by an injury, which is really unfortunate considering there is essentially no youth programme to call upon for reinforcements.

The question of tactics and the use of the squad ought to be called into question, along with the "inspiration and motivation" that a manager is supposed to provide. Does the formation get the most of the players?  Are the players being deployed in positions that best utilise their abilities?

Does the persistence with a high defensive line from the first minute to the last really give Arsenal the best chance to win? Can Arsenal find a way to widen the attack other than using the fullbacks to essentially abandon their defensive duties?  Is it wise to leave only 3 players to defend counterattacks, especially when two of them are Per Mertesacker and one of Arteta or Flamini?

In some ways, yesterday felt like the culmination of years of poor transfer window policy and misguided tactics, yet in some ways it simply felt like Groundhog Day. Nothing has really changed.

Arsenal have played 4 league matches and three Champions League matches. In seven competitive matches they've scored eight goals and conceded eight. They have no real identity at this point, based on those numbers.

They are neither an exciting, attacking force, nor are they a lock-down defensive machine capable of grinding out results. To be fair, they resemble a mid-table side. A bit boring on both ends of the pitch, neither all sheets to the wind in attack nor biting and bitter in defence.

After the FA Cup final I wrote that I didn't want Wenger to return as manager. I listed three areas--transfer policy, in-game tactics, and inspiration/preparation--where I thought he had failed. Of course that was the primary reason I didn't want him back--I didn't think Arsenal could win the league with him in charge.

My loyalty is to the club and has been since I started following Arsenal, back before I even knew who Wenger was. So my first thought was, it's best for the club if he goes. But at the same time I do appreciate what he did and has done for Arsenal and I didn't want it to come to this.

I didn't want it to come to the point where people are shouting and angry and wishing he'd be fired. What if he had simply left after winning the FA Cup?  A true feel good moment to cap off a legendary career would have been the best way to exit. Many people who had grown weary of him could have forgiven his faults and saluted him.

Instead, now, I'm afraid it can only end one way.  Arsenal are broken right now, and the blame for that can only be placed with Wenger. When even the Irish blogger names him and says it's Wenger's responsibility, you know the situation is dire.

Were this not Arsenal, and there were no such thing as "the Arsenal way," and this hadn't been going on for years, Wenger might well be given his P45 before this crucial stretch of league matches. But this is Arsenal, and that won't happen. Sadly, I'm afraid it won't happen until after this season, which will be a season that will end in disappointment and failure for the club.

At that point, Wenger will probably leave in disgrace when it could've all ended in glory last spring. Shameful, that, for everyone involved.

It just isn't funny anymore

The 2008-09 edition of the Arsenal Football Club managed a 21-match unbeaten run. Do you remember those heady times?

That team was utter garbage on a hot plate. They matched both MUFC and Chelsea with 68 goals scored (Liverpool led the league with 77 goals, had a goal differential of 50, and still finished second) but conceded 37, 13 more than the champions.

I don't know what the excuses being made for that team were, or how their 4th place finish was spun into gold. I've spent much of the last 6 years trying to forget those players.

What has always stuck with me, however, is how that team managed to go 21 games unbeaten. From matchday 15 to matchday 35, Arsenal didn't lose. And in all that time, Arsenal managed to climb all the way from 5th to 4th. Astonishing, ain't it?

At one point in that run, there were four dour 0-0 draws in a row.

Was the spin "Hey, you know how tough it is to beat West Ham at the Grove!" or "You know how tough Sunderland are at the Grove!" or something else?  I've no idea. Back then there were no club-sponsored bloggers pumping hot air into the multiverse trying to hide the fact that Wenger had put together a "Wizard of Oz" squad--No brains, no courage, no heart.

So far this season we've heard "Hey, you know how tough it is to go to Goodison and win, so under the circumstances a draw was a great result!"

This was followed by "Hey, you saw how tough the Foxes played Everton, so to go there and get a point without the extremely vital Olivier Giroud is a great result!"

Now we're hearing "Hey, you know how tough City are, so to hold them to a draw at the Grove is a great result! Oh and Wilshere scored, and so did Sanchez, so it was a great result!"

In the meantime, Wenger is down to 5 defenders. But don't worry, the spin merchants are working their magic, telling you that "It's not a bone break, so that proves that Wenger's transfer policy is fantastic!" Or better yet, the Irish fellow is using the classic "we" and "our" to describe the paucity of options at the back.

How about this for some NO spin--

Two classic Wenger schoolboy errors led to the two City goals. Simple counterattack employed against a nonsensical high defensive line gifted them the first, then the same lapse on a free kick that we saw against such esteemed opposition as Hull City and New York Red Bulls gave them the second.

Once again, points squandered from a winning position, as they were last season time and again against Villa, Southampton, Swansea, Everton...but hey, you know how tough Villa are at the Grove, so...

Why are we supposed to believe that this is any different than any of the seasons since a decade ago when Wenger won his last league title?  Are the mistakes going to magically disappear?  Is the squandering of points going to stop? Will Hayden or Bellerin magically become trusted first team defenders?  Will Gibbs miraculously stay healthy?

For all the Irish man's jokes, for all of Mr. Rational Yank Stats Man's obfuscation through jargon and numbers, there is a problem at Arsenal. The problem starts at the top.

The mistakes and lack of composure haven't suddenly materialised, nor can they all be blamed on Lukas Podolski (or now Mesut Ozil). I wish the bloggers who have been bought by the club, or the Wenger-lovers (as opposed to those who actually love the club more than one person) would shake up the world and place the blame where it belongs for once.

Placing loyalty to Wenger above the club is a mistake. Making jokes about the games or about the fact that Arsene Wenger actually believed Yaya Sanogo is a Premier League quality striker isn't appropriate.

Your jokes aren't funny anymore, nor are your excuses. Wenger has failed once again--this time by not buying adequate defensive cover. If you can come back to me and say that Wenger has put together a squad that can challenge for the title, I won't laugh anymore. I'll simply tell you that your jest isn't funny.

Us wonned without Giroud? That's unpossible!

(Author's note: I have worked more than 20 years in public relations and communications, and know quite well how organisations use/co-opt/corrupt journalists, bloggers, and all media types. I've worked for two major metropolitan cities and an international trade organisation--all with smaller budgets and lower profiles than a global brand like the Arsenal Football Club. Trust me when I tell you, I'm 100% certain that some bloggers are being used as mouthpieces by the club to influence opinion among the fan base.)

When the book about this Arsenal season is written, perhaps certain truths will finally be told. One of the forgotten ones will be just why Lukas Podolski was held out of the qualifier against Besiktas.

To my knowledge, a player could appear in a qualifier and not count as cup tied, so there could really only be two reasons for sitting a player who has scored 5 goals in only 9 European matches for the club. One, he is still being shopped around and the club have him wrapped in cotton wool; two, the gaffer absolutely can't stand him.

Poldi, as his fans call him, has actually scored 19 league goals in 53 appearances for Arsenal, which is a fair return if you ask me. Olivier Giroud, the darling of the club-connected bloggers, has taken 72 appearances to score 28 goals. I'm no math professor, but if you compare those goal scoring records, and you don't have some hidden agenda, you'd probably say "Hey, that Podolski guy is pretty good."

This is said without considering that Arsenal barely score 2 goals per match anymore.

Since Saturday's draw (it was a draw, remember?) at Everton, the Arsenal universe has spun wildly in all directions. First, it was "See? Giroud is priceless! The team was shit before he came on! Arsenal can't win without him!"

Then it has been "Giroud may be injured. Oh, and Podolski is shit and is on his way out."

Then it was "Giroud is injured, and whilst Podolski is still shit, he's not on his way out today."

Now it's "See? Sanchez really is great and Arsenal can win without Giroud."

Wait, what? I thought Arsenal can't win without Giroud? What the fuck are you saying?

Giroud is massively unpopular with the vast majority of Arsenal supporters. Podolski, on the other hand, is massively popular with Arsenal supporters. Now, if I were a public relations professional (oh, wait, I AM one) and I had a problem like this, my first step would be to "influence the influencers," and make sure that the most widely read and respected bloggers were on my side.

This has been such a divisive issue that the most widely read and influential Yank Arsenal blogger has in the past week written columns on "Is any Arsenal player not divisive?" and "Arsenal don't need a big scoring forward to win the league." He also wrote a love letter to Wenger, praising the man and talking about his glorious history and brilliance in that time. Transparent much?

What these bullshit artists and spin doctors ought to be saying is, "Arsenal won a fucking match without the priceless and perfect Olivier Giroud." But don't worry, you won't see that story from any of them.

Amy Lawrence came close the other day, and probably risked her access to the club, by writing this column that almost comes out and says "Wenger's transfer policy has been an extremely high risk gamble for years now." Amy is a lifelong Arsenal supporter, so I'm sure this was a big step for her.

What's sad about all of this, this spin, this PR smokescreen, is that it is nothing but a mask designed to disguise the things that have threatened the club's worldwide prominence for a decade now. A parsimonious transfer policy combined with a tactical intransigence, plus the unwillingness to embrace the modern world of club football, put Arsenal on the back foot compared to rivals both domestic and foreign.

Things that would erode confidence in the manager have been constantly diminished, as has anything that would spark a MUFC-style revolt against Silent Stan's penny pinching ownership. Keeping Stan out of the spotlight and having a marketing spin wizard like Ivan as his public face, compared to the bumbling Equaliser Ed Woodward in Manchester, has to be a conscious PR move.

The result has been to sharply divide the Arsenal supporters, forcing them to choose between the club as an institution and Wenger as a person (or Wenger's pet players). It's forced people who love Arsenal to choose between a desire to see success for the club and a perceived loyalty to Arsene Wenger.

Name-calling, insults, epithets, threats--all are the result of this spin campaign designed to protect "the brand" that is Arsenal while simultaneously hiding whatever the actual truth is that exists behind the curtain. The club-promoted spin ends up pitting supporters against each other, with one side accepting the "orthodox" view and feeling the need to attack the "heretics."

"If you really loved Arsenal, you'd shut up and support Wenger and the players!" Unless those players are named Podolski, at which point you should shut up and attack the players.

So where are we now? Qualified for the Champions League group stages and the cash that gets Arsenal's summer transfers closer to break even. No plans to strengthen at the back (clearly a desperate need and just wait until one of Per, Koz, or Chambers gets injured), no plans to buy an established goal scorer (because remember, Mr. Yank Stats Blogger says you don't need one), and no need to buy a powerful defensive midfielder.

The purchases of Ozil and Sanchez, taken in a broader context, don't really signify much other than that there is a bit more cash on hand to keep advancing the brand. It's not about putting together a team that will win a league title. It's about the fear of harming the global cash flow. The trip to the USA this summer looks more and more like a one off designed to do nothing more than appease the Yanks who make up an huge percentage of the world's Arsenal fans.

Lastly, because I've gone on far too long, I want you to consider this line from the world's most famous Arsenal blogger:

"When you consider that we’ve just done Besiktas away, Everton away, and now Besiktas at home, that’s a pretty challenging schedule for a team that has got its troubles right now. Injuries, shortened pre-season preparation, new arrivals still bedding in and overall a group of players that hasn’t really gelled yet, to have come through that successfully is good going."

At no point in that statement is there anything that implicates Arsene Wenger or the club for creating those "challenges."  It's as though the "challenges" were handed down by God or some random force. NO!!!!

The TRUTH is that every problem Arsenal have right now is SELF INFLICTED!!!! Stop the club spin! Injuries?  You didn't know that Gibbs is injury prone? You didn't know that Arteta has had major injury problems in his career and is pushing 35? And all the other crap?

I hate corporate sloganeering as much as I hate anything in the world, but all I can say to this bullshit spin is

IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN, YOU PLAN TO FAIL.

Thanks for reading.

Attack of the unknown unknowns

How quickly things change.

Yesterday it was (most likely) club-planted spin from the Arsenal bloggers about how shite Podolski is and how he won't be missed and how Arsenal can only play Pulis-style ball these days with a hulking target man up front.

I ranted a few months back about "the way Arsenal play," that the biggest defence that the club-connected bloggers put out for Giroud was that Arsenal simply couldn't change "they way they play" to accommodate a lethal left-footed striker like Podolski.

Hard to believe, isn't it, that one of the most accomplished managers in the history of the club can't get his players to adapt, that the only style they understand is lumping it up the pitch to a big Duncan Ferguson-type, otherwise all is lost.

If you buy into that excuse, it certainly makes the marginalisation and eventual dismissal of Podolski seem perfectly logical. Of course, Arsene Wenger's third act in his Arsenal managerial stint is that he's morphed into Sam Allardyce without the defensive pragmatism. Oy.

One of the most famous Arsenal bloggers on earth (and obviously one with close ties to the club's PR staff) actually said yesterday of Giroud "he’s still by far and away the best option we have as the lone front man in the system we play."  Compare that to what I wrote less than a month ago.

This person actually speculates on the most unknown of unknowns at Arsenal, that "somehow" Sanogo "might" score and "open the floodgates." Really?  So let's get rid of a player that is a proven goal scorer and pin our hopes on a player who has never scored at all?

If that's not the biggest bunch of bolloxy spin since Donald Rumsfeld prowled the halls of the Pentagon, I don't know what is. The adherence to the party line has gotten so ridiculous that one begins to question people's grip on reality.

The same day as that attempt to smooth over the cracks was posted, Mr. Rational Yank Stats Blogger just coincidentally posts a treatise on the fact that clubs don't need a big-scoring forward to win the league. That is certainly convenient.

A club that has for the most part averaged fewer than 2 goals per game doesn't need a forward who can find the back of the net better than Giroud. Again, why not?  His 27 goals over the course of two seasons, combined with his Heskey-esque "qualities" will carry Arsenal to a title.

January of 2014 and Arsenal were down 2 of the main goal scorers in the squad, still lacked any adequate cover for the lone "striker," and everyone questioned how Wenger was going manage the transfers in order to sustain the club's first title challenge in years. Fortunately, he responded by

signing an injured midfielder on loan.

None of the "famous" bloggers talk about this response to an injury crisis at the club now. I'm guessing they assume that nobody who follows them has read "1984" nor lived through the good ol' days of totalitarian regimes in places like China, the Soviet Union, or Cuba. Bloggers?  More like members of the Ministry of Truth.

I've spent so much time talking about this issue of the injury to Giroud and the smear campaign against Podolski that I've not even mentioned the lack of cover at the back. Maybe that's what the club PR staff want?

Has anyone considered what might happen if Per or Chambers or Koz get crocked in one of the next two matches?  Has anyone thought about what selling clubs might charge if they know that Arsenal are well and truly over a barrel and desperate to find adequate support in the final hours of the transfer window?

You call that managing the club's transfer business in a proper manner?

The intentions of the ownership, board, and manager will be clear over the next week. I hope that simply contending for the 4th Place Champions Trophy isn't the goal of the season. But at least we know we can count on quality spin from the bloggers to soothe our spirits if it is.

Remain calm, all is well!

One of the hallmarks of global climate change denouncers is that they love taking an aberrant event and saying "Ha! I guess you can blame that on 'global warming,' ha ha!" or something equally thoughtful and intelligent.

They can't take a rebuttal that includes average annual temperatures on both land and sea, disappearing polar ice, droughts, or actual facts. No, it's the one snow in early April that proves that everyone in the scientific world is wrong and they're right.

They also have the support of "research" and "real scientists" who are paid by those who profit from unregulated emission of carbon into the atmosphere. This helps to lend legitimacy to their claims, too. You can say "but those people are paid to doctor up results and produce that information" and they'll say something strange and loud back at you just to shut you up.

Thus we have the reaction to Olivier Giroud's performance on Saturday versus Everton.

I want to make just a few points about the match.

1) I said on this blog after the Community Shield of Giroud, "Bring him on when others are tired and suddenly he looks fast and lively!" This is exactly what Wenger did on Saturday, and exactly how Giroud looked.

You're welcome.

2) What has happened to Arsenal?  Or should I say "Bolton-al?" Or "Ar-Stoke?"

Remember when Wenger teams played...um, without lumping the ball at a big lump in the middle?  It's starting to fade from memory now. And the attack is so impoverished that a player who managed 27 goals in two complete league seasons is the only thing that will help it.

I'm not sure what this means for the future, but this is certainly not the Arsenal of pleasing, attacking football that I first encountered at the beginning of Wenger's reign. His answer to needing goals is hoof it up the pitch to a lumbering big player.

Surely this is a sign of the end of days?  That Arsenal have to play Tony Pulis' tactics to win? No wonder he prefers a player who has never scored to Lukas Podolski!

3) The "Arsene knows!" folk are using the Saturday match to hail the improvement in the side, to trumpet the fighting spirit and character of the team, and generally to say that everything Wenger is doing is perfect and we're still on for the treble.

If you conveniently ignore the schoolboy errors and general lack of composure in the first 45 minutes, you can say just about anything you want, I suppose. What were the problems that put the side into 4th place again last season?

Conceding early from a set piece header? Check.
Playing a defensive line so high that when Per was robbed of the ball he was closer to the opponent's goal than the halfway line? Check.
Fullbacks the only way your attack has width, exposing the back line to a simple counter attack? Check.

Of course everything is fine because the second goal shouldn't have stood. The mistakes that have been happening for years?  Those are...well...those aren't important!   There is no global warming!

4) I've yet to see one person who loves Giroud and thinks he's infallible who isn't already a self-professed worshiper of Arsene Wenger. Makes me wonder if it's possible there's another agenda at work.  Hmm...

5) And lastly, like those who are paid to produce favourable results for the climate change denouncers, you have to speculate on why seemingly neutral bloggers manage never to have a bad word to say about the manager or his pet players.

Can any of these people who have routinely denounced Lukas Podolski apply the same critical eye to Olivier Giroud? No? Well, I suppose that's just pure coincidence and these people aren't being compensated by the club, through money, special access, or both.

So that's it, there's no global warming, Arsenal don't need an upgrade at the striker position or cover at the back, remain calm, all is well. 

Surprise! Meh, not really.

The Everton v. Leicester match had a slightly familiar feel to it. Chris Wood's late equaliser, and really, the way the entire match unfolded, looked a little more like Roberto Martinez' last Wigan side than last year's Everton.

Wigan shipped goals like mad in their relegation season. Martinez was committed to playing an open, attacking, very "Arsenal-esque" style despite having lost many of his best players to bigger clubs. I speculated at the time if winning the FA Cup and playing as though nothing mattered but style were worth the price.  Stylish football is expensive to maintain, as Dave Whelan found out by employing a manager who, not unlike Arsene Wenger, tends to eschew the more agricultural aspects of the game.

The open style and desire to play a pure and aesthetically pleasing brand of football requires talent, commitment, and desire--in that order. Managers who seek to have their teams play this way earn the admiration of writers and pundits because of the purity of their vision and their dedication to entertainment. However, they also often end up with P45 in hand.

Wenger and Martinez, if you listen to each of them talk about the game in the greater sense beyond just their own clubs or players, are seemingly cut from the same cloth. They want their players to embrace a philosophy based on movement, attacking play, going forward. Neither of them cares much for the efforts of managers like Sam Allardyce or Tony Pulis (or Alex McLeish, for that matter), who seem to succeed simply for the sake of succeeding.

And so, neither Martinez nor Wenger have ever cared much for what I call "pragmatic" football. Oh, Wenger was forced to embrace a more bucolic style during the 2013 run in, but immediately reverted to type once the next season began. And Martinez' first season at Everton saw a host of talented young players come together with a few veterans to amass the Toffees' highest points total in the Premier League era.

I would offer that Wenger will once again set his charges out at Goodison to play the style of football in which he believes. I suspect that Martinez will do the same with his.   Expect goals.  I can't say if the traffic will be as one-way as last season's fixture, but for a match that seemingly cries out for pragmatism (given Arsenal's thin defence and halting start to the Palace and Besiktas matches), my suspicion is that AW will ignore that.

SPEAKING OF WHICH...
Am I surprised that Arsenal still haven't bought a central defender?  No, not all. I don't expect Wenger to buy one.

Do I believe that Arsenal are "preparing a massive bid" for Cavani, and that Wenger pet Olivier Giroud will go the other way as a makeweight?

I've never laughed so hard at a transfer rumour. Never. This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Who honestly believes this?  Who retweets it? Who said it in the first place?  And who was the first person to give it any validity?

If this blog post is about managers reverting to type, who honestly believes that a) Wenger would give up on Giroud now that he's made his typically stubborn commitment to him with a contract extension? And b) That Silent Stan approves of spending more of his precious money on a player after he graciously allowed the club to purchase Sanchez? And finally c) That Wenger will be allowed to spend the money from Vermaelen's transfer after a summer of mad purchases?

Wake up. WAKE UP!

Discount bin shopping

The estimable James McNicholas remarked a short while ago on twitter (@gunnerblog) that although Mario Balotelli is utterly mad, £16 million is a great price for a player of his skills.

Well, yeah. I mean, of course, right?

First things first: There will be an implication from a large number of Arsenal supporters that by not buying Balotelli, Wenger has simultaneously left Arsenal weak and given Liverpool the upper hand this season. This is completely unknown at this point and getting one's knickers in a twist over Balotelli seems about as mad as, oh, I don't know, setting one's own bathroom on fire.

It's simply not something that can be proven as of now. At the beginning of the summer the debate among my group of Gooners was that Balotelli was clearly an either/or proposition, and he was a choice that would exclude players like Sanchez.  Now Arsenal have Sanchez, and that means that they were not looking at Balotelli from the off because although they're different players in what they contribute, they would occupy the same space at the club.

Now to McNicholas' point.

There are a couple of things about this that strike me as so obvious that they don't need to be belaboured. But I never let that stop me before.

1) Risk reduces the price of everything. It has a greater impact on the cost of things than any other factor and can only be truly mitigated through artificial means (i.e., lying about the risk).

That meat that's been tagged "Manager's Special!" at the market is about to go past its sell by date. There's risk in buying and eating it.

Bonds, currency, housing, automobiles, food, commodities, entertainment...and footballers. The price of all these things is moved by the associated risks once purchased.  Balotelli has never bitten anyone, but his perceived flaws and fears about his decision making have made his price significantly lower than what it could be.

Now I know that Suarez would seem to counter this argument but look at it this way--he went from untouchable to sold in the course of one toothy encounter in the World Cup finals. Liverpool wouldn't have even considered selling him before that incident. Yet the risk in keeping him outweighed the payoff.

What Balotelli suffers from, to me, appears to be some form of bipolar/borderline personality affliction. That's from afar and not worth getting into a discussion over, I'm simply saying that having been closely involved with someone who suffers from it, I know what it looks like.

He's not some great teammate who has one or two moments in the heat of a contest where he "flips out." He has a long history of doing disruptive things and destructive things to himself, his surroundings, and his clubs. He famously wore an AC Milan shirt while playing for Inter.

This wasn't a Paul Ince "oops this picture was leaked" moment. Baltotelli did this on a very popular Italian TV show. Yeah, you'd love to see an Arsenal player trying on a Tottenham shirt wouldn't you?

Here are a few more incidents detailing Balotelli's inability to exercise self control, in case you're not familiar with them.

Hell, maybe 16 million quid is too MUCH for him.

2) Do you not think Wenger has had more than enough of this type of player or player behaviour at Arsenal over the past 9 or so years?  If not, look at the players culled. I wrote about this last year and listed the remarkable number of exits from the Arsenal first team during the post-Henry era.

It's pretty clear that as he's grown older, Wenger's tolerance for buffoonery and disruptive players has significantly diminished. It's what makes last summer's inability to land a decent backup for Giroud even more ridiculous, considering how little regard Arsene had for Bendtner.

Now, I've heard the argument from people who think they know much more about football than I do, and they've said "Balotelli's problems are all in the past and were just due to immaturity." Yeah, because Calum Chambers is 19 and doing the exact same things, eh?  All young players are naturally arseholes, right?

There was never a chance that Balotelli was coming to Arsenal. Let David Brent deal with that headache. He is the world's best boss, after all. Just ask the Guardian. 

Crazy sex is hot, crazy life is just...crazy

Loving the Arsenal Football Club is like loving a crazy person. The sex may be fantastic, but when you're not doing that, it's a constant battle just to retain one's own grip on sanity.

Concede a cheap early goal from a set piece and it all seems so familiar. Resign yourself to a draw at home on opening day to what some would call an inferior opponent (although if you look at points accrued from January to May last season that's debatable), and then the great sex of an Aaron Ramsey late-late goal JUST FEELS SO DAMN GOOD.

And quicker than you can say "bipolar/borderline personality disorder," this reality hits you: Arsenal must play an away Champions League qualifier with three fit defenders. Not three fit first team defenders, three fit defenders.

The highs, the lows. Sigh.

Why, Arsene, why? Are we to pretend that this is some crisis that is not of our own making?  Shall we shake our fists at the heavens and curse our fate as though no one could have predicted this?

I asked after the Community Shield (which I still call the Charity Shield) that if Wenger went into the season with his defence as currently constructed, what happens when Gibbo gets crocked, as he always, always does? This was when Koz was a doubt for the Palace match.

The only answer was to go back to the past and slot Flamini in at left back. So that's what a team with pretensions to a league championship does, eh?

And a team that wants to win the Champions League goes to Besiktas with only 3 fit defenders?

Wenger leaves you shaking your head so often you could be a novelty toy that adheres to the inside of an automobile. He knew that Koz would be back late for summer preparation (although Sakho was often preferred to him in Brazil), that Per would be back later than that, and that he was selling TV probably before the World Cup even started but even if he'd planned on keeping him he knew he would be crocked to start the season.

He also knew he played with house money for an entire season when he gambled that he could survive with only two central defenders that he trusted. Talk of Giroud's fitness last season tended to overlook the fact that Arsenal were paper-thin in middle of the defence.

Given both TV's injury history and Koz's tendency to accrue foolish red cards, was that really the best thing?

And now?  I can't even understand this.

People talk of the summer transfers as a sign of Arsenal's ambition. Well, not really. The signings were replacements for players lost, save Sanchez. Arsenal needed a senior right back and replaced Sagna with Debuchy.  Wenger then loaned out his cover for that position and signed Chambers.  Fabianski departed and he signed Ospina.

Sanchez gives the illusion that Wenger went spend-happy this summer and brought in a host of players, but what was done other than that was simply filling holes that any club would fill. All the while leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the defence.

Wenger on 8 August: "We are not close to signing anybody." 

Wenger on 10 August: "To find another one (centre half) of that quality will not be easy."

This is the manager of a club that wants to win the league. Is the challenge of winning the league supposed to be easy?  Is signing a quality player supposed to be easy?  Do Grimsby Town go out and sign the best players in the world?

I'm so frustrated with Wenger right now that it boggles the mind. I said when they bought Sanchez that what was most surprising about it was that Wenger bought without first selling or arranging to sell another player, which he'd always done.  Not immediately replacing TV gives me that old sinking feeling again, that his fee is being used to offset the cost of some of the other signings.

Really, it comes down to this: If you're not going to develop and promote young players who can fulfill the role of cover for your first choice XI and not grow frustrated sitting on the bench, then you have to find competent senior players somewhere who know that they'll receive a nice pay packet while seeing occasional action. Other clubs do this.

What is the purpose of playing Hayden in preseason matches if you have literally zero faith in him to move up to the first team?  And did anyone see Miquel and his unpleasant and unsteady performances in the friendlies?

And let's assume by some miracle Wenger DOES buy an "emergency" centre half (although how you don't plan for the sale of your club captain that you knew about for months constitutes an emergency is a bit of a mystery), if it's a Squilvestre solution, is that any better than nothing at all?

I said on 14 August that if Wenger decided to buy adequate cover at CB then things really had changed. That still doesn't take into account that a team with championship ambitions would go into a season with only 3 regular central defenders, but whatever, old habits die hard.

Yet here Arsenal are, flying to Besiktas to start the Champions League campaign (and say what you will, but these two matches are extremely important) with the prospect of starting a back line of Debuchy, Chambers, Monreal, and...?  Or go against EVERYTHING Wenger has said this summer and rush Per back into play "too soon," after only one week of training.

This doesn't take into account the Everton match.  If the league is won or lost by just a few points, can you write off a contest simply because it's early in the fixture list?  We saw that with the Villa loss last season. Great teams, or teams that aspire to greatness, take nothing for granted. The margins are extremely fine.

I suppose if/when Arsenal come through all this, it'll just be more hot sex with a crazy person.  Unfortunately, the older you get, you start to value the rest of the time you're with your partner, and the crazy becomes unbearable. A nice walk in a park, a good meal with good conversation, hanging out with your friends is more valuable. Why can't Arsenal give us a bit of that? 

Too Many Directions

Those of you new to the Arsenal fold often give me blank stares when I reference things that happened prior to ten or sometimes even five years ago. It's often a funny scene when I'm talking to my Yank Gooner friends and I'll say "he reminds me of Ade Akinbiyi" or compare Giroud to Emile Heskey at Leicester City. It's fair to say that in the USA I may be a bit of an outlier.

There's nothing wrong with being a new convert. "All are welcome." No, I'm not going to cook you on a grill.   I'm not going to complain about enthusiastic people who support Arsenal--we need all we can get. It's just that my point of reference for the club includes Ian Wright and Davor Suker, and also my point of reference for other clubs includes seeing MUFC win the treble and give the middle finger to the FA Cup. Time has actually made fond memories of John Gregory's Aston Villa sides.

What prompted this was today's excellent post from Yogi's Warrior at A Cultured Left Foot. He quantified something that caused me to rethink what I remembered--or didn't accurately remember--about most of Wenger's teams, especially from the early portion of his tenure as manager.

There is something of a myth about Arsenal though. As much as Arsène has produced consistently sparkling football, only in the period 2003- 2005 have they finished top scorers in the Premier League. The rest of the time sitting somewhere at an average of 1.75 goals per game.

Even the double winners of 2002 weren't top scorers?

He goes on to note that under Wenger, once you get past the first few scoring threats, there wasn't much help getting the ball past the opposing keeper. I suppose what made the 2003-2005 period unique was that there was a strong supporting cast for Henry and Bergkamp, including the incomparable Bob Pires, Freddie Ljungberg, and a rotating pool of forwards. 

What I recall about the 2000-2005 period (and I hope this isn't my mind playing tricks on me) is that Arsenal were much more direct than they are now.  Was there less passing?  Was there more counterattacking? Were players more likely to have a go at the goal?  I'll leave the statistical analysis to that other Yank blogger who seems to have an infinite amount of patience and willingness, but my perception leads me to answer "yes" to those questions.

I think at that point Arsenal needed to be more direct because, frankly, Manchester United were the best attacking team in England and one of the best in the world. My hatred for them at that time was based on the fact that they could set out a side that featured Dwight Yorke, Andy Cole, and Teddy Sheringham up top, supported by the likes of Scholes, Beckham, and Giggs, each of whom managed to find the goal with seeming ease. Throw on a late sub like Solskjaer and you have an attack that was built to fill the net.

(Cole, it should be remembered, was an Arsenal player, shipped off to Bristol City by George Graham for the princely sum of half a million quid. Dear god.)

Bloody hell. No wonder Wenger had to find an attack that could match Ferguson's--United won three straight titles before the double winners took it from them at their place in 2002, and Ferg supplemented and freshened that squad with Van NistelHorse (who Wenger famously tried to sign; how many times have I heard that?).  Goals, goals, goals. And what was the goal?

Scoring.  What happened?

Blame it on the Barcelona, the team of dull.

I won't go into the langers who populated the Arsenal team in the post-2005 era (I've done that already) but in addition to their general shite-ness, they were playing for a manager who was transitioning from a style journos called "swashbuckling" to one of incessant sideways passing (Denilson, cough cough).  It's charming that Wenger looked at his charges in the late 2000s and thought they were as good as Xavi and Iniesta and Messi. Really, it could even be labeled "precious" of him. This was during the time when the Chavs of West London were playing ugly, negative football and City began stockpiling strikers "just because."

Wenger's response was to try to emulate the dull metronomic style of Barca, who unseated Real Madrid by putting out a team of clever midgets who could pass the ball, press the opposition, and find Messi. That's really all it was. Unfortunately, Arsenal didn't have those players.

This was the era when I began screaming at the telly "Would you just fucking shoot already!!!!!!" and I realised that Bob and Freddie and Thierry and Dennis were not walking through that door.  The ball went everywhere but in the net. Literally. With Denilson and Diaby you could count on more sideways action than a drunken university party.

Pundits began to remark that Arsenal were trying to walk the ball into the net--this was not a compliment. At the same time, Drogba was doing his impression of a battering ram. Keep the ball, your opponent doesn't score. This is opposed to the idea of scoring and forcing your opponent to take chances.

Arsenal today are still guilty of the term that I think sums up most of the past 10 years: over-elaboration. I think it's changing, slightly and slowly, to a bit more direct style, but it's still predominantly all about passing. I can't understand what Wenger's up to when he has so many players who would destroy the league if he set them out to sit deep and punish on the counter.

What's the point of all that sideways and backwards passing when your opponent has 7 players lined up across the edge of the 18 yard box? You have the Ox, Ozil, Wilshere, Ramsey, Walcott (when healthy), and now Sanchez. Invite the opponent on you and then slaughter them like you did back in old days. I feel like Mickey talking to Rocky--"Why don't you stand up and fight this guy, hard, like you done before?"

Four years ago some manager said after watching the World Cup Finals that the future of the game was the ability of sides to rapidly transition from defence to attack, moving the ball from deep to the opponent's half faster meant victory. Four years ago! Whoever this genius was (no, it wasn't LVG), he predicted the demise of Bore-celona football long before last season's destruction of Bayern Munich or Spain's humiliation during the summer.

People didn't think that Barca under Joey G. were boring because they had Messi. Arsenal have never had Messi. If you don't have Messi, all that passing tends to simply burn out and leave you with a great deal of possession and very few goals.

Direct and deliberate attacking play will win the league this year--if Arsenal play that way. I don't assume Moaninho will do anything but set out his lab animals to spoil the game. Arsenal can't continue to pass the ball in too many directions and think that 1.75 goals/game will accomplish much. Sanchez is a Lambo. I hope AW drives it like a madman.

Caviar trumps sausage...again

"With all due respect to them, I said to him that he was too good for Arsenal."--Steven Gerrard on a conversation he had with Luis Suarez in 2013.

"Have you ever seen Gerrard win the league?"--Matt Haines to some Liverpool supporters in Manhattan, July 2014.

Stevie G., the man who fell over, thought it was a good idea to insult Arsenal. He's the Liverpool captain, after all. He was the England captain, too. He'd like to thank John Terry for being a racist twat.

Liverpool are were once a club for which honours seemed to be an entitlement. They won the league quite a bit in the 1970s and 80s. Of course, the last time they won the domestic league was in between George Graham's two title-winning sides. That was, let me count, 24 years ago?

"Alexis Sanchez asked me 'Should I move to Liverpool?' I told him, 'They aren't the team they used to be. Join Arsenal."--Javier Mascherano

"You're never too good for Arsenal and Steven Gerrard knows that. But I can understand completely that he asked him to stay because he wanted him (Suarez) to play with him and have a chance to win the Premier League. But it didn't happen, and anyway, Suarez left."--Arsene Wenger

That cabbage truck that rode out of town?  Well, Arsene Wenger didn't just fall off of it. Were he a cowboy, he could calmly say "This ain't my first rodeo." Wenger actually has wits to match with anyone, anywhere.

Sometimes it's done simply through his teams' results.

“The difference from last year is we are on an upward spiral in terms of confidence and they are in a negative spiral in terms of results. And to get out of that negative spiral is extremely difficult."--Andre Villas-Boas, 3 March, 2013

How exactly did that work out for you and your wee trenchcoat, sir?


"Am I afraid of failure? He is a specialist in failure. I’m not. So if one supposes he’s right and I’m afraid of failure, it’s because I don’t fail many times. So maybe he’s right. I’m not used to failing. But the reality is he’s a specialist because, eight years without a piece of silverware, that’s failure."--Jose Mourinho, 14 February, 2014

Chelsea won nothing, and Real Madrid under Carlo Ancelotti won the Champions League.  Arsenal, of course, defeated Tottenham, Liverpool, and Everton on the way to winning the FA Cup for the fifth time under Wenger. Cheers, Jose.

But there are of course times when Wenger looks at those sniping at him and must think, "His jest will savour but of shallow wit, when thousands weep more than did laugh at it." And that is when he reveals just how much of a command of the English language he has.

"They are scrappers who rely on belligerence - we are the better team."--Sir Alex Ferguson, May 2002

"Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home."--Arsene Wenger, in reply

"I think he is one of these people who is a voyeur. He likes to watch other people. There are some guys who, when they are at home, they have a big telescope to see what happens in other families. He speaks and speaks and speaks about Chelsea."--Jose Mourinho, October 2005

"When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent."--Arsene Wenger, in reply

"If you eat caviar every day it is difficult to come back to sausages."--Arsene Wenger on supporters booing the Gunners during a dire 1-1 draw versus Middlesbrough, November 1998

"You ask 100 people, 99 will say it's very bad and the 100th will be Mark Hughes."--Arsene Wenger after Hughes defended Emmanuel Adebayor's stamp on Robin van Persie

So you see, Stevie G, in a battle of wits, you came unarmed. Better luck next time, lad.

Extenze for your manhood, Extension for your Giroud

A product that you (well, not you, but anyone) can buy for increasing one's male virility, or mass, or girth, or something, is called Extenze. I will not link to it, so if you're so inclined, you may seek it out yourself. Don't be ashamed.

What does it actually do?  That's the question that is elusive. Some people swear it works, giving glowing testimony in the adverts. A quick search for the words "Extenze fraud" returns hundreds of hits on the Google. So it seems that opinion is divided about the effectiveness of the stuff.

The contract extension awarded to Olivier Giroud seems analogous. It's a reach, I know.

Some people see Giroud as vital to the Arsenal attack. Well, yeah, when you play an entire season with him as your only striker, that's pretty effing vital to the entire team, don't you think? It's like a family with one auto, and if that auto goes out of service, you're well and truly fucked. Of course, no matter how shit the car is, you need it.

Some people see Giroud as a frustrating figure who can't perform on big occasions (Extenze fraud?), who misses wide open chances, who is a plodder, who spends as much time howling in Gallic frustration at his own inability to put the ball into the back of the net as he does playing his role.

Giroud has scored 11 and 16 goals in his first two league seasons. In 70 appearances he has scored 27 goals. In 73 appearances for Montpellier he scored 33 goals.

"The way Arsenal play" is a phrase I read attached to any discussion of Giroud where someone is vehemently defending him. I wonder why his defenders are always so vehement. They sound like people defending the USA's foreign policy. Calm down, it's really not that important that you convince the world that Giroud is the most important player in the world and you can inflate his goal scoring statistics to where it seems as though he's Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole combined.

It's fair to say that Giroud really does divide opinion as sharply as any player currently at Arsenal. His champions talk incessantly about his "hold up play" and how he "brings others into the attack" and certainly his "deft flicks and kicks."  That's brilliant stuff and with "the way Arsenal play" it's become necessary.

Oh and let's not forget that he defends on corner kicks very well. If you do forget that, his champions will vociferously remind you of it.

Every description of Giroud reminds me of how those who defended Emile Heskey spoke of the big fellow. Everything he did was vital to the overall cause wherever he played, as his managers and others were forced to remind you thanks to his poor goals return and glaring misses. "He works so hard," they said. "You don't measure everything he means to this team in stats alone," they chided.

This is what you say when a striker doesn't score, or doesn't score enough to justify being a striker. I think Duncan Ferguson had those same attributes, but because he was a violent twat nobody stood up to defend him. Big tall donkey men who don't score much are always vital in "those ways" because THEY DON'T DO ANYTHING ELSE.

"The way Arsenal play" has some sort of cast iron quality about it, and this was no more evident than after the Wigan FA Cup semifinal match and the criticism leveled at Lukas Podolski. "The way Arsenal play" means that you can't have a forward who "only" scores and crosses the ball well from the left. It's as though there is a Koran of Arsenal somewhere, or a Book of Leviticus, that sets forth the only ways Arsenal can play, and it is simply metaphysically impossible for that style to be altered to accommodate players' talents.

A team starved for goals can't alter its style of play to bring out goals from Lukas Podolski. It's a law, written somewhere, I know it. I can't find that book, but based on those who attack Poldi as "lazy" and a "passenger" and who defend Giroud, it does indeed exist.

(It should be noted that those who rant about Poldi's social media presence as somehow reflective of his worthlessness managed to keep opinions about Giroud's bedroom exploits to themselves. Well done, selective critics!)

"The way Arsenal play" and Olivier Giroud are inexorably linked now. He cannot be gotten rid of, he cannot be sat, he certainly cannot be criticised. He is above reproach. If you don't like him, people will bring up his assist in the FA Cup final (failing to mention his miss) and shout you down with it, saying that that moment alone is all the proof you need of Giroud's necessity.

I like the things that Giroud does well, I sincerely do. The problem is, if you build an entire attack, i.e. "the way Arsenal play," around one player, and your opponent manages to neutralise that player, you're fucked. Yes, I know Sanchez will change everything. I'm not saying he won't have a massive impact. I just want the liberty to point out that Giroud is not an effective striker and cuts a very frustrating figure up front. If he were NEVER called upon to score, I would say he's the best in the world at what he does.

It's those moments when he is needed, when a goal is vital, that I can't stand him. Let's hope that the arrival of Sanchez means we'll see something different in "the way Arsenal play." Otherwise, this extension could end up looking like Extenze--and not in the way it was advertised.

O $ay Can You $ee...

1989, another summer...when barely 10,000 people turned out in Miami's NFL gridiron stadium to watch the Arsenal Football Club defeat Argentine champions Independiente 2-1 on the strength of a brace by Rocky Rocastle in something called the Zenith Data Systems Challenge Trophy.

LINK: Local newspaper bothers to cover the match.

It was quite charitable of George Graham to field a very strong XI, but his post-match comments about "America needs to wake up" were far more telling. He certainly expressed a healthy scepticism about the USA's willingness to support the game, although in five years the nation would host what is still the most-attended World Cup in the tournament's history, re-launch a professional football league, and qualify for every World Cup finals since 1990 (England, ahem, 1994, ahem, cough cough). Yet at the time, with no interwebs to promote professional teams from Europe and South America, and more importantly no EA Sports FIFA video game to hype individual players, there was minimal interest in club football in the USA.

25 years is a long time to hold a grudge against an entire nation, however.

I've been very outspoken in my criticism of the decision makers at Arsenal (and by that I mean one person) and the club's unwillingness to come to the USA during the pre-season in the last 10 years, a time which has seen Spuds and Villa and Everton (hardly "big clubs") join the ranks of MUFC, Chelsea, Liverpool, and MCFC in touring the States.  Arsenal are a decade or more behind other clubs in England, Italy, Spain, and even Portugal in building the "brand" in the USA.

The growth of the Arsenal fan support in this country has been entirely organic, with attempts by the club to reach out to the millions of fans here seeming to come only grudgingly after much noise being made on this side of the Atlantic. That's a separate topic, but it seems that Arsenal took a nation of 330 million for granted until someone finally (to use Graham's term) "woke up" and noticed it.  Web stats show that the USA generates the second-most Arsenal-related web traffic after the United Kingdom. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Arsenal supporters routinely turn up in greater numbers at their local pubs and bars in the USA during match viewings. (This was certainly the case for our group in New Orleans, where the pub would open at 6:30 in the morning to cater to 30 or more bleary-eyed Gooners.)

Arsene Wenger notoriously loathed making pre-season tours, but was open to disrupting his Austrian camp preparations for far-flung trips to the workers paradise of Southeast Asia and other locales that seemed far more laborious to reach than the USA. A tour of Vietnam is nice, where the average annual income is less than $300 US, but isn't it a bit much to expect those folks to buy an AUTHENTIC (ahem) Arsenal kit that costs more than half that?

I know that I'm somewhat of an anomaly among the USA Gooners in that I've been following the club longer than Wenger has been the manager. I actually asked off work back in 2000 to go watch the Uefa Cup final (back then Cup finals could be played during the middle of the week with no thought to a USA television audience) and was one of 3 Yanks in an Atlanta soccer bar filled with ex-pats from both England and Turkey.  My allegiance to Arsenal is now stronger than that for any other sport team that I've grown up following and when I "married" my support to the club I agreed to do so for better or for worse.

Wenger's infamous stubborn nature, which is now cartoonish in its ability to be parodied, was part of the "worse" in our marriage.  Everyone knows that he essentially IS the decision maker at the club, that the board and Executive have deferred to him on every major move that has been made since Dein's departure. So one must think he had a hand in the club's failure to visit the USA even once while others made a concerted effort to grow their support and raise their profiles here.

The odd thing about Wenger's remarks the other day is that the translation of it seems to say, "We had no intention of coming to the USA until the support was big enough," rather than an intention to come here and proactively help grow that support. Every summer there would be sold-out matches in much bigger stadiums than Red Bulls across the USA featuring clubs such as AC Milan, Benfica, Barca, etc. along with Arsenal's English rivals. Chelsea?  Really?  A club that spent a considerable amount of time in the lower leagues before the arrival of Ken Bates?

It's so bizarre to think that Arsenal, at the moment that they were one of the two biggest clubs in England with some of the most famous World Cup-winning players on the planet in their team, didn't want to capitalise on that brand and equity to tour the USA. Or that when complaints about constraints on spending were the norm, nobody thought to raise a few million pounds on a visit to the States.  Or that if the option of doing so were mooted (and I'll assure you that someone over here more than likely reached out to Arsenal more than once during this time), that it was rejected out of hand.

(Side note--anyone who thinks that touring North America automatically interferes with pre-season preparation and will prevent winning a championship may want to look at the summer travel schedules of recent title-winning sides.)

As an example, when MUFC announced their summer tour of the USA back during the winter months, the accompanying article on ESPN noted that "Manchester United haven't toured the USA since 2011."  Wow! THAT LONG?  Two entire summers passed without a visit here?

I'm pleased that someone somewhere at Arsenal has forced this visit to the States on Arsene Wenger, and that the growth of support here was finally deemed worthy of it. It's a pity that it must be a one-off in a small stadium, considering the pent-up demand that so many of us here have, not ever having had the opportunity to see the club play live. I hope it's something to build upon. The integration of the Premier League into the culture in the USA has been underway for almost 15 years, and this country will represent a tremendous growth market for years to come.

After 25 years, it's nice to say "Welcome back, Arsenal. Now don't wait another quarter century to come again, please."

What's it all about, Alexi(s)?

After numerous discussions with fellow Gooners that started back in May, we came to the conclusion that of the available "big name" players (big name? world class? famous? in demand?), the one we'd like to see Arsenal acquire was Alexis Sanchez.

Got that? It wasn't even that we were saying who we'd expect to see come to Arsenal (Loic Remy), it was fantasy football.  Players from various leagues across Europe were mooted, and of all those, the one that we agreed upon was

ARSENAL'S NEW NUMBER 17, ALEXIS SANCHEZ.

I saw him play for Barcelona, and I wanted him to come to the Arsenal. Then that happened.

Oh, there were some other things that happened. The McPoyles (aka Liverpool Football Club) demanded that Sanchez come their way in a make weight deal as return for them losing their best player (and despite his perpetual biting, diving, and tendency to racially abuse black players, let's not deceive ourselves, Suarez was far and away their best player). They also got Rickie Lambert. That's a funny story.

Sanchez said, "Eh, hang on a minute! I don't really want to play for Liverpool. I don't like them, or their manager. I'D MUCH RATHER PLAY FOR THE ARSENAL."

Barcelona said, "Well, there's not much we can do about that. If you can't agree terms with Liverpool, we can't sell you to them." Then Juventus came along and said, "While we're signing Patrice Evra, who most people agree is utter shit, we'd like a bit of that Sanchez business," to which Sanchez and his agent replied, "Yeah? No thanks, really."

My opinion? This is the greatest signing for Arsenal since Dennis Bergkamp. That's almost 20 years that have passed since the other great signing in the club's history. Bergkamp was a superstar.

Yes, in that time, Arsenal signed Sol Campbell and Andrei Arshavin. Campbell was a free transfer, and Arshavin was...he was expensive, but probably not worth the price.

Last season Arsenal took advantage of the availability of Mesut Ozil after Real Madrid needed a bit of cash for the Bale deal. It was a great signing in terms of quality but not the same as this Sanchez deal. The reason being that, as great a player as he is, and I think he's magnificent, he wasn't a player that Arsenal particularly needed. It's great to have a brilliant talent, but Arsenal have a strong midfield in the attacking areas, and Mesut seemed a bit more of the same.

19 years have passed since Arsenal signed Bergkamp from Inter.

You may not remember it, but Bergkamp was not necessarily a brilliant star when Arsenal bought him, but he certainly was not a "typical" signing in the post-Graham, pre-Wenger era. Or hell, it was nothing like any signing Arsenal were making. Limpar? I hate to say it, because old Anders was such a great Gunner, but he was no Bergkamp.

Dennis was a genius, although at that moment he was a bit out of favour in Italy. Some people are mistaken that the story is "Arsene Wenger signed Bergkamp from Ajax." That would be so perfect, but it wasn't the truth. Bruce Rioch, Inter Milan, 1995, etc.

So, then, is Sanchez the biggest signing in Wenger's tenure at Arsenal?  Crikey, he signed some big names at Monaco. Actually, bigger names than he ever signed at Arsenal. I mean, you sign Klinzi and Hoddle, you're making a statement of intent. Fuck those Spud twats. But you understand what I mean.

Given the stakes, taking a "world class" forward like Sanchez from Barcelona, and keeping him from replacing Suarez at Liverpool, is an incredible signing. It fills a need with a dynamic, in-demand player. "Who are you, and what have you done with Arsene Wenger?"  Fills a need? Dynamic player? You mean you don't want to go through an entire campaign with only Olivier Giroud leading the line?

It's wages, not transfer fees, that drive the movement of players.  That's another reason I believe this is the biggest signing ever for Wenger, because I'm confident that Sanchez and his Mr. 20% didn't sign on to be a member of a new socialist order, or an old socialist order for that matter.  If Wenger is willing to blow up the wage structure even more, something is either very right or very wrong in Ashburton Grove. 

Ultimately, Arsenal can't compete with "the big clubs" on wages. If Sami Khedira wants £250k/week, it's unlikely that his destination is North London, despite his desire to drop round Mesut's flat and play the Xbox. Those are Chelsea/Man City/PSG/Monaco numbers. (Author's note: I would be more than happy to be proved wrong by any forthcoming developments.)

Another aspect of the Sanchez signing is that, as of now, no players have been moved along to offset the cost of his acquisition. This has been a hallmark of the Wenger era, that selling almost always preceded buying, or at least was being arranged. It makes one wonder, is he "front-loading" the squad with the cash on hand from new sponsorship deals, just as the club did when the move to the Grove first happened? Buy now when times are flush, go prudent again if the situation worsens?

It seems that the Sanchez signing has created more questions than it answers, at least from an existentialist point of view.  Until more signings arrive to fill the holes left by recent departures, we may not know. Strange delays in the introduction of the supposed new right back Debuchy, another fantasy football midfielder on order "from somewhere" but his identity remains a mystery are what we have. Oh, and the best striker available this summer. We have that, too.

Why I wish Arsene Wenger were not returning as Arsenal manager

So another Arsenal season has come to a close, and it has been punctuated by a new three-year contract for Arsene Wenger. Wenger is a man who will be given a statue outside Ashburton Grove at some point, hopefully whilst he's still extant. It's not as though he's a transient figure--rather, he is transcendent and transformational.

This season was a brutal journey for Arsenal supporters. I was willing to dream along with many others that Arsenal would or could win the league for the first time in a decade, but that dream collapsed and not through 3 heavy away losses to the clubs who finished above Arsenal in the table. I have said on numerous occasions that for my club, I prize the league above all else. I really couldn't give a toss about Europe, and while I enjoy a good cup run and have wonderful memories of the FA Cup (semifinals and finals included), it's a one-off competition that "even a relegated club such as Wigan" can win.

It's fantastic for the players to share the feeling of winning, of walking up the steps at Wembley to receive a medal and hoist a trophy, and then to celebrate with a parade. It beats all hell out of losing to Blackburn Rovers at home, and that can't be disputed. It beats all hell out of losing to Birmingham City on a schoolboy mistake, as well. So no disrespect to what the Arsenal accomplished by defeating Spuds, Liverpool, and Everton (in more pomp than they managed under David Moyes) en route to a trophy. There is a reason, however, that the FA Cup final is called "a lovely day out;" it's because the 38-game march through a season of league football is the true measure of a club's greatness.

The circumstances which made this league season open to more challengers and challenges came together in a unique confluence of events. Three managers for clubs who were considered to be the usual suspects were all newly hired and inheriting squads not of their own making, whilst the two others perpetually seeking to knock on the door to "big club" certification endured summers of considerable change. The only clubs where consistency ruled were Arsenal and Liverpool.

Arsenal had come back from the proverbial dead in 2013 to once again claim the Fourth Place Champions Trophy, seemingly built upon a foundation of stability, a parsimonious and pragmatic approach to the run in that saw a remarkable set of results that allowed them to pass Spuds and receive an invitation to Europe's big dance. My friends and I taunted Scousers with chants of "Wigan's in Europe and you're not!" which made us all feel a bit better about ourselves. We seemed primed to finally resume what was once an annual challenge for the title, given the relative "instability" in Manchester and west London and the dodgy defence in Liverpool.

What followed, starting with summer transfer doings, was in my mind a serious failure by Arsene Wenger to secure a league championship for Arsenal. There are three areas where, if we are to believe the manager is accountable, that his errors cost the club, and these are why I sincerely wish Wenger weren't returning for another three years.

I. The Transfer Market

It is a simple and painfully obvious fact: Arsene Wenger did not buy the necessary reinforcements during the summer of 2013 to successfully mount a title challenge in either the league or in Europe, and it isn't the first time this has happened. We are not privy to the inner workings of the manager's mind nor the restrictions placed upon him by club management, but it is absolutely unconscionable that Arsenal faced a league and various cup schedules with only one serviceable senior striker in the squad and three senior centre halves. No ambitious club would do that. It's ridiculous.

I can't stress this enough. As much as I sincerely love the talent of Mesut Ozil and enjoy watching him, Arsenal actually needed a proven goal scoring forward and someone to strengthen the back line so that any serious title challenge could be sustained should the inevitable injuries or fatigue set in. There's also a question of quality at the forward position, and again let it be said that while I appreciate the things that Giroud does well, he is not a striker who as a first and only option up front will win an English club a league trophy or any club a European trophy.

Giroud is essentially a "one in three" striker.  He scores at a one goal in every three matches pace, more or less. I'm not 7amkickoff and I don't go mental with statistics; I watch matches and follow clubs and use what I see (not what I hear others saying) to form my opinions, and my opinion is that Giroud is simply not good enough, and certainly not good enough to be the ONLY striker at a club with ambitions beyond fourth place.

I fear that Wenger will do this again this summer. No, I don't fear it. I believe it. I believe that Wenger will not buy a very very very expensive goal-scoring forward (a better than one in three) and Arsenal will go into next season with Giroud and Sanogo as the only attacking options, with possibly the one in three Loic Remy to support that pair. If not Remy, then probably some nearly free teenager who is coming off several injuries. Yes, I really believe this. I no longer have faith in Arsene Wenger at all when it comes to the transfer market, especially not in a season when a reserve keeper, a right back, a central defender, a "holding midfielder," and a proven goal-scoring "can win a club the Premier League or Europe" striker are needed. 

Surely anyone who has followed Arsenal for any length of time doesn't believe that Wenger will do the necessary business this summer. A new manager who is far less stubborn, myopic, or whatever caused Wenger's inactivity last season, should have been brought in to manage what are supposedly considerably more resources that are now available.

II. Tactical Failure

There is a reason that smaller clubs with smaller budgets and less talented players adopt a defensive posture: it is because they are smaller clubs with smaller budgets and less talented players. When it comes to Europe or challenging far richer domestic clubs, Arsenal are a smaller club with a smaller budget and less talented players. So what did Wenger learn from that life-saving run in of 2013, when a pragmatic and less-adventurous Arsenal minded the gap and won fourth place?

Nothing.

The opening day loss to Villa was a shambolic mess of tactical naivete and that wretched, useless high line. Arsene Wenger was schooled by Paul Lambert. Let that sink in for a moment.

Arsenal lost points from winning positions multiple times last season that eventually cost them the title. This is a fact, not a proposition. When shutting up shop was called for against Swansea, the Arsenal fullbacks were in the opposing penalty area and the centre havles were at the midfield stripe. On away days to "big clubs," Arsenal were so dire that it's not even to be believed. Injuries or no, the stretch where arsenal took just 11 points from an available 33 has to be laid squarely at the feet of the manager.

I don't see any reason to believe that this will change in the next three years. People of Wenger's age don't make radical changes to their approach to work or life, really. Wenger is as Wenger is. The high defensive line is one of the most infuriating things I've ever seen and continue to see it. It exposes a flawed team to simple counter attacks that lead to either goals, penalties, or fouls in dangerous positions that risk a sending off. Yet Wenger persists.

This will not be different next year, and because of that, Arsenal will not win the league.

III. Mental Frailty, Schoolboy Errors

Arsenal's FA Cup win is not supposed to be disparaged and the goals conceded are not supposed to be used as a point of criticism, but in truth it was simply more of the same and a better club would have punished the Gunners much worse. You know, like they did at City, Liverpool, and Chelsea.

There is no reason that a manager who goes on and on about mental strength can keep sending out a squad that is completely unprepared at the start of the match. The third leg of the managerial tripod is instilling confidence and belief that no challenge is too great for the side, and for far too long now Wenger's teams have come out in "big" matches and looked frightened. Timid players don't play instinctively, and they make errors under pressure that they would not otherwise make.

It got to the point where the mental frailty and mistakes became predictable any time pressure was applied in a so-called big match. It's ridiculous that the heavy defeats to the teams who finished above them in the table even happened once, much less three times. It could have happened in the FA Cup final if it weren't Hull City, too. I'm sorry, I'm sure that offends people, but it is obvious to me.  The pattern is established and I don't believe it will change.

So that is really the issue: There is an established pattern of post-Invincibles, post-Ashburton Grove move behaviour by Arsene Wenger and his sides. It can be written off to any number of factors but the truth is that during that 11 for 33 stretch, Tony Pulis was putting in better results than Arsene Wenger. I hate saying anything close to that but it's a fact. Pulis got more out of Palace than Wenger did with Arsenal.

Some say "Arsenal improved!" during this last season, using the points total and points gap to the top of the table. However, I think the goals scored and heavy defeats and 4th place finish and the visibly poor efforts in the "big" matches and the inability to take more than one point off the worst Manchester United side in a generation say that improvement is relative to the lack of quality among some other clubs. Improvement is, to me, subjective, and fourth place is not improvement. Cup runs are nice, but we've seen Portsmouth, Birmingham City, and Wigan all win cups and face relegation in recent years.

It won't change next season, and Arsenal won't win the league, and if I'm wrong, I'll eat a big carton of cream cheese.