The anticipation which built throughout December with each candle John Noakes or Peter Purves lit on the Blue Peter Advent Crown inevitably resulted in an anti climactic Queen’s speech and a fight with your sister for which you were bound to be blamed regardless of her having started it. Similarly the warm, flat lemonade sensation of watching Everton huffing and puffing against a lively Watford via a shaky internet stream on a glorious Saturday afternoon seemed scant reward for the days of mounting excitement with which we had looked forward to the return of the football season.
Of all the addicts I cannot have been alone in looking out of the window and thinking that any previous summer Saturday would have seen me out and about enjoying myself in the sunshine instead of sitting and watching such rubbish. I’d had the monkey off my back for two months and I’d actually got stuff done, been places, seen people. What the hell was I doing falling straight back into such ridiculous habits?
But then of course yesterday wasn’t really the start of the football season was it? Yesterday was like going to party on the day before New Year’s Eve where you didn’t know or like any of the other guests. The football season, that lovely big fat syringe full of the hard stuff we’ve been craving ever since John Moss blew the mercy whistle and put Aston Villa out of its misery on May thirtieth, the real deal as it were, begins this lunchtime. So, if you aren’t one of the sixty odd thousand blessed with the outstanding good fortune of being at the Emirates then you’d better ask your Mum if you can have your roast dinner on your lap in the other room today, because at one thirty there is only one place you want to be.
In my impatient expectation of this first act in the annual nine and a half month drama I have been musing on past first fixtures. Not, you understand, in an attempt to extrapolate some statistical significance in the results or from the performances, that would be silly. Win lose or draw this is simply three points out of a possible one hundred and fourteen. Some might even say that if a team has to lose a match then perhaps it’s better to do it on the first day when they have the most time to make up any ground lost on their nearest rivals. To you and I, quite naturally, such silly defeatist gibberish is anathema. We want to win every game don’t we? Glancing back over my shoulder to the twisting path of seasons past has been a simple exercise in nostalgia and an attempt to divert my mind from the build up to another league campaign.
My favourite opener in recent years has to be the trip to Goodison Park. A wonderful sunny afternoon decorated with goals like a overladen Christmas tree hung with too many tacky plastic baubles. We were majestic that day and I missed every goal. I was on holiday in Dorset and had to resort to the old transistor radio, not watching the game until we returned home a week later. It was a season that promised much; free scoring centre halves, Denilson and Cesc outstanding in midfield, the return after a horrible injury of the outrageously talented Eduardo and the sublime skills of one of the very best in the world, the diminutive but splendid Andrey Arshavin. The precipitant hope of that season deserted us in a handful of significant games and we ended up losing three more than the champions and so had to settle for third place and the Barclays Fair Play Award. Not quite the drought ending trophy many yearned for I suppose, but there you go.
Losing our opening fixture two years ago to Anthony Taylor was as horrible a start as I can recall. Not just the defeat but the way in which the game was essentially handed to our opponents in as appalling a display of officiating as you could ever hope not to see. The relevance of that first day débâcle was of course non existent as we ended the season in triumph at Wembley in the first of what would prove to be back to back FA Cup winning seasons. The rather tedious and lame conclusion towards which I’m stumbling being, that regardless of the result on any given day opening or otherwise we will inevitably go on to endure disappointment and enjoy triumphs; today is simply one of thirty eight.
But it doesn’t feel like that does it? Today’s encounter with West Ham doesn’t feel like just another game at all. It isn’t that it’s a London derby. The overwhelming majority of Arsenal fans have never been near the capital never mind being born within the sound of Bow Bells. It isn’t that anything will be won or lost beyond the points on offer. I think it has more to do with this: None of the other games we shall play will have had such a protracted build up with friendly and less than friendly matches both at home and abroad, new players in, some gone for ever, others out on loan, and of course no recent form to help us anticipate the days events. What we have ladies and gentlemen is a blank canvass and some of the most talented artists ever to grace the game standing at the easel, brushes raised. Will they produce a masterpiece or a dogs dinner? A Rembrandt or an eyesore? Only time will tell.
One thing might be worth considering. The fabled winning run. All title winning teams put together a long string of winning or at least unbeaten matches and as Chairman Mao taught us a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. The earlier we can get on with taking that first step the better. So in a way getting off to a good start could indeed prove significant in the long run as well as in the immediate. Let’s face it just another game or not we were all willing Swansea to snatch the winner they deserved yesterday were we not? I wasn’t the only one who left his chair when the disallowed third goal went in was I? Come on, be honest.
So what of our opponents today? There was a poll recently on some West Ham website or other asking if Slaven Bilić, while pondering his team selection, should prioritise his midweek Europa League game or his trip to Ashburton Grove. I along with many other Arsenal fans, working no doubt on the principal so beloved of one of the nation’s leading supermarket chains that every little helps, voted for the Hammers’ boss to focus all of his efforts on last Thursday’s encounter with Astra Giurgiu. Unfortunately he didn’t seem to have read the poll results and quite sensibly sent out his second string to face the mighty Romanian side in a game which therefore will have no significance on the West Ham side we face today.
The fact that Bilić was slaughtered by so called fans on social media for his obvious and sensible decision is yet further proof that not only our great club has a loud and infantile set of online fans who understand nothing and shout about everything. Of course West Ham would love to have a squad with the depth and experience to cope with fighting on several fronts. That however takes more time and money than they posses and a manager adept at rotating a large group of highly talented players. Competing as Arsène does year in year out both at home and abroad is beyond most managers and beyond most clubs. We are truly blessed.
Oh, by the way, before I trot off, don’t try telling me you didn’t waste the day watching the same old rubbish I did yesterday because I know you did. But all is not lost. This tyranny, this addictive behaviour can be moderated. Why not join me and try not to fall straight into the deep end this time around? Start out by pledging to only watch the Arsenal matches this season and not fret too much if you miss one or two of those. After all it’s only a game isn’t it?
Positively Arsenal 
And before anyone points out that Bow Bells is a cockney rather than Norf Lahndan thing, I know – I just liked the alliteration.
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Excellent opener Stew on the opener that is finally upon us. Feels like the Arsenal pre-season has been viewed and discussed like no other pre-season before it – symptomatic of our outrageously high hopes for the team this time around.
Fact is, today’s game isn’t the year’s first as 2015, almost nine months in, already feels like our best year in ten. But it suddenly feels as important as anything else played – we’re all confidently expecting a statement performance and result to boot.
Great article Stew, and many discussion points.
It looks as if West Ham have but one objective, currently which is to enter their new stadium as a Premiership side. So any draws against them in the FA and League Cups may well prove to be a stroll – in sharp and potentially bitterly contrast to all of their PL fixtures. Starting with today, which will be anything but a walkover.
Had the misfortune to watch the dreadful Utd/Spurs lunchtime kickoff. Unenergetic, unenthused, unengaged and any other ‘unens’ you care to think off concluded with a woeful result for Spurs and a less than inspiring win for LvG’s drab Manu.
By contrast, Swansea took the game to Chelsea at The Home of Chav in a fashion deserving of far more than the eventual point and a bollocking for the home side’s hapless medical team. Supposedly, Swans can now consider themselves worthy of sixth place come May but quite frankly they’d have blown away both the lunchtime teams and will likely do what they did to Chelsea – and much more – to any number of opponents. It’s ludicrously early to make predictions so let’s do it anyway – I’d love to see Monk’s competitive habit earn them a top four berth. Certainly on current showing they deserve it more than Man U or Spurs.
Wonder what City, Southampton and Liverpool have up their sleeves this season?
We all think we know what’s up Arsenal’s based on the end of last season and all the warm-ups – but let’s not take it for granted. Chelsea, to me, looked arrogant and complacent – the perfect warning for anyone assuming the season is ‘job done’ before a ball has been kicked.
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Quite brilliant. As good a preview as you might hope to find. My feeling is that we will know very quickly this afternoon what sort of a season it is going to be. Slaven Bilic’s Besiktas side made life very awkward for us last August. My memory of the first encounter was of full-scale and full-on rotational fouling almost encouraged by the officials. Against that backdrop the dismissal of Ramsey for two innocuous shirt pulls was hard to take, and somehow all part of the warp and woof of following the Gunners. It will be interesting to see how Mr Atkinson chooses to view such tactics today.
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Thanks for that, Stew. Spot on. Just the right start to the day.
This first step of a thousand that we take today does feel moreso exactly that than ever it has, to me.
To ‘out-positive’ even all those hereabout, I’m not wondering whether we may go on to win the league this year, I’m thinking of two or three on the trot!
So, until my bubble is burst, thanks for this morning’s leg up on to the next part of the journey; the true first step of which, was taken some years ago.
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so who are you all expecting to be in the team today, I think it will be
Cech
Bellerin Mertesacker Koscielny Monreal
Coquelin Ramsey
Oxlade-Chamberlain Ozil Cazorla
Walcott
subs
Ospina Debuchy Gabriel Gibbs Arteta Alexis Giroud
not a callow youth in sight
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I admit it felt wrong to find myself sat there watching the evil Mancs with the evil Manc brother in law but Swansea play the good stuff save for when they understandably dust down the bus for the trip to N5, and that was enjoyable I can’t deny it.
Chelsea’s tactical genius of a manager somehow got away with playing his best RB at LB last season but considering the last two games it seems that the improving teams lower down the league have the ammunition to punish that arrogance, always felt the critique for the Arsenal rookie opposite the skilled (& quick!) Montero was excessive, because it was. I’m not getting ahead of myself or the season but it’s true that a number of key Gazprom players are a year older and slower and the juju juice can only go so far.
Which leads in to news that west ham are selecting a 16 year old to play at CB?
Don’t know anything about that but I do know that Arteta will remember the off the ball hacks and stamps from Bilic’s team.
Flamini did for Besiktas’ efforts in midfield, the forwards composed the finish between them in bt ge second leg though tbf only the post denied chamberlain and took the tie into the second leg. So another test for Coquelin today, he might be targeted for the odd stomp or two.
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It’s warm today here in London, a lunchtime kick off thanks to the genius of the tv executives, players will tire in the second half.
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A great opener Stew and the stage is set for what i anticipate will be a hard fought game with the Ammers set up to frustrate us and nick a point. We clearly have the quality to open them up but patience will be required, on the pitch, on the bench and in the crowd. Not sure what WH have up front. Bilic i thought did a good job with Besiktas and had Ba more hair our CL journey last year might not have got out of August.
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Its warm here in France Fins so the Saturday games all kick off at 9pm, Sunday games 5pm or 9
No doubt the fans would love that arrangement (banned winkey thing)
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You still on holiday Andrew? Bloody hell.
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Back next Saturday, i shall be watching today on Twitter though
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WEST HAM UNITED: (4-4-2) Adrian, Tomkins, Reid, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Oxford, Noble ©, Kouyate, Payet, Zarate, Sakho
SUBS: Randolph (GK), Collins, Poyet, Nolan, Jarvis, Lanzini, Maiga
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Steww’s previews have become such a welcome pre-game necessity. Today he did not fail to satisfy. The think that strikes me is how much of we have in shared memories after 10 years of this blogging lark. That reference to Everton opener six years ago is perhaps my best memory of a hopeful start to the league only to be dashed by injuries, bitter defeats to our top-four rivals and the rise of the bitter malcontents online. The savaging of Denilson after he had his back injury comes to mind. This was when the media and the Arsenal fifth columnists made hay savaging Wenger for the club’s reliance on project youth, demanding the club splash the cash, failing to recognize that a stadium had to be paid in the midst of the great financial disaster. At least some of us kept our heads while others lost theirs. Six years later, not only has the mood changed almost 180 degrees but most importantly we have a realistic chance of challenging for the title with the quality of players we now have.
Well played Steww.
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Quite brilliant again Steww,
The real thing returns sounds like a reformation of a soul band but for us its much more important.
First day games are rarely like our trip to goodison and normally tight affairs with the players not only working the other side out but theirs as well, however we seemed to have gelled together as we were at the end of last season and that can only be good. I’ll try and get a stream but as I’m abroad I may have to rely on updates on here and on twitter. As the game finishes I shall be going into a gospell brunch let’s hope I’m singing loudly COYG
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Thanks for the kind words. Fact is with the quality in George’s squad I’ve had to work so hard just to keep up. Did you all read Tim’s piece yesterday for instance? Superb.
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Nil all after 20 mins. West Ham is up for it. Does anybody still think think winning the title will be a stroll in the park?
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Shame – Aaron keen to get on the score sheet which is great but Debuchy was in acres…
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Giroud not offside. Another fine move. Well saved again.
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Bloody hell -Adrian in fine form today. Dammit!
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No -= it was the defender. Well damn him instead then.
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very poor from Cech, got no where near the ball in, and WHU are in the lead.
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HT: Arsenal 0-1 West Ham
WHU with one effort on target lead, Arsenal’s passing has been poor, especially our final ball,
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Gosh darn it.That didn’t go to plan did it? Hopefully they’ll keep their toes and the keepers fingertips out of the way in the second half. Looking forward to seeing Gibbs and Arteta coming on because that’ll mean we have the game wrapped up.
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Eduardo – we have had some superb passing moves. One or two have gone astray. Do try not to fall for the trap of assuming a few bad passes means all our passing has been bad.
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Sorry Eddie but I disagree with your critique of our passing. We have had at least 3 chances created by our passing. Only excellent last ditch defending by West Ham have saved them. We miss Sanchez on the left to stretch them. Don’t be surprised by that change or Walcott.
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Steww @2:26pm – It is the Twitter reflex, 1 or 2 errant passes out of 10 and you are suddenly shit.
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Great picture at the top steww – really sums it up so far. 45 minutes and a bit more urgency, please.
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Nobody in the box at the end of Giroud’s cross.
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2:0. Bad goal to concede. Cech!
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oxlade-chamberlain loses the ball far too easily on edge of the area and cech seems to get caught by surprise by the shot and its 2-0 to west ham, self inflicted on both goals
walcott on for coquelin
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25 minutes left, Alexis on for Debuchy
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So I am a prophet; Walcott and Sanchez on.
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75 minutes, Giroud and Tomkins clash heads, both seem to be in a bad way, giroud seems to be out cold
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both players back on
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Oh well guys.
Plan B.
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If only Arteta could get a new body. Desperately missed him today.
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We missed a lot of players today, notna – most of them were on the pitch.
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dkg you are spot on, too many of our players went missing in action, and to cap it off we give them two very soft goals, poor marking on the first goal compounded by Cech error, and ox once again giving away the ball leading to a goal for the second, per doing nothing to close down the attacker and Cech error again. We lost the battle today, and you seldom win when losing the battle.
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Interesting start. West Ham seemed – in my amateur eyes – to have gotten their tactics right. Arsenal attacking just did not seem to have a cutting edge. I expect the players will be most disappointed from this result – will be interesting to see the results. Not the best result, but still there are positives. Fair play to West Ham, I thought they didn’t cheat, they played well, their tactics paid off. No complaints for the referee.
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It has to be said – well played West Ham. Very solid defence and I’ve just read that Oxford, who made his PL début today, is only 16. Remarkable. They didn’t park the bus, just played it clean and tidy and took their chances. I think I saw one journo who had them as relegation candidates – I don’t think so.
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That was awful. After all the talk of “cohesion”, they played like 11 strangers. I guess our run of form was going to end at some point, but first home game of the season is not the time you would want it to be. According to expert “in stadium” opinion, it’s all Giroud’s fault and “at least he has to buy striker now”. We could have played with 11 strikers and played all night, but it just was not happening for us today. Very un-Arsenal like, we barely created anything. Passing was off, first touches were heavy and lacked finesse. As for that woeful goal-keeping performance, surely that has to go down as one of the worst home debuts ever? If his name were Szczesny or Ospina he would be being slaughtered as we speak, but the silence is deafening.
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Wenger: “We were punished for our defending. We gave two very cheap goals away and gave ourselves a mountain to climb.”
“West Ham are a bit more advanced in their preparation. They’ve played more competitive games than us and we knew that.”
“We were a bit nervous and we didn’t respect the basics. There were no individually convincing performances today.”
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Is it safe here? Are we coming unglued? I hope not.
I’m just not sure what happened today. Don’t tell me they didn’t turn up…some mistakes came from trying too hard.
One positive was I thought we worked hard to win the ball back when we lost it. But West Ham closed down really well in midfield. Coq got a little more attention than maybe he was used to. That’s going to happen now. But Santi and Aaron were also surrounded often by three West Ham players, with no way out. I thought they would tire in the second half, and they did a bit. But that second goal shook us. Too much faith placed in the new boy, maybe?
One really telling thing for me was that excellent cross from Oli with only Mesut in the box. That’s not us. Players were almost afraid to go forward there. Or, no one was sure who would go and who would stay, so everyone stayed. We’ll have to sort that out.
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Wenger: “A successful season is how we respond to disappointment. We have to respond quickly because we have a tricky start.”
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Just had a horrible thought – maybe Cech is still on Chelsea’s payroll…
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@dk, while I agree that many players underperformed there was a hole in central midfield that none of those on the pitch could fill. Coquelin is a good player but his qualities are best suited for matches where Arsenal does not dominate possession. Ramsey is a good box to box midfielder but cant offer the calmness and quality in possession that is necessary to control a game. Cazorla has the technical ability but hasnt demonstrated the positional discipline required to play out from the back.
Arsenal started the second half with more urgency but instead of taking control of the game they recklessly bombed forward with little to no organization. As soon as the momentum was halted somewhat West Ham pounced on the acres of space that were available to make it 2-0. It was far too easy for them to regain possession and, most importantly, keep possession. Arteta is perfect for this kind of game.
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Palace away as always won’t be an easy game.
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Wenger’s after game comments
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150809/wenger-on-defeat-west-ham-and-cech
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One down, thirty seven PL games to go.
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seemingly that Ty bloke off AFTV got hit today for supporting our manager, what sort of idiots fight with fellow fans.
As for that Clause bloke, he really needs help, and don’t get me started with the guy who dresses up as a pirate, so many of the regulars on AFTV clearly never grew up.
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