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Arsenal and the Absurd

Posted by anicoll5 on September 20, 2015 in All Posts

Morning Positive people,

In contrast to yesterday’s blazing sunshine a still day with patches of brightness this morning. An apt metaphor for my mood over the past 24 hours in relation to football.

First, the game itself I think, because that is what football is about. I often barely mention the content of the game but today, I find it helpful to remind myself at least what took place, on the pitch, with the ball.

An early start at the Bridge but the concerns that some had voiced in relation to tiredness after our return from Zagreb did not appear to trouble us in a bright opening 15 minutes when the home side were forced back. Sanchez was pressing Ivanovic hard. Theo put in a couple of good runs from deep with balls played in behind the Chelsea centre back which caught them both momentarily flat footed and required a quick recovery in one instance and Begovic’s help in the other.

After that opening quarter Chelsea came back into it a bit more, Hazard was involved on their left and Fabregas was knocking some useful one-twos around the edge of the box. Kosc and Gabriel solid, Bellerin busy but in control. Aaron working nicely and the source of our one good first half shot. A stoppage for a knee injury to le Coq was worrying especially having seen the replays but, surprisingly perhaps, he was up and trotting after a sit down. Tough boy and his contest with Matic was a real pleasure to watch as both tackle hard and neither has a propensity for theatrics. For the remainder of the half the sides traded punches. No alarms at either end for the keepers. It appeared the first half would close at 0-0 with both probably neither surprised nor disappointed at the stalemate.

And then there was an incident, more of which I shall come to in due course below.

The second half commenced in an entirely different mood, ten men, a sense of outrage, and also the withdrawal of our midfield enforcer, with the relief of his earlier apparent recovery erased. A much harder task, but do-able against a side who in the opening 45 minutes had not demonstrated much in terms of attacking quality or threat on our goal. PSG had shown how to tame these blue “babies”, and surely we could do the same. My horizon for the game’s result had reduced, I admit, from the three point win to the hard earned but entirely deserved draw.

And then the Zouma goal !! Like you I watched it then, and I have watched it since. I could point the finger at Sanchez and/or Monreal so far as trying to stop the Chelsea player, or Kosc for playing the Chelsea line onside but getting underneath the ball. I There was a collective ‘switching’-off’ which the home side took advantage off. No one player was culpable. I know, I KNOW ( and you probably do too) it was a move they have practised and practised on the training ground, and you know we have practised defending against on our training ground. And yet there we were, a goal down just eight minutes into the second half and with the hill having risen in gradient appreciably.

Nevertheless, and to the credit of every player in an Arsenal shirt we did press forward at 0-1, we did take the game to Chelsea, we pushed them back and made one great chance on the hour with Zouma and Cahill floundering that Alexis put over the top from four yards out. It was no easy chance, and Begovic was well positioned to frustrate the Chilean, but the miss a symptom of our current goal scoring malaise. In its way the miss was as crucial a moment in the game as many other more vividly remembered ones. The game went to and fro. The Ox and Giroud appeared, and even with ten men the handbrake was definitely off.

Chelsea seemed to pull themselves together again and began to press us. Santi’s second yellow compounded our misery and Chelsea’s comfort. After that we rather lost momentum though not our organisation. I noticed a couple of minutes before his exit he had failed to keep up in midfield when chasing a Chelsea player so I think with so much work to do his day was done anyway. Pity because he had led from the front as a captain of the side should.

I can’t be arsed to describe the second Chelsea goal. We all saw it and it is not worth further reference.

Moving on, inevitably, from the football we have the controversies of the afternoon. Or strictly speaking just two controversies. First is the Spanish Brazilian Diego Costa who is, it appears widely agreed (save for one deluded Portuguese) a nasty piece of work, with no interest in playing football and, judging from yesterday’s and his recent displays, not much talent for it. I do not want to watch his shit. If his performance is what football is about then stadiums would be empty and television cameras elsewhere. The disappointing thing yesterday was, as Arsene correctly pointed out, Costa behaves like that game after game, week after week. And yet we, and particularly Gabriel, and the referee fell for it. As With the Zouma goal I have no doubt at all that the squad, every single one of them was fully aware and carefully briefed about Costa and yet ……..

If you want evidence the headline of the match report this morning on Arsenal.com it has us beaten by goals from Hazard and Costa ! Or is that headline humour?

Which brings me to Mr Dean and despite my general respectful support and effort to understand the difficulty of refereeing a game of professional football his performance yesterday was poor. I thought the performance of both assistant referees and of Mr Oliver as 4th official left a lot to be desired also.

I have no dispute in Dean or any damn referee pulling out cards and sending off players. There are rules in football, despite what Mourinho would have you believe, and if those rules are broken then punishments, even the red card sanction will follow. What I object to was his failure to apply those cards and those punishments evenly and to despatch the prime source of violence and bad behaviour to the dressing room when he should have done so (see above). Dean was guilty of lamentable inconsistency yesterday.

Onward we struggle towards the Lane on Wednesday, another hard contest and no time for self pity.

Enjoy your Sunday.

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Arsenal Versus Chelsea: Beware The Wounded Beast

Posted by steww on September 19, 2015 in All Posts

Chelsea. It wasn’t ever thus. There was once a time when the word evoked a different series of meanings, conjured other images. Fashionable clothes, big side burns, walking down the Kings Road, colourfully clad pensioners with shining medals and long memories, Charlie Cooke, John  Hollins, Alan Hudson, the Chelsea Drugstore (architecture meeting modern art on the corner of Royal Avenue and Kings Road), students and the Chelsea Flower Show. Everyone thinks their memories are embedded in a time of greater innocence, a halcyon era of a more simple, happier way of life, and I know I’m no different. However I do sometimes hanker for a time when there wasn’t this bitter loathing of other clubs. Did I despise Revie in the same way that Ferguson, Mourinho and Pulis make my lip curl today? Didn’t I used to look forward to a match, any match, regardless of the opposition? Maybe, maybe not, perhaps this is no more than an old man pining for his lost youth.

One thing not shrouded in a nostalgic rose tint is the fact that I was nearly a Chelsea fan. I know I’ve told you this before but it comes back to me each time their name appears on the fixture list.  They played the hated Leeds United in the first FA Cup final I ever saw and I found I rather liked David Webb for putting away the winning header. Coupled with my first league game as a spectator being at the Dell where Southampton entertained Chopper Harris & co. and it is always possible I might have decided that Peter Osgood was better looking than John  Radford, west was better than north and blue was better than red. Had the planets aligned in this way then these words would appear on Positively Chelsea and I wouldn’t be on speaking terms with any of you. Makes you think.

In any event I was never, not in a million years going to decide blue was better than red was I? While the papers shrieked about Chelsea Headhunters and bovver boot boys stalked the streets of West London my dad was quietly filling my head with talk of a different club, a club famous for innovation (under soil heating, son) class (marble, son, the halls were built of marble) and getting Bob Wilson’s autograph for me. When it came down to it Charlie Cooke was pretty cool but Charlie George was the single coolest footballer in the land. George Best? Not for me. When the other boys at school sang about Charlie being a superstar, they may have gone on to suggest he wears women’s clothes and a see through bra but I only heard the first line of their song.

So even though he was a Portsmouth fan, and even though he went to the Valley to watch Charlton Athletic when he moved to London, my dad steered me towards a life of vicarious voyeurism and masochistic joy as an Arsenal supporter. After the early seventies Chelsea never really showed up on my radar screen. It wasn’t until the silly money came along and put an end to the Ken Bates pantomime years that they surfaced as first a threat and later more of a torment. Their current manager is either trying to deflect media attention away from his troubled players or is genuinely coming unglued. I can’t tell which and frankly I can’t be arsed to give it much thought. He may be obsessed with Arsène but I’m not obsessed with him so let’s leave him to stew in his own juice and move on.

We have to travel to Stamford Bridge exhausted, dispirited and with our excellent return to form halted in Zagreb. The players had to complete much of Wednesday’s game with only ten men and our main striker Olivier Giroud is having a wretched start to the season. Replaced in the pecking order by Theo Walcott who is scoring goals for club and country with some regularity, our debonair French forward with the fine first touch and fluid passing skills was repeatedly fouled before being sent off for nothing in Croatia. Even here on what is supposed to be a positive supporters blog people prefer to blame our man rather than the referee. Honestly when a player loses the unflinching backing of the most one eyed, shamelessly partisan blog on the planet you know he is in trouble. What can be done? Well, personally I’d like to see him score a hat trick at lunchtime today but as he may not even start one wonders what he can do. Booed by sections of French support, wrongly castigated on-line at every turn by people who don’t deserve the eyesight with which they can’t see his strengths and the subject of endless transfer tattle as to who will replace him I struggle to remember a man less deserving of such opprobrium.

But football of course is a team game and the tribulations of one of our best players cannot derail the purpose of the whole squad. Per is still recovering from whatever evil spirit entered him but Aaron and ‘Ector should be fresh after putting their feet up while everyone else toiled and ultimately despaired in midweek. I don’t know how footballers do it but they have proved in the past that they can mentally compartmentalise different competitions. The Invincibles had a torrid time in the FA Cup and Champions league being knocked out of both by their two closest rivals but picked up where they’d left off in the league thrashing Liverpool in their next game. Can the current squad put the disappointment of Zagreb behind them and continue the progress they’ve been making in the league? Will Chelsea lift themselves for the big occasion in the way they’ve been unable to against so called lesser teams? These are the questions the answers to which should determine the outcome of today’s match.

Chelsea have problems, we all know that, they’ve made a shaky start to their league campaign but in the back of my mind there’s always the feeling of the beast cornered, never more dangerous than when wounded and underrated. Having said that we haven’t been riding a wave of perfect form, it’s been more a case of steady progress so I don’t think there is an air of over confidence. A draw would not be a surprise today as much as I’d rather see a few players add to an OG hat trick and give us a thumping victory, we need to temper our enthusiasm sometimes. The champions are not a crap team just because they have endured some crap results.

So two teams, both with points to prove to themselves and their fans after some unexpected reversals. Chelsea with home advantage Arsenal with the nicer fans, more intelligent manager and better looking players. Its in the balance really. They will kick us and dive and time waste and cheat as they always do, we will attempt to weave our magic patterns. It’s all a little predictable – all except the outcome. In total we’ve come away from Stamford Bridge having won 32 %, drawn 32% and lost 36% so history suggests we are more likely to get something than nothing. But as the famous football philosopher once said football is played on television not in the history books. Or something.

So, on that note I need to bugger off and leave you to your pre match routines while I start sticking pins in my Didier Drogba Diego Costa doll and polishing my lucky Arsenal mug. Not that I’m superstitious you understand, it’s just that, being entirely helpless to influence the result I feel a need to do something – anything – to appease the football Gods. I’ll be here to share the joys of victory with you, or should events unfold in confutation of this wholly desirable outcome then I shall retire gracefully into the shadows and pretend I never really liked football that much anyway.

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Moja je Arsenal puna jegulja*

Posted by anicoll5 on September 17, 2015 in All Posts

Good morning fellow sufferers,

A result in Zagreb that surprised and disappointed in equal measure. Not a terminal blow by any means with five games in the group to go and our qualification firmly in our own hands but a poor start. It is the result that in reason seasons we risked, for example in Brussels last year against Anderlecht, and before that against Liege, but invariably managed to pull the nuts out of the fire. We gave ourself a chance in the final 15 minutes to retrieve matters but, to be honest, that second goal did not look likely. Last night our walnuts were consumed by the flames.

I have no doubt in social and mainstream media the reasons for the defeat have been, are being and will be explored, the guilty men named and shamed and their fitness to wear the shirt questioned. I suspect Arsene’s name might be mentioned once or twice in relation to the matter. I do not propose to burden you further with my ramblings on the topic. You saw the game and will no doubt have made up your own minds.

Enough of this gloomy, self indulgent introspection, that is not what you came for.

To look at the positives I thought Ospina had a good game, made some crucial saves and some timely dashes from the line to cut out the position attacks. Unlucky with Ox’s own goal and nothing he could do about the second. Considering that was his first game of the season he is to be commended. Unfair on the Colombian that such a good night’s work will be remembered for the score line rather than his contribution.

Gibbs I thought played well, both defensively and in support of Sanchez in going forward. Another good display from a player who has been forced to cool his heels since early August but who stepped up with confidence. While Fate is cruel I have no doubt that Kieron’s display last night pushed him up the England left back list after Luke Shaw’s double leg break in Eindhoven on Tuesday.

Ozil played well. Sanchez, as ever, burned energy all over the pitch. Theo was sharp when introduced and took his goal well, and on another night was the man who could have snatched that elusive equalizer. Le Coq emphasised what an important player he is, first name on the team sheet as they say. My word what a difference a year makes to a player’s fortunes.

Beyond that I do not feel either heaps of blame or particular words of praise are merited. No one had a shocker.

The final positive aspect of the night is that Zagreb are not very good. I find it very difficult to believe that they possess sufficient quality to present as a genuine group stage winner or runner up. We have the opportunity to correct last night’s errors on Tuesday the 24th November. Make a note in your diary.

With regard to Olivier well, what can I say ?

Almost certainly nothing new. He has an irritating tendency, to me at least, to complain loudly and often to the referee in every game. Without doubt some of those complaints are justified. Some are not. And the difficulty for OG is that so repetitive are his complaints that the referee no longer can be bothered to sift the genuine from the contrived. And last night I am afraid he  ran into the wrong referee, on the wrong night. A harsh red card but entirely avoidable. I looked up the Roumanian whistler’s stats and he is not some grossly inexperienced official who over-reacted to the pressure of his first CL game, as I first thought. He has been refereeing in the CL since 2011. I trust Olivier will learn from his experience and return a wiser and more effective tip of the Arsenal spear. On that basis a lesson painfully learned may have a benefit attached.

And the final positive ?

No time to dwell on last night. While there have been perhaps justifiable complaints that Chelsea have had an easier run up to the London derby than us with their home tie against Tel Aviv I am delighted that we have only 51 hours now to kick off at the Bridge and a chance to show our quality and spirit. I suspect Arsene and every single player feels the same.

Enjoy your Thursday.

And in the spirit of amity with our Croat brothers and sisters a little more of their delightful language for you to wrestle with;

*my hovercraft is full of eels

http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/croatian/hovercraft_hr.mp3

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Arsenal Versus Građanski nogometni klub Dinamo Zagreb: Flights Of Fancy

Posted by steww on September 16, 2015 in All Posts

Please accept my apologies if my by now customary flights of fancy are a little more fanciful than usual but yesterday I awoke with a migraine. The only efficacious pain medication I’ve found in these circumstances sends me a little, not to put too fine a point on it, doolally. I’ve been returning slowly to planet earth but it’s been a circuitous route and bits of me may still be out there somewhere.

Imagine my surprise therefore on throwing back the curtains, sipping my coffee and opening the sports pages of Večernji List to find renowned Croatian football correspondent Robert Junaci in a lather over the anticipated visit of Arsène Wenger and his Arsenal team. We have a match today? This calls for decisive action. I resolved then and there that I’d better put down my Croatian phrase book ( Where is the nearest philatelist? : Gdje je najbliža filatelista? ) and get straight on with the job in hand, viz. producing a knowledgeable and above all relevant pre match piece for Positively A.

Before I pushed my favourite Zagreb based daily aside however, my eye fell to an interview with Marko Rog wherein the young midfielder’s views were solicited upon the prospect of facing the North London giants in the Champions League. He was asked a series of penetrating and incisive questions of the ‘What is your favourite colour?’ variety so beloved of Smash Hits journalists but did  reveal that he rated Mesut Özil the most dangerous of the Arsenal players. Sounds like a sensible young man to me. He deftly deflected the question as to whether he’d like to play for Arsène Wenger by protesting that, having only just arrived in Zagreb, now wasn’t the time to talk about leaving. Given that almost all the best players at the Emirates are only there for the opportunity to work under the great man we could all have answered the question for him.

Before heading to the old Smith Corona and spooling in a fresh sheet of foolscap to write this piece, another snippet caught my eye. Per Mertesacker will be missing tonight after making an unscheduled stop on the way home from training. His car apparently came to rest in the remnants of what had been, only moments before, a roadside fence. The unfortunate incident itself wasn’t news but what amused me was the opening sentence which loosely translated read “High guard Arsenal’s Per Mertesacker, who avoided military service in Germany because it does not fit in the tank,” It does not fit in a tank? Really? Wow. BFG indeed. One wonders whether the Deutsches Heer couldn’t have found him some other employment where he’d be less inhibited by his generous dimensions. I’m guessing being the peaceable, gentle soul that he is Per didn’t mind not being squashed inside a 43 tonne Schützenpanzer Puma death machine.

With Hector and Aaron not travelling, and if my Croatian paper is to be believed, then those two and Per join the short but acute injury list as non travellers. This leads me, Sherlock Holmes like, to assume the team sheet will feature M. Debuchy among the back four and an attacking midfield berth filled by A. M. D. Oxlade-Chamberlain. I am as you know averse to team selection predictions. One had just as well predict the likelihood of snow at Christmas 2022 for all the good it does any of us but I wonder if those left waving their pals off on the runway at Heathrow haven’t made the changes more obvious. One doesn’t want too many alterations to a winning team and with a few enforced ones already in place there is less room to chop and change elsewhere.

All shall be revealed in good time but whichever side the manager selects will need to be on its mettle against a very confident team who are super excited to be playing in the Champions League and are acutely aware how easy it can be to slip through the cracks of the group stage. My Adriatic sources assure me that the Zagreb players have woken every morning for months now thinking only of the Champions League. These guys are motivated. They have a fantastic home record and would love to add such a prodigious scalp as Arsenal’s to their collection. Now one can only assume that my sources spoke metaphorically when using such bloodthirsty imagery. This may be a club who’s CEO and manager are awaiting trail on bribery and corruption charges and who’s fans have a reputation for fiercely partisan loyalty to their team but for goodness sake they aren’t Stoke City.

So, while we should be safe from losing our heads, or any part thereof, we still need to put in a good shift to come home with the points. I expect the experience of Captain Arteta to be crucial in negotiating the rapids of the Sava. With his steadying influence and Theo’s pace on the counter we ought to be able to get the job done. Certainly if the enthusiasm of the home team overcomes their cautious instincts then our first goal against Stoke at the weekend may make a tasty template for tonight.

Tell me, can you experience an anti climax in advance of an event? Does the concept even exist and if so what does one call it? The Germans probably have a long convoluted word comprising several shorter ones to describe what I’m getting at. A sort of ‘looking forward to something even though you know it will leave you strangely unsatisfied’ feeling. Something like freutsichaufetwasobwohlsiewisseneswirdihnenseltsamunbefriedigtverlassen sounds about right.

In any event this is how I feel in the run up to these matches. I am quite naturally excited beyond words at the prospect of my club competing at the highest level of European football, as every fan must be. I am equally conscious of the debt we owe Arsène Wenger for getting us there yet again. It really has been a phenomenal achievement and we should be eternally grateful. However the group stages, and to an extent any competition where there are two legs to a tie, leave me knowing that whatever the outcome I cannot cheer too loudly nor sink too far into despair because nothing will have actually been decided. Unlike a straightforward knock-out tournament the early games in a group stage or the first leg of a knock-out match leave one playing all sorts of future possibilities out in one’s mind. Did we do enough? Can we overcome the deficit?  Maybe someone else will slip up, maybe we made a great start but could stumble later. The thing is so nebulous, the outcome so equivocal it leaves me feeling all freutsichaufetwasobwohlsiewisseneswirdihnenseltsamunbefriedigtverlassen in the build up to tonight’s match.

So what to do? Well, I think the only think we can do is hope for ninety minutes of entertainment. Either a nail biter that goes to the wire leaving us panting and weak like an ageing and unwisely over athletic lover, or a beautifully constructed performance of control and goals eaten slowly and with relish over the course of the evening. I think we should just enjoy the game as a one off and let the future arrive in its own good time. It’s going to anyway so why try to second guess it? Win, lose or draw all we can wish for is a good game, no injuries, nobody bribing the referee and the spectators all getting home safely. Not, you understand, that I’d be averse to a thumping great win. Theo is overdue a Croatian hat trick, after all, it’s been seven years since his last one in Zagreb. Now that’s a nice thought to savour as we all count down the minutes to kick off isn’t it?

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A Little Less Contemplation, a Little More Action

Posted by anicoll5 on September 13, 2015 in All Posts

Good morning from an early Autumn Norfolk, the faintest tips of gold beginning to show in the trees.

And what of yesterday?

Our opening 10-15 minutes were superb, as excellent a start to a home or away game as I can recall since we demolished Naples in October 2013. Stoke were immediately opened up by Ozil, Santi and Sanchez. Shots rained in on the visitors’ goal, the woodwork rattled, Butland flung himself left and right. As I have mentioned often Hector’s abilities as an attacking full back, his crossing and a beautiful touch when controlling and laying off the ball is worth the price of admission alone.

Watching the quarter of an hour of blurred red and white quality with an increasingly ragged Stoke I admit I was disappointed that we did not have at least one goal to show for such a period of dominance. A moment of weakness I now recognise.

Revisiting the matter however what that phase did give us was control of the game which thereafter was never in doubt. If Mark Hughes did have a ‘game-plan’ and his choice of a 442 formation suggests he may have had an ambition to take advantage of our sometimes dilatory entry to home matches then his scheme was shredded in about five minutes. Whatever hopes Sparky may have entertained as they climbed off the coach he and his players recognised by about 3.05 that it would be an afternoon when survival and a modest beating were the best rewards on offer, victory would have to wait for another day and another opponent. Once we had our collective foot on the throat of the visitors we never removed for the remainder of the afternoon.

The goal came of course on the half hour, with Theo enjoying the advantage of just one touch before slotting a difficult chance past Butland. Oh Theo, you get into the right position, you leave the defender(s) floundering, you can see the white’s of the keeper’s eyes ……………

Marvellous shot from Laurent on 25 minutes from 35 yards btw – well worth a mention and I want to see more of that from him.

But once ahead at 1-0, and with Stoke barely able to get over the halfway line, we dropped a gear, played possession football, created further chances which Butland got his hand to or we fluffed. It was a warm afternoon. Mesut and Alexis’ both had run their race by 80 minutes, and Theo gave way to a no doubt frustrated Giroud. More chances came, and went, before Olivier demonstrated the art of heading the ball in the opponent’s 6 yard box to seal the win and send the home fans streaming for that early train. Even then the Stoke keeper popped up again to deny Koscielny a late third from a header.

Yesterday was a football match to savour, to roll around the mind because there was such a lot of good passing movement, shot after shot after shot at goal, great keeping, even the tackling was clean and professional. Despite their reputation hanging over from the Pulis era there was not much to complain about yesterday from Stoke in terms of tackling and/or freestyle violence, although admittedly Adam was serving his ban. I thought Moss was fine and having watched the clash between Gabriel and Aurtinovic, which I had not seen clearly at the time, he called that correctly. Nasty piece of work the Stoke player and I was pleased to see Moss telling him to shut his mouth after the incident.

If I had been asked for a Man of the Match then for once it would be an opposition player and gone to Butland who saved Stoke from a 5-6-7 goal beating.

One final thought. With the assistance of Shotta we have been contemplating the football universe and how it can be understood, or at least better illuminated, through the application of mathematics and statistics. Can you have a 2-0 thrashing you, cos yesterday was as comprehensive slaughter of the Orcs as I have seen ?

Enjoy your Sunday, and don’t go mad !

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Arsenal Versus Stoke: Putting Lipstick On A Pig

Posted by steww on September 12, 2015 in All Posts

Exciting, free flowing Stoke City travel south to London today, whetting the appetite of sports fans across the nation. Mark Hughes brings an expensively assembled team of international all star talent to a clash already being labelled as beauty meets the beast. The home team, dogged, predictable Arsenal, have already earned a reputation for grinding out the kind of dour performances which garner points but not many friends.

As a player the Stoke manager was known for his quick thinking, fleet footed, grace and elegance and was loved and respected by team mates and opposition players alike. It is little surprise therefore that his management style has become synonymous with the very best that the beautiful game has to offer. What of his opposite number this afternoon? The home dugout will be marked by the fierce frowns of Arsène Wenger and Steve Bould, two men for whom the word pragmatism has taken on an almost religious significance.

Once upon a time, younger readers will be surprised to learn, Monsieur Wenger had hoped to carve out a reputation for entertaining, attacking football but was chastened after dragging his once great club through the longest barren trophyless period ever experienced by any football club in any era, ever. No team had so singularly failed to land silverware for so long. Year after year the huge number of trophies available were equally shared among the ninety plus professional English and Welsh teams – all with the notable exception of Arsenal.

Obviously in crisis and lacking the panache displayed by the likes of Mark Hughes in the transfer market, Wenger turned to the fans, recognising their superior wisdom, he begged their advice. Once the previously stubborn manager had made the changes the supporters quite rightly demanded of him (buying expensive players and winning trophies) things began to change for the sleeping London giant. This season they have reached the pinnacle of the supporters hopes, the apotheosis of their dreams. This season Arsenal have at last discovered the art of winning ugly.

The visitors on the other hand are awash with ebullient, effervescent crowd pleasing players deftly snatched from all around the globe by a forward thinking manager keen to match his interpretation of the game, the Ballet of The Potteries, against the rugged, uncompromising, no frills approach championed by Bould and his boss.

Actually, now I come to read that back I wonder if I might not have spent a little too much of the interminable international break reading the sports pages of our national press. Holy moley – that was an horrendous thing to inflict on a football loving public wasn’t it? We wait all summer for the bloody football to start and just as the wheels start to turn the entire train is pitched off the tracks and replaced with that most insipid pointless clapped out old charabanc that is international football.

I tried to follow Wales in some misplaced solidarity with Aaron but that all fizzled out and in any case the sight that greeted me when I tuned in was enough to discolour the bath enamel. The vision of Gareth Bale looking as if he’d been badly drawn by a Japanese children’s cartoonist soon had me reaching first for the off switch and then for the Alka-Seltzer. Add to that the hype surrounding the media’s darling, that rotund, out of form, anti-legend and his England goal scoring record, and my tin hat stayed firmly in place. I only left the Anderson shelter this morning when it seemed safe so to do.

The depressing news from Arsène is that Tomáš Rosický’s knee surgery will be keeping him out for a while yet. The fact that he was put onto the surgeon’s table as a result of playing in a stupid international is enough to make me want to chew razor blades. I’ve lost count of how many players we’ve lost to this nonsense but with Tomáš in the twilight of his career every game he misses takes on a greater significance. How we could have done with his input when things went a little awry in our early matches this season. How I mourn his continued absence.

Likewise Danny Welbeck is languishing on the orlop deck with the sawn off limbs, the extracted musket balls and the bloodied wooden splinters. A shame for the player who many of us suspected might make a real impact this season. He strikes me as the kind of footballer Arsène likes to work with. Young, a point to prove, lean and fast. Still, he might yet raise a few eyebrows during the closing overs of this campaign, the timing may yet prove fortuitous.

Today’s selection question must centre around our genteel giant German centre half. Will he stroll nonchalantly and with perfect timing back into the first eleven or has Gabriel had long enough, or done enough, to deserve an extended run? I have to say I’m happy whatever the outcome. Per is right up there among my favourite players but I really think our Brazilian with the idiosyncratic good looks is a heck of a player. His calmness when those around and behind him have looked, on occasions, less sanguine than we might hope, was eye catching. As I say, either or Arsène – I’ll leave that selection to you, the über bloggers can then decide on the rest of the team.

Can anyone remember what the hell was happening before our enforced hibernation? If memory serves, and I must warn you the old grey matter is showing distinct signs of decay these days, I believe we’ve played four. Two home, two away and while we are flawless on the road we’ve tripped over the kids toys a couple of times while running around in our own back garden. We create more, have more of the ball than anyone else and pass as accurately as the best of the rest but we don’t score enough goals. I think that sums up the early season form. Which leads me to the conclusion that we need to score more goals, especially at home. By God, this football analysis is a pretty easy beast to ride. No wonder journalists feel the need to make so much stuff up.

While my opening paragraphs were, of course, whimsical, specious and written merely to amuse, there was an underlying truth. Stoke City has been trying to change its image, keep the ball on the grass and trouble the local ambulance service a little less. To a certain extent it has been successful. Pulis was rightly famous for keeping Stoke out of the relegation area. During his reign of terror the club vacillated between 11th and 14th position in the league and earned a hard won reputation for thuggery and anti football. Under Mark Hughes they have improved their playing style and their league standing but I maintain that any club boasting Ryan Shawcross and Charles Adam among its playing staff has an awfully long way to go down the road to Damascus. Under Mark Hughes the full on leg breaking assaults may have diminished but more often than not they have been replaced with a more cunning system of rotational fouling, targeting certain opposition players and going in late in the hope that the ball and the referee will have moved on. A comment on Fans Network summed it up for me

They are not a split second late when fouling, they are a full second or two, by which time the ref has followed play on, as has the Lino. Calculated sneaky tactics by Hughes.

We don’t want to focus too much on the opposition though do we? Today is about how we cope with both them and the pressure from the home fans, and how the referee conducts himself. If we see a similarly robust performance from the man with the whistle as that to which we were treated at St James’ Park (and yes I know Andre Marriner got an awful lot horribly wrong as well) then Stoke will be forced to try to beat us or earn a point through legitimate means alone.

I am ever hopeful that the many chances we create will result in goals and today is as good a day as any for that to start. Arsène once said of Aaron, once he starts scoring he won’t be able to stop and I have a similar feeling about this team. The transfer junkies may be convinced that the only way to improve our ‘goals for’ column was by spending vast sums of money but I look at Walcott, Giroud, Sanchez and Welbeck and I see goal scorers. Our midfield is none too shabby in that respect either and even Nacho and Hector popped up with a couple of beauties last season. When you consider that both centre backs have a habit of sticking it in the net at important moments too you can see why I’m not worried about our potential to score.

Three points, a resounding return to goal scoring form and Hughes’ niggly, nasty team sent packing with its tail firmly between its legs and I will be a happy blogger come five o’clock this afternoon.

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Data-Based Arsenal

Posted by shotta_gooner on September 7, 2015 in All Posts

In a matter of days, the international break will be over and both the clubs and their fans will be back to the business of real football. The latter is not another snide put-down of the international game, which in my opinion is an important counter-weight to the narrow self interest of money-driven clubs.  However the best footballers and coaches in the world are competing at the top 4 or 5 leagues in Europe over a sustained 8-9 month period for some of the biggest prizes whether it be their national league or one of the UEFA titles. This is where the real action is, not on some bumpy field in San Marino vs some journeymen and part-timers.

To illustrate my point, despite a number of exciting games over the week-end between countries aspiring for the next UEFA finals (and for the next World Cup in the case of my Concacaf), the most enduring image I have of those exertions was of Wales, at home, struggling to breakdown a defensive-minded Israeli side with none other than former Chelsea journey man defender, Tal Ben Haim, looking like a top-class footballer. Last time Ben Haim played professional football in England, he was turning out for Charlton in the Championship. Cookie Coleman, the Welsh manager, who has already been chewed-up and spat out by the Premier League, had no Ozil or Cazorla to put beside Ramsay (or Ronaldo and Benzema alongside Bale). Instead he had the “great” Hal Robson-Kanu, a winger at championship-side Reading, as his sole striker huffing and puffing away for 80 plus minutes to the delight of Ben Haim and company.

That is why most of us welcome club football. There is no hiding place from the real competitive world. No place for excuses from managers that they had no players to choose, blah, blah, blah. There is also no hiding place from the data. It is remarkable how much statistics is being collected in club football, some of which is released in the public domain as is evident in websites like Squawka, Transfermkt, WhoScored etc. It is well known that infinitely more information is held in proprietary databases and only available to those with the big bucks.

In the case of our club, Arsenal, as far back as 2012 they purchased their own data analytics company, StatDNA, for £2.165m. Very little is said publicly about the company. We know it is US-based with a massive workforce in east Asia (India?) According to the Guardian, Arsenal is reluctant to divulge anything about StatDNA’s methods but quoted Ivan Gazidis with the following:

“The company is an expert in the field of sports data performance analysis, which is a rapidly developing area and one that I, and others, believe will be critical to Arsenal’s competitive position,

“The insights produced by the company are widely used across our football operations – in scouting and talent identification, in game preparation, in post-match analysis and in gaining tactical insights.”

Since then very little details have been given about the use of StaDNA in the footballing decisions at the club except for some remarks made by Arsene into the signing of Gabriel in the last January transfer window. According to the Guardian he was asked whether the decision was based on data analytics and that in response he had been coy. But he did discuss how he had monitored Gabriel by his numbers and how StatDNA had mitigated the potential risks.

 “We look at interceptions, defensive errors, winning tackles – what we call tackles is committing to win the ball,”

Despite or in spite of the abundant media evidence that the football club is significantly committed to using data to support its decision making, we have the same newspapers and websites going over the top after the close of the transfer window with banner headlines declaring a virtual disaster because the club decided against signing an outfield player (apparently Jeff is the new Invisible Man). So what is the data telling us after four games.

For the first time I am trying some graphics in the hope it tells the story better than some drab tables.  In this and ensuing bar charts I will be comparing the 3-year average (full seasons) for last year’s top-six clubs versus the 2015-16 season to date.goals per game

In the Goals per Game department, the information here is relatively straightforward. Apart from Man City, who are way ahead of their recent average, none of the other five clubs have hit their stride. While Arsenal shares the same cluster with United and Tottenham, it is noticeable that at this stage Liverpool is scoring 25% less goals than average. (Cue the cries for a world-class striker, not.) The safe conclusion to be drawn is that Arsenal and the other laggards will gradually get their scoring up and that City may have great difficulty sustaining their numbers given their continued reliance on Aguero for goals.chances per game

Despite most of them lagging significantly in goal scoring, last year’s top six clubs, except AFC, are relatively close to their averages in chance creation. AFC however is a clear outperformer at an insane level of 16.25 chances per game compared to 3-year average of 11.71, a 25% improvement. As with City and goal scoring, it is questionable whether this level can be sustained over the season given it is relatively the same midfield over the past 2-3 years.conversion rate

Finally, the data in relation to conversion rates among the top-6 is quite interesting.  Clearly Man City is blazing holes in the old onion bag with a conversion rate of 17%. This strike rate is only 1% higher than the 3-year average of 16%. In his past two years at City Pellegrini has set up his team to score goals with 102 and 83 successively compared to 66 in Mancini’s last year. These rates are a trend not an aberration.  Among the rest, all are off their 3-year average especially AFC at a puny 5%. As I have observed on this blog and elsewhere this is a statistical outlier and sooner or later, preferably the former, Arsenal will return to its average of 1.85 goals per game.  It is statistically inevitable.

Is there any doubt that after getting their after 4-games statistical brief from StatDNA, Arsene and Ivan decided there was no reason to make any panic buys on deadline-day, with or without the injury to Danny Welbeck.

Unlike the media, which thrives on emotion, in the silent statistical world, there are no headlines.  There are no narratives.  No excuses.  No hope and no despair.

Just data.

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Looking Through The Transfer Window

Posted by ArsenalAndrew on September 3, 2015 in All Posts

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According to the BBC, close to £1 billion was spent on player acquisition in the just closed transfer window, a new record, up 4% on last year at £870 million.  Factor in new salaries and the £1 billion figure may prove a tad conservative, all in. 

Some of these players come from other Premier League clubs but a huge number came from abroad. It’s hard to get accurate numbers but something approaching 160 players joined PL clubs and close to a staggering 300 were moved on, being sold, loaned or otherwise released. Getting a handle on exactly how many have joined and left, and how much money has been spent or accrued from sales, is a tricky business as ‘sources’ all suggest slightly different numbers depending upon which flavour you choose to consult. All the numbers in this article should therefore be treated with some caution and are offered up only as rough guides.

Whilst wholesale squad upgrades might be expected from newly promoted sides and last season’s strugglers (looking at you, Sunderland), the sight of Chelsea moving on around 34 players and Liverpool shifting 22 is something of a surprise. 

Man U have parted with around 14 but arguably with the greatest single collection of well known names saying farewell (Di Maria, Cleverly, Nani, RvP, Evans, Januzaj, Hernandez), their departure board is ostensibly the more shocking.  It’s been reported that to the man, the Manc side that so memorably lost 4-0 at Milton Keynes has now all been shipped out with the exception of De Gea whose registration remains at Man U after this year’s window only thanks, we are led to believe, to Windows ’95 and a corrupt file.  First time for everything, so they say. 

Eighteen are out of Spurs, mostly sold and 4 on loan, according to the Daily Mirror, at least. Watford brought in around 16 players, Villa 13. A bigger surprise here is how few Newcastle – described by some as a ‘zombie’ club – have brought in, around 5 new players.  Most clubs appear to have brought in between 6 and 10 players with Everton and Palace bringing in 6 and 5 respectively.

All well and good, the sheer volume of players – as expertly demonstrated by both Spurs and Liverpool in recent times – is no guarantee of quality.  But aside from the headline numbers, in many ways this has been a remarkable summer of transfers – and non-transfers.

At one time this summer, Man United were ‘associated’ with pretty much every player capable of lacing a pair of boots, both in the EPL and further afield.  That they ended up with just seven new players was more by accident than design and de farce of De Gea’s ‘transfer’ left them with more than egg on their faces. Whilst failing to reluctantly sell their best player from last season, they plunged in with a highly speculative £57.5 million (according to Monaco) splurge on a 19 year old with zero Premier League experience and few goals anywhere. The two biggest elephants in the red half of Manchester squat firmly on questions surrounding the manager:

Why can’t LvG can’t get on with anyone and why do so few players want to move to Man U?  

I just can’t work it out at all.  At the time of writing there are no accurate estimates available for the numbers of players in or out of the club that LvG has not, so far, fallen out with. 

That Angel di Maria features in the list of the vanquished is surely the single most telling factor in assessing LvG’s man-management performance to date with rumours of player tears at tea-time by no means uncommon.  And LvG appears to have left himself short at the front having retained from the old guard only Rooney and a strikingly rebranded Fellaini to perform the scoring honours; given the disastrous goal-keeping situation, this seems a little careless and it means much must ride on the immediate success of young Mr Martial as well as the hope that De Gea can be simultaneously rehabilitated for his final season in the North.

But Man u are by no means alone, at least when it comes to player retention.  

Brendan has now jettisoned something like half the players he (or his ‘committee’) has signed since he joined Liverpool a mere three years ago.  This season alone 15 have gone on loan and 7 sold. Players on loan are not necessarily a negative but in the context of The ‘Suarez Money’ which, like the ‘Bale Money’ before it, is largely a distant fiscal memory, one has to wonder about Rodgers’ ability to target the players the club actually needs.  And the trend, nay stampede, of departing players making their escape from Merseyside is hardly a source of celebration for anyone connected with the club. Yes, Arsenal have player turnover but the big difference lies in the significantly larger amount of cash spent on ‘duds’ by Liverpool in the process.

Chelsea have shipped out a staggering 26 players on loan (Daily Mirror) leaving one to wonder why would anyone bother to sign for Chelsea?

The defending champions have had an appalling start to the season both on and off the pitch and one wonders how much time and energy they must waste dealing with players they don’t really want. Is it simply Jose’s appalling nature that means they require a gigantic pool of players for him to dip in and out of depending on who or what he is blaming for any given setback at any one time.

So who DID have a good window? Man City have done themselves little harm in restricting themselves to around 7 new players but they have spent over £150 million, including daft sums on Sterling (£49 million) and Kevin De Bryne (£51 million). And these are in positions they arguably, and especially in De Bruyne’s case, did not need to fill. Only ten players left the club but Nasri will get his own name plate added to the bench …

And what of Arsenal who have sold six and loaned or released about eleven. It’s still a fair number, but it’s offset by the singular, towering figure of Petr Cech’s arrival in goal.  The release of the news of Welbeck’s surgery mere hours after the closure of the window emphasises still further how few viable strikers there appear to be available to buy, and it puts United and City’s excessive expenditures in this area into some kind of perspective.  

The point at which demand becomes desperation is moot but few would be surprised at Arsenal’s reticence to join in and, in any case, as the John Stones example (not to mention, supposedly, Karim Benzema’s) clearly demonstrates, sometimes it’s not all about the money. Add in complicating factors such as diminished sell-on values for the more elderly buying opportunities (Cavani) and the fog starts to clear a little when it comes to understanding Arsenal’s absence of action at this end of the pitch.

Swansea have added Andrew Ayew at no cost, without doubt, one of the buys of the summer. Pedro and Begovic are the stand out buys for Chelsea and silly money was not required to acquire either. For Liverpool only Nathaniel Clyne really stands out although there are great hopes resting on the shoulders of Benteke and they will have Sturridge to one day return. James Milner, on a free but presumably with hefty wages was also a decent addition and Gomiz has made a promising start to the season.

Although they bought no-one of great note, Everton seem to have missed a trick in retaining the much sought after John Stones. One admires their principles and determination to hang on to the lad but at what cost?

And it is surely a sign of the monied times that Stoke have managed to bring in players from Barcelona, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Chelsea and even Liverpool.  Get that lot performing and they may spring a surprise or two. Who knows, they may even develop a more palatable style of football, unlikely as that presently seems.

So exactly what can be surmised from this summer’s wheelings and dealings? 

For me, the stand out factor was the scarcity of genuine ‘star’ names signed, given the huge sums spent.  Yes, plenty of names we know and a few we with whom we will become re-acquainted.

Pedro, Cech and an ageing Schweinsteiger seem to be the exceptions that prove some kind of rule.

Few of us are sufficiently familiar with all the new players joining the league so the jury remains out but, I think, it is safe to assume an overall increase in the playing standard of the league.  If there were no easy games last season and last season every game seemed to be ‘must win’ then it’s going to be at least 4% harder this year.

Given that all this may come to pass, Arsenal’s solitary signing of Cech may yet prove to be one of the most significant. He joins Kos, Per, Monreal, Bellerin, and Gabriel in forming what may yet prove to be the meanest defence in the league and certainly our best since the Tony Adams’ era.

The value of conceding ever fewer numbers of goals rises exponentially in a league where the ability of most teams to score more has become a reality. That we have lost Welbeck until Xmas becomes more problematical in the event of injury to Giroud, Theo. Alexis or Campbell.  It’s not ideal but it is what it is.

The remaining strikers and the uber attacking nature of our midfield is such that our success in securing Cech may yet outweigh our inability to supplement and strengthen our forward line.

Time will, of course, tell.

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Arsenal Fail To Spend

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on September 1, 2015 in All Posts

It appears the transfer window is going to close with Arsenal making just the one signing, that of Petr Cech.

The disappointment of the majority of fans is clear. They wanted more.

They see what they think are weaknesses and can’t understand why these weaknesses have not be addressed. Which is fair enough really because every fan wants to see the team getting stronger and more competitive. Every fan, all of us. To dismiss this feeling of being let down is stupidity. It exists and as such it can’t be ignored.

I read things like this all the time:

“You are not telling me with £70 million we can’t buy someone better than Flamini.”

Well actually no one is telling them that – because we could.

Then you get:

“If you can’t get world class, you strengthen the squad.”

Now this is when it gets tricky, because this is logic that is undeniable.

It’s a fact that if you replace any player in the squad with a better player, then the chances of winning are increased. The only possible argument against this is that squad harmony could be upset and the famous “cohesion” might be weakened. But that’s a very flimsy argument to say the least. So why not give ourselves the best possible chance of winning?

It’s simple right?

Unfortunately, it’s anything but simple. It never is.

Let’s run with the £70 million figure that seems to be doing the rounds.

If we had used that to buy – let’s say Benzema – that might have given us a 25% (ok, I know I’m pulling figures out of thin air, but bear with me) better chance of winning the league. That’s decent value and money that might be well spent. However, we couldn’t get him. Or Lewandowski or Cavani or Aguero. In fact no one who would increase the chances of winning by that sort of margin.

So let’s say instead we bought Schneiderlin, he is better than Flamini.

Right?

But he is not a DM and so would he be better than Coquelin?

So would he play? Yes he would have been cover, but he might have increased our chances of winning by 1% or 2%. So the outlay must be compared to how much of a better chance it gives us.

Whether we like it or not, football is a business and has to adhere to the basic rules of business and ‘value for money’ is one of those rules.

Someone, be that Arsene, Stan, Ivan or anyone, has to decide how the money is best used.

With transfer inflation it might just be that we can only buy one world class player every other year.

The only thing I know for sure is that I don’t know all the facts and so I can’t really draw any worthwhle conclusions as to why we have not spent more in this particular window.

It looks like we were willing to, but couldn’t find the player or players that would meaningfully increase our chances.

We march on as we are.

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“People Want Success. It’s Like Coffee, They Want Instant” *

Posted by anicoll5 on August 30, 2015 in All Posts

My fellow Positivitas, another Sunday has rolled round and with our fourth game of the PL season, has settled. I think we are all now a little more confident and able to raise our eyes to look forward and upward.

The game yesterday was predictable in form.

We dominated possession, pushed the home side back throughout the 90 minutes and rendered them impotent (in any genuine football sense), and earned our expected three points. All Toon had to offer was stout defence, which was to their credit, and mindlessly stupid attempts to boot their way back into the game, normally through Coquelin’s shins, which was not. At one point it appeared the Toon players had lost their collective minds as Marriner had to pull out card after card. Had they found themselves down to nine men, or less, then they would have had only themselves to blame.

“Professional” footballers? Don’t make me laugh.

Some comment has been made concerning the sending off and that it had a significant influence on the outcome of the game. I don’t think so. We had dominated the game before the Serbian got his marching orders. We dominated the game exactly the same afterwards. Newcastle were pinned like a butterfly on a mounting board before the 16th minute, they remained pinned to the 93rd minute. I would agree that there are some games when a sending-off can be pivotal, just not yesterday.

Credit to young Francis. I suspect he was targeted by McLaren on the basis that, as a young player, he would lose his head and retaliate. He kept a commendably cool demeanour and let Marriner do his job. I say that maturity and good sense is another indicator of how far, and how fast, the young Frenchman has developed since his return from Charlton.

As for what I thought we did well yesterday I was hugely impressed by the work of both full backs. Defensively they had almost nothing to do but both worked tirelessly to support the attack, to offer an outside option around the Barcodes’ banks of four, and Hector was unlucky to miss out on the penalty that his excellent touch had caused. Both Nacho and Hector used the ball sensibly, passed carefully. A pleasure to watch. Against the lesser sides the attacking contribution of our full backs can be crucial. I would like to see both taking a few pot shots as well.

Good performances from Santi and Aaron, Gabriel sharp and ready to go as a starter, if required.

Less well?

I hardly need to point of the finishing, with Theo and eventually Olly not converting chances that on another day would have given us a far more comfortable afternoon. To be fair to both, only one was a wild miss, with Krul making two good saves for the others. Our lack of quality finishing concerns me, it concerns Wenger, I have no bloody doubt it concerns Theo and Giroud. Hard work needed in training and Danny back after the International break offers the answer, I suspect.

What the opposition did well?

Colloccini is such a good centre back I wonder what he has done wrong to have had to play for Newcastle for the past seven years, especially when you see some of the talentless donkeys signed by CL clubs in England, Spain, Italy and Germany in the years since 2008 (Yes Pepe I am referring to you among others). Coloccini was a rock yesterday in the air and on the ground. Excruciating that the Argentine was the one that deflected in Ox’s shot for the winner yesterday.

I salute you Fabricio as a worthy opponent.

On the “looking upwards” vibe we have slipped into fifth in the table on the strength of probably playing about 85-90% of our potential. Citeh remain the team to beat. Interesting next round of PL games though. We have Stoke at the Ems, assuming they still have 11 players eligible to play.

Elsewhere Manyoo at home to Liverpool, Chelsea at Goodison and most intriguing Citeh travel to Selhurst Park. Both Mancs side face tricky games, and if Chelsea are going to revive, then they face a battle against Everton and a pissed off Martinez after their behaviour with Stones.

Small steps in a long campaign.

Enjoy Sunday!!

*Sir Bobby Robson (as if you didn’t know ) 18 February 1933 – 31 July 2009

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