So the 2015 Emirates Cup is done and dusted and next up, looming like a filthy, giant troll trying to prevent our passage over the bridge, is Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea in the upcoming Community Shield. Even though it is another glorified pre-season friendly, whose results will have absolutely no bearing on either team’s eventual league position, one can be absolutely certain that next Sunday both teams will try to lay down a marker as to how they will approach the season.
In the coming days the game will be predictably hyped by the media as Champions vs Contenders. Mourinho’s record of winning titles in 4 countries and his supposed infallibility vs Wenger will be thrust in our faces. In contrast, his record of substantially outspending almost all his opponents at every one of his managerial destinations will be shamelessly downplayed. But there will be one almost insurmountable challenge for the media; how to spin Mounrinho’s negative, boring defensive brand of football. I have no doubt he will have to employ these tactics on Sunday if he is to curb the insatiable desire of the current Arsenal squad to create goal-scoring opportunities and profit from them. These tactics are in his DNA, validated by a history of success, hence the inability of this leopard to ever change its spots. The major problem for the media is, when competing directly versus Wenger, Mourinho is completely exposed for the contrast in footballing philosophy, i.e. the professor vs the translator, the artist vs the artisan. This is increasingly validated by the masses of football fans across all the away-grounds that Chelsea must play who spontaneously erupt with chants of “boring, boring, boring” to the dismay of Mourinho’s fawning cheerleaders and stenographers in the press corp. I expect no less at Wembley.
But I digress. In truth the game is not about Wenger vs Mourinho, blah, blah, blah, but where is the current squad in terms of its readiness to make a meaningful assault on the Premier League title, the last such attempt, to my mind, having taken place in the 09-10 season. It is almost the unanimous opinion that this is the strongest group of players Wenger has assembled since the Invincibles of 2004. They are certainly more battle hardened and there is far more quality in depth than the VanNasriGas era at the height of their near-success.
So how much of a gap exists between the two clubs at the end of the 2015 season? Despite the siren cries of doom and despair from diverse pundits in the media, a look at the following table suggests Arsenal is not that far away.
| Chelsea | Arsenal | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|
| W | 26 | 22 | -4 |
| D | 9 | 9 | 0 |
| L | 3 | 7 | 4 |
| GF | 73 | 71 | -2 |
| GA | 32 | 36 | 4 |
| GD | 41 | 35 | -6 |
| Pts | 87 | 75 | -12 |
| Pos | 1 | 3 | 2 |
The difference between both teams can be distilled into four losses, most of which were the result of performances way inferior to the known standards of the squad as established in the 2nd half of last season. The seven losses total were to Chelsea – away, United – home, Swansea – home and away, Stoke-away, Tottenham – away, Southampton – away. With the probable exception of Chelsea and United, none of the other clubs are expected to beat Arsenal on an average day. Thus if Arsenal’s 1st team maintains the consistency and high standards it set between January and May of 2015, any reasonable man or woman would have to conclude that the gap between both clubs is surmountable.
But reasonableness is foreign to the legion of pundits feasting on the riches of the EPL. In April, even one of our more famous ex-players, Titi Henry, now seated firmly in the cushy comforts of Sky Sports, pronounced:
“Arsenal need to buy four players, they need that spine,
”They need a goalkeeper, they still need a centre-back, they still need a holding midfielder and, I’m afraid, they need a top, top-quality striker in order to win this league again.”
Despite the uproar from sections of Arsenal fan-dom and public repudiation of his statement by current players, most famously by Giroud, Henry as recent as mid July was still singing the same tune:
“I still think they need four players to get closer to Chelsea.”
In contrast, previewing the upcoming season Arsene remarked:
“We built up something special last season. That is a good team dynamic, a good confidence level, a convincing and efficient style of play. We want to work on that and we do not expect too much from outside now.
“It’s inside our squad that our performance has to be efficient. We have to focus on the quality of our performance inside the group. We also want to focus on the style of our play and our performance – that’s what football is really about.
“Part of the respect of your players is to focus on the players you have and to try to improve and look at the performance.
“We are open-minded [about transfers] everywhere and we work very hard to find the quality of the players we can. Let’s not forget that we have spent a lot of money in the last two seasons and we have bought as well Gabriel in the middle of last year to give him time to adapt and be ready for this season.
“If there is something more, we are not reluctant to spend the money. I know that you like to paint me as doing that! I didn’t do it for a while because we didn’t have the money. Now that we have, if we find the players we will spend the money.”
It is not as if Arsene words are inconsistent with his actions. So far there has been only one major signing, Petr Cech, clearly aimed at upgrading the quality of the goalkeeping department. Despite the mindless racket in the press and social media suggesting that Ospina has been a failure and therefore supplanted by Cech, in due course it became clear that Wojciech Szczęsny had been identified as the weakest link and is to be sent out on loan. This should have been self-evident to any unbiased observer of the Pole’s role in some of the poorer performances by Arsenal in the last campaign. But being unbiased is as rare as common sense among those who preach loudest about the needs of the football club.
Pre-season performances in Singapore and at home in the Emirates Cup suggests that Arsene has been working to build on the team dynamic and confidence level that was reflected in the annihilation of Aston Villa in the FA Cup final. Score-lines are usually meaningless at this stage but surely the freedom at which the team has been hitting the back of the net in these games is at minimum good for confidence.
What of the existing players whom Arsene says there is need to focus on trying to improve. The boss has suggested that the main objective is getting:
“…. some more goals from some players who are not really strikers and that was our strength traditionally. Our offensive and creative players scored 10 to 12 goals, that’s what you need. In the second part of last season we only conceded 13 goals in 19 games. So we want to keep that and add a few more goals. I think we can find that from inside, I am convinced of that. If we can find it from outside then we will do it as well.”
Upon reflection, it is clear that in 2013-14 Alexis (16) and Giroud (14) were carrying too much of a goal-scoring burden without the expected contribution by the British core in particular. Due solely to the injury blight, compared to the prior year, there was a significant fall-off in output from Walcott and Ramsey with almost no input from Oxlade-Chamberlain and Wilshere:
| 13-14 | 14-15 | |
|---|---|---|
| Walcott | 5 | 6 |
| Ramsey | 10 | 6 |
| The Ox | 2 | 1 |
| Wilshere | 3 | 2 |
The table does no justice to the significance of Theo Walcott’s the absence. In both of the years covered above he was absent for more than half-a-season. A better baseline for comparison purposes should be 2012-13, his last full season, when he scored 14 goals and made 12 assists. Surely this more than a 50% loss in expected goals from Walcott is arguably the primary reason why the club was not more competitive in the past two years. It is noticeable that the media is dominated by a clamor for a new world-class striker versus almost indifference to Arsenal re-signing someone who was on course to becoming a 20-goal a season producer. Tells us all we need to know about the hysteria and sensationalism surrounding this club.
Even the newly signed Danny Welbeck who was expected to make a contribution only scored 5 league goals in 24 games before being struck down in April.
Finally but by no means least I have included Wilshere as a possible source of goals, because from time to-to-time he has shown the potential. Last year’s strike in the match at home against Man City to put the team up 2:1, prior to conceding a late equalizer, is an example of his quality. Nobody expects Wishere to be a great goal scorer but as demonstrated by his volley against West Brom in May as well as his two long range rockets for England vs Slovenia in June, he can be a scorer of great goals. This is a very useful luxury to have.
Surely this blog hasn’t put too much pressure on the British core. But one cannot ignore the challenge that history has presented them. It bears reminding that after the heights scaled by the youth project, almost all the stars of that group showed, what can be politely described as, a lack of commitment to the club and an unwillingness to press on and win the League. Once they became stars, under Wenger’s tutelage, they all became susceptible to bigger clubs waving fistful of dollars. Arsene may never say this publicly but Adebayor, Fabregas, Nasri, Van Persie, et al had one element in common; being non-British they did not identify with the competitive tradition of the English League and could be easily swayed by more lucrative offers from competing clubs. In 2015-16, four years after signing Jack Wilshere, Kieran Gibbs, Theo Walcott, Aaron Ramsey, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (and Karl Jenkinson) to long term contracts and pronouncing them the British Core, fate has presented them with the challenge to help the club cross the winning line. Hopefully they will embrace it by staying fit and scoring the goals.
By @shottagunna
Positively Arsenal 
If Andy Nic could return with a French gem to rival Jeff then I am happy to back his application for shore leave. And maybe, with Georgaki off too, and in the interests of Euro balance a short term loan with an option to buy for Hunter?
Far from a holiday, but with the in-laws over the weekend, so might get to the less than Charitable Shield too late to volunteer for the write-up with any degree of confidence. But will be glued to the box for wet spam so will happily do that one if we win, and less than happily (but still positively) if we stumble.
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Hello Positivistas! Excellent post, Shotta!
Been a long time reader and follower of this blog…just didn’t comment. Well, all that has changed, thanks to ArsenalAndrew, Kelly and Anicoll’s persuasion to pop in some time. Great blog, you’ve got going George. You do have an eye for spotting talent as you’ve got yourself an enviable team of prolific writers. Glad to have made your acquaintance, albeit from faraway Nigeria.
Can’t wait for the season to kick off in earnest. I’m quietly optimistic about this team. Something special is brewing and M. Arsene is to blame! As always!
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from jeorge bird
Players in training: Debuchy, Gibbs, Mertesacker, Gabriel, Koscielny, Arteta, Wilshere, Ozil, Giroud, Ospina, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Monreal, Cazorla, Flamini, Chambers, Bellerin, Martinez, Gnabry, Akpom, Cech, Coquelin, Iwobi, Reine-Adelaide.
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Hi iDibs – welcome to the blog! Exciting times, don’t be a stranger!
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Can I remind everyone that I’m on the radio tonight? We could have a PA musical love in. This week the news story is http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/23/dwarf-dalek-ian-salter-bromley_n_7644150.html and I invite your song suggestions to go with it.
Of course if you know any other great bands feel free to suggest them too.
You can tune in on FM 97.5 but I’m pretty sure no one will be close enough to pick up the signal. The online stream is at http://www.somervalleyfm.co.uk
Thank you and carry on.
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@ iDibs Naija bros… i hail o
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Quality post from my day one shotta.
The real football is almost here but that was a nice little appetizer over the weekend. This young Jeff lad looks like the business. Iwobi as well. Looking forward to seeing them grow with us.
In other news apparently Benzema has declared the past is the past on his Instagram and looks set to reunite in London with his brother Ozil. Arsenal supporters going absolutely nuts on IG right now.
Welcome to the blog iDibs. Here’s to another exciting season of Arsenal football my friend
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Looks like Joel Campbell is on his way out of Arsenal, as Iwobi was given the No. 28 kit for training today, also Rene-Adelaide has a number in the 30’s after being 54 for the Emirates Cup, maybe a sign he too will officially be part of the first team squad this season.
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afcstuff @afcstuff 9m9 minutes ago
Abou Diaby has signed for Marseille on a two-year contract. It will be a pay-as-you-play deal.
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ArsenalAndrew, Team spirit, Loomer, thanks for the warm welcome.
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Shotta, has debunked the myth that the Arsenal need a 25 goal a season striker!
Nacho Monreal gave an interview to Arseblog ?
“What do Arsenal need to do to win the Premier League next season?
I think we need two things. First we need to keep going like we finished [this season]. We need to keep the [same] level. And the other thing, I think if the club signed one or two top players. We had a lot of injuries, but also we need a player who scores 25 goals per season. We’re lucky because Alexis scored 24 goals and Giroud scored, I dunno…19, something like that. We need more goals to win the Premier League.”
The strawfollowers have taken this reply out of the context of the whole interview.
They ignore the injuries to Walcott and Giroud. We can of course, debunk such low level experts. It is best to ignore them.
The allegations about Andrey Arshavin, have been given substance by Henk Spaan, and of course Mr Wenger, at the Euro tournament in Poland in 2012.
Henk is Dutch and his source is obvious, “…Andrey Arshavin was expensive, inefficient and unpopular in the dressing room, Marouane Chamakh a mistake, Gervinho inadequate for the Premier League. And manager Arsène Wenger’s protection of the young midfielder Aaron Ramsey, with his deficient view of the game and meagre statistics (only two goals and four assists all season), doesn’t help much either..”
This is supported by Valery Malev quoting Mr Wenger, “…conflict on the field of play between Arshavin and van Persie, swearing at each other and not speaking to each other for over a year.”
Mr Wenger, seems to have confirmed that Arshavin fell out of love with football and did not train!
I knew of the allegations at the time, but supported AA23 as an Arsenal player.
True supporters always remember the last victory, and ignore the latest defeat.
As for the latest sensation, we will see.
COTG
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It is always great to welcome new contributers on here. We might all have positiveness in common but we are still a broad church.
The 25 goal a season striker myth has been disproved many times not least by our own Ian Wright, his one league medal came when he didn’t play a full part in a season and the goals were spread around instead of being predictable.
I’m sure many of you know my affinity for Hayden and so I was pleased to see him do well when he came on at the weekend after such a long bout of injuries. I see no reason why he can’t be an able deputy for Le Coq.
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Stop pissing around and get over here:
http://www.uefa.com/goal-of-the-season/videoid=2263256.html
and vote for Aaron, even though De Bruyne’s goal is almost identical and the best is clearly the one by the Belgian woman.
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aob – my thoughts precisely about Hayden – great to see the lad back. Let’s hope he can now continue his progression after an awful year of injury. I think he will need a bit of time to be able to deputise for Coq though – maybe by Xmas.
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Welcome iDibs. I don’t comment much either, to everyone’s relief I’m sure.
I wish Arsene, in responding to the journo’s question about what Maureen had said, had just replied, “Next question.”
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Glad to see Abou Diaby has gone to Marseille and not to that clown Pulis. Will be following him with interest.
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Hayden looked very assured and comfortable on Sunday. Hope he gets a proper chance.
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Very pleasing news about Abou – I’m glad he’s got another gig and pleased it’s not with another PL team. What channel shows the French league? I need to start following that now!
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Bt sport Pass and if good wishes count for anything then Abou has a mountain behind him as he joins his new club on the Med.
Fair play to Pulis though, he offered Diaby a chance to play football when no one else in England did.
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I better not have to write this fucking Community Shield report myself.
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True Andrew @ 10.31 pm but I guess the PL is still troubled by thugs who are allowed to kick without fear of punishment in the name of ‘letting the game flow’ and maybe Abou will get a little more love in his home Country. I guess after 10 years with Arsenal it would have been hard for him to go to another club in England and I certainly would have found it hard to see him wearing another English team’s colours! I’m just glad that he has been offered the chance to play football at a good level and I hope he can stay fit enough to actually take up that opportunity.
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Thanks dkgÖÖnér and a-or-b. And George too. Especially George
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Highly rated Ajax U16 Donyell Malen has joined Arsenal.
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There have been exciting pre season friendlies before;
One for our older readers there
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I may be a little late, but I too wish to welcome iDibs to our little refuge.
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Diaby signs for Marseille. He allegedly had three different offers.
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The Times reporting that Arsenal can sign the chelsea goalkeeping coach if they want him, that cfc have changed their mind and will not stop the move.
This comes after reports of a big bust up between the coach and the poison dwarf last week.
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The manager said that the upcoming friendly game on a neutral ground could be “very interesting”.
Using the home made tin foil powered encryptic decoder that I built (occasionally misfires and makes text more complex then it was at first glance) this has been interepreted as: “they like Wembley, the lads are well up for it”
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Thanks for the replies on Hayden.
I don’t know much but I was really impressed by AFC’s two young CBs in that Southampton game. They are good ‘uns. And Chambers looked great again at CB from the highlights. Not forgetting Gabriel, who could be another gem too. Plenty of rest when required then for the BFG and Koscielny. We will see rotation at CB and elsewhere, as little as possible I guess but possibly more then in recent seasons.
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£15m for a future England CB of genuinely genuine quality?
Vengarggggh you scroooooge!
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Roughly the same sum for the Ox, factoring inflation for Walcott, Chambers.
AFC paid similar figures for the three stars plucked from Southampton. Is that a reflection of the potential seen in all three players? I think it is.
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Watching the U19 tournament. Zelalem is quite a massive talent. He has outgrown ds age grade team. I think he needs a loan move or an occasional run out in the seniors. At the moment, it is 2-0 to the arsenal against Celtic.
Willock looks a great talent. Reminds me of a certain Ian Wright.
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Was watching ESPN and they mentioned Platini is running and is favourite for the FIFA presidency. I wonder if he is good or bad for football and/or the special interests that ousted Blatter. He was supposed to be Blatter’s eventual successor in any case, back in the day. It could be worse than Platini is my thinking…
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Celtic pulls 1 back courtesy of a mistake by the GK. 2-1 Arsenal
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A few days rain, a little moisture in the air and in the wicket, and Boom! The Ozzies don’t like Jimmy Anderson up and at ’em, sorry Sav.
The tractors and buses will be out upon various PL pitches this season before the Arsenal come to visit. Will the experts notice (they haven’t to date)?
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HT: 2-1 Arsenal U19. The boys got tired as the half wore on. 2nd half should be interesting as Celtic U19 grew in confidence since they pulled 1 back.
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Praise be to the cricketing deities, less D**Ming about the place in this English cricket eleven. Another strike bowler, flair and attacking instincts, that’s what you need.
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FT in the U19 match: 4-2 Arsenal win.
The boys led by 2 early goals bt gt pegged back by a goal both sides of half time frm Celtic. 2 late goals the 1st a cheeky penalty kick by Zelalem and then a simple shot by Hinds.
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http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150728/szczesny-joins-as-roma-on-loan
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The problem with Platini, Sav, is he is one of the lunatics/bribed who voted in favour of Qatar for 2022 World Cup. He is also wholly bound up with the old FIFA guard at a time when little less than root and branch reform will do.
Thanks for the U19 updates chaps – still more good news in a good news summer.
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Too true AA. Out with the lot of them. I say. Not going to happen though. I suspect normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. So that English comic’s joke about the money from North Korea may soon be a reality. Thank God I couldn’t give a monkey’s about European Championships and World Cups. I’m a football monogamist – only AFC for me.
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“A RICO enterprise” was the terminology used by the learned gentlman from across the water.
Don’t think it matters which gimboid is asked to front up for the unsalvageable FUFA.
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When I heard the World Cup was in Qatar I admit I was surprised, even disconcerted. On reflection however as the competition has been in most other areas of the world, including those who have paid huge sums to FIFA to attract it, I accepted that it was a fair call and the Gulf’s turn.
The tournament in Egypt or a bigger Middle Eastern country might have suited better but they are poor and politically a little volatile. We saw last Summer that poor people and lavish international football contests don’t mix well.
I have since the announcement about Qatar an extraordinary hullabaloo about the decision, most of which has a rather nasty streak of xenophobia running through it, from the media, the PL grandees and disappointingly many UK fans. The general gist I feel is Johnny Arab has no f******* right to stage the World Cup in his hellishly hot alcohol free sandbox.
Apparently the average UK football writer has become an expert on health and safety issues and comparative mortality rates in civil engineering and large scale construction projects across the globe. Extraordinary.
Well bollox to that. I look forward to the World Cup in the Gulf and the puncturing of pretensions of those oh so privileged followers of the global game.
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Admittedly the chances of England triumphing are – well – about the same as usual.
We will however have the chance to blame the weather, the wrong time of year, the wrong type of grass, the wrong type of sand – you know the form.
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What a lovely, classy guy Mesut Ozil is
“@MesutOzil1088
Abou, all the best @OM_Officiel! I hope you’ll stay fit! ✊ #AuRevoirDiaby @AbouVDIABY”
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And Abou too
“Abou DIABY @AbouVDIABY 7h7 hours ago
Thanks to @Arsenal fans all over the world, for your best wishes and support through the years. 👏”
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I would never have thought of the World Cup quite like that but thanks to PA I have adjusted my thoughts accordingly. So much still to keep learning.
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A small conversational piece Tim – I may well be unfair in my characterisation of the relentless abuse of Qatar and the WC – though probably not entirely unfair.
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