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Does Arsenal First Day Loss Put An End To Its Title Ambitions ?

Posted by shotta_gooner on August 10, 2015 in All Posts

Without confidence you are twice defeated in the race of life. – Marcus Garvey

So, in contrast to the pre-game optimism that Arsenal was a sure thing to the title, a metaphysical force which had swept up even of the most virulent doom-mongers such as Pedro of LeGrove and Phil of Angry of N5, in less than a week normal service has returned and the usual suspects have dismissed any talk of Arsenal’s title-winning ambitions. Post game, after the loss to West Ham. Twitter was awash with recriminations and witch hunts. As I write more is to be expected from the mendacious minions of the mainstream media who must sow tales of woe and doom to a gullible public who have been programmed to treat every win or defeat as a sure ticket to heaven or Armageddon. A measured, detached reaction to one unusual event does not sell newspapers or websites, a fact well known to those who make the bottom line the primary measure of success of their publication.

For us at PA and elsewhere, given our attachment to the fortunes of our football club it is understandable that most of us are super-happy, and twitter-bubbly after a win versus a 180 degree different reaction to a loss. In fact our feelings after today’s setback will be exacerbated by this being the first game of a new season their being such expectations fuelled by the mainstream media.

But our emotional highs and the lows have no bearing on the eventual position of the team. Two years ago we had a horrible opening-day loss to a Aston Villa with a virtual revolt in the support base as the black scarfers, bin-baggers and assorted malcontents went on the warpath, demanding Wenger be sacked. Yet the club ended the season in 4th place with 72 points and most importantly winning its first significant trophy in 9 years, the FA-Cup.

This setback vs West Ham is no different.

Despite the defeat, this team is statistically on track to compete for the PL title. This group is essentially unchanged since it went on a title-winning run since January of this year amassing 14-Wins, 3-Losses and 3 draws with 39 goals For and 13 Against. This is an average of 2.25 points per game. Projected over a 38 game season this yields a total of 86 points. For comparison’s sake, Chelsea won the title by earning one point more.

Of course there are those who will argue that performance over a past season has no bearing on the next. That is like saying Chelsea winning the title 2014-15 season has no bearing on those making predictions they will win in 15-16. No such departure from logic by the good and great in the Guardian on August 5th:

Last season Chelsea were unparalleled in attack until mid-January, and unbeatable in defence thereafter. In short they weren’t just the best team in the division – they were the best two teams in the division, and despite a lack of summer signings whichever one turns up this time must be favourites once again. – Simon Burnton

Chelsea carried all before them last season and demonstrated an ability to grind out results as well as scintillate. The rest have been playing catch-up ever since but, if José Mourinho’s transfer dealings serve to reinvigorate, the champions should remain a step ahead. – Dominic Fifield

Or from the BBC’s Alan Shearer, two days later:

But Chelsea are still the team to beat because of their experience and I also think they will be better than they were last year when Diego Costa was injured a lot last season and Cesc Fabregas did not play his best football from February onwards.

Unable to disprove the fact that Arsenal’s form in 2015 has been compelling, there are those who prefer to argue that Arsenal will implode as they often did in the past 10 years. Arguably most of these failures were due of the plague of injuries which have weakened the past squads at critical junctures in past seasons, the splintering in two places of Eduardo’s foot in 08-09 being the most egregious example.

This I agree will be the most important impediment to Arsenal sustaining its form throughout this season. That was the experience in the first half of last season when injuries to Giroud, Debuchy, Ozil and Koscielny put paid to any serious title challenge, despite the consistent run starting in January when most of these players resumed playing. The club is certainly aware of the need to curb this problem with the appointment of one of the leading experts, Shad Forsythe, to oversee player fitness.

Interestingly, despite the frequent assertions of many that the manager must be mishandling the players resulting in so many injuries, an actuarial study has found that injuries is the price of success for top teams like Arsenal:

Success comes with a particular price for teams who earn the right to play in European club competitions. A player who plays for a team that finished in the top seven places in the previous season is more likely to suffer an injury than a player from a lower team. This is exacerbated for teams finishing as champions and runners-up. What is more, players in the more successful clubs take longer to heal, with those from the top four being out of action for longer than the league average. – Actuarial Post

While Premier League history does show a pattern of the eventual champions starting off their campaign with a victory, the most successful team, Manchester United with their 15 titles, had a recent tradition of starting slowly and building up an almost unstoppable head of steam. Most have forgotten that in their 12-13 campaign they had a loss on opening day, and that their 3 previous title winning campaigns were on the back of draws at the start.

Clearly there is no historical basis for the writing off our league chances because of one aberrant performance. Rather it is a timely opportunity for Wenger to give the players, especially those who are senior members, a kick up the backside for seriously under-performing.

As Andrew Nicoll (@anicoll5) so pointedly reminded us “One down, thirty seven PL games to go.”

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Arsenal Disappoint, To Say The Least.

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on August 9, 2015 in All Posts

Great, just great. I suppose when I thought of calling this blog Positively Arsenal I should have considered how difficult that would make days like today. All summer I’ve been looking forward to carrying on where we left off , and within 45 minutes of the start of the new season the rug has been pulled from under my feet.

I know very well its just one game. I know we have great players .I know we have a great manager. I know all the positives but that was a bag of crap.

I could say we played better than United and Liverpool , but here is the problem, we didn’t play better than West Ham, and we were playing West Ham. Playing them at home on a perfect pitch on a beautiful day. We couldn’t even score a goal .

The buzz phrase this summer is “no excuses” and normally I would suggest people that say this are stupid and don’t understand the concept of random events, but as a one off game, I have to accept this is true.

All summer we have been banging on about team spirit and cohesion. Its hard to think that is the case, it looked like 11 strangers had met up and decided to have a kick about.

I mean I’m struggling here, I cant understand how so many players have a stinker all at once. Confidence should have been sky high. What went wrong?

The reality is until the first goal went in we were the better team. not by much, but we looked the most likely to score. Then that? What was that?

Arsene said “It was a collective one. I think there are many things to say about that. I knew that if the delivery was good, we would be in trouble before the free-kick was taken The concentration and the organisation was not perfect. Positionally we were too far from our goal and gave them too much distance to run into. We killed ourselves.” .

Well honestly, that’s not good enough.We had a back four and none of then are under 30 years old.How can that happen ? I don’t get it. Someone set the line there ! Who ? Cech? Per? Whoever it was they need to have a serious word with themselves.

And now to Cech ! Had Almunia done that he would have got savaged,and rightly so. And if that wasn’t enough he got his positioning all wrong for the second.However he was less culpable than AOC who gifted the ball in a dangerous area,

This isn’t getting any easier as I write.

Coquelin decided to do his worst Pirlo impression and sprayed the ball out of play time and again, almost like he was playing for line-outs. Perhaps that was because Aaron was usually nowhere near him as he seemed to want to be the No.10.

Its easy to be a smart arse with hindsight but Coquelin/Santi works, why change it?

Our passing was poor and some of the first touches were nothing short of dire.

If Arsene was worried about us being behind the curve physically then surely he should have stuck to the system that served us so well after Christmas last year and told them to keep it simple.I love Ramsey, but he need to get a grip sometimes and stop thinking he is Bergkamp on speed.

Right, its not a disaster, humiliation or a disgrace. Its a below par performance that resulted to 3 points being lost. All that is good about the club and team are still good. No point pretending its not a huge disappointment though or absolving the manager and players of any responsibility.

Sadly now the mood is down and already the team is under scrutiny and pressure. Any way we cut it up its a bad day.

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Arsenal Versus West Ham: Let’s Get This Party Started

Posted by steww on August 9, 2015 in All Posts

Chris and Julia-1-2

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?

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Team Spirit Can Be The Key To Arsenal’s Success

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on August 8, 2015 in All Posts

Team spirit counts for a lot. Many people talk about it, some are lucky enough to experience it, only a few know how to create it. Having just watched the English cricket team complete an unexpected and surprisingly comfortable Ashes win, it seems appropriate to cast the mind back and remember the previous Ashes humiliation just 18 months ago. A slightly creaky and aging side, under the captaincy of a young but experienced Alastair Cook were blown away by the ferocity of the Australian attack. Having started the series as favourites, English left the field humiliated, the 5 – Nil series loss an accurate reflection of the gap between the sides. They were an unhappy camp and stories soon emerged of dressing room strife: the England players might have all been wearing the three lions, but it seemed apparent that they were hardly even playing for themselves, let alone each other or the nation they were so dismally representing.
Only a few will know the absolute truth of the situation, but the most high-profile casualty was Kevin Petersen. England’s most talented and talismanic batsman was deemed surplus to requirements, accused of fostering resentment and disloyalty, and summarily axed from the team. Battle lines were quickly drawn: on the one hand the vox populi, aghast and enraged that the one player with skill, courage and box-office appeal had been cast aside; on the other the establishment figures, anxious to start again with a new set of young players, and unashamedly placing their trust in Cook. It wasn’t an easy time, with every subsequent English reverse (and there were plenty) greeted with calls for Cook’s head and Pietersen’s reinstatement. The easiest way for any media figure to ensure popular support was to publically back Pietersen, and there was no shortage of pundits, both amateur and professional, eager to do just that. On the face of things it was absurd that Pietersen remained out of favour, and the easy and simple logicians of the talk-show hosts and listeners couldn’t get their heads round it. On what possible grounds could he remain excluded?

And yet, watching the happy faces of the young England players enjoying the freedom of Nottingham and all Englahd this morning, it is tempting to think that out of the ashes of that terrible recent series has emerged a new team that is genuinely pulling together, and that the sum of their parts is very much greater than any individual brilliance they may possess. They have stuck together when it was difficult, supported each other in victory and defeat, and gained collective strength from their various abilities. The result has been stunning, but has not come easily: it would have been all too simple for captain and coach to bow to the wright of public opinion, and it perhaps took the iron will of Andrew Strauss, arguably England’s most successful ever captain, to ensure that there was no wavering when the finishing line was in sight.

But what relevance does this have to an Arsenal site on the dawn of a new season? Plenty I would suggest, as it seems to me that the most impressive aspect of the pre-season programme has been the genuine pleasure the players seem to be taking in their collective spirit. They appear happy in each other’s company, trusting in each other’s ability, and confident that their own individual contributions will be valued and cherished. It has been exciting to watch them and I sense they are on the cusp of real success. And who is responsible for all of this? The players themselves, of course, but also captain and coach. It only takes one powerful figure in the dressing room to cause disruption, to place individual need before collective responsibility for team spirit to be threatened. Only dressing room insiders can know, and sometimes a talented player sold can be just as important as a new one bought in the transfer market. And sometimes selling a player (or not buying one who is known to those in the know to be awkward) can be hard, especially as the court of public opinion will soon be in full swing if results take a momentary downturn. It is probably not a total coincidence that many of Petersen’s most staunch supporters have also been among Arsene Wenger’s most vociferous critics. Sometimes what is most seemingly obvious is not necessarily the right answer: less can be more, and as this season unfolds I feel certain that it will be those clubs who have the best spirit who will do the best. I like to think that the current Arsenal side is particularly well–served in that respect.

By, @foreverheady

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Arsenal Can Win The Title With Giroud

Posted by shotta_gooner on August 5, 2015 in All Posts

“People are too quick to accept conventional wisdom, because it sounds basically true and it tends to be reinforced by both their peers and opinion leaders, many of whom have never looked at whether the facts support the received wisdom. It’s a basic fact of life that many things “everybody knows” turn out to be wrong.” ― Jim Rogers

The above named Mr. Rogers is a renowned investor who made his fortune several times over by investing where others fear to tread. It may be ancient history but in 1973 Rogers and George Soros founded the Quantum Fund whose portfolio in the following 10 years gained 4200% while the S&P advanced about 47%. He is somewhat relevant to an Arsenal football blog because he is famous in 1992 for bucking the wisdom of the great and good in the English financial media by making a cool £1 billion betting against the British pound when it crashed out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM).

While I am not able to bet the farm as Rogers did in 1992, it is my contention that any objective review of the facts will refute the now conventional wisdom that Arsenal cannot win the 2016 title with Giroud as the main striker. The most notorious proponent of that viewpoint is a certain legendary striker, turned pundit who was very explicit:

“I think Giroud is doing extremely well. But can you win the league with him? I wouldn’t think so.
“He does a job, and he does it ever so well, but you can’t win the league.”

The backlash from making this very direct criticism of Giroud, particularly from Wenger and his teammates, have forced the legend and his fellow pundits to be a little more circumspect.

This may explain explain why another former Arsenal great, Martin Keown, on August 1st on TalkSport, took a more roundabout way of “dissing” the Frenchman by using his non-selection in one game to conclude that:

“ If you’re not the champions and your striker, Olivier Giroud, didn’t start the FA Cup final last season, there are question marks over that position and maybe they need to be addressed…. “Why not go for Karim Benzema to play down the middle.”

Nick Miller, an ESPN hack, resorted to innuendo, by suggesting that Lord Harris, “the £200 million-man”, was speaking for the manager when he said “We get a list of the players that Wenger wants. On the list is a centre-forward, but I’m not going to tell you who he is.” Miller was thus able to leap to the stunning conclusion that:

“It isn’t much of a stretch to say this is a tacit admission that Wenger also believes he can do better, that Giroud is a fine striker but not quite good enough to help Arsenal win the league.”

Apart from outright belittling the man who is currently Arsenal’s main striker, throughout the off-season there was/has been a growing clamor for the signing of Karim Benzema, who, whether one admits it or not, is a like-for-like replacement.This led to the spectacle in late July of near hysteria on Twitter with almost all the pro-Arsenal accounts convinced of the imminent signing of the Madridista. This was based solely on an Instagram posting by the player of pictures of himself on a private jet with the message “Leave the past to the past. #directionfuture.”

Doesn’t it say something about the dangers of conventional wisdom when the fanbase so easily falls for a blatant rumor even though there were ample reasons to be skeptical, e.g. at the time Benzema was still with Real Madrid on their pre-season tour in Shanghai…not on his way to London? Doesn’t it say a lot about their belief or lack of in Giroud as the main striker?

But is the wisdom of our media appointed “opinion-leaders” and the herd who hang unto their every utterance supported by the facts? To answer the question I thought it would be useful to research the past 11 years since Arsenal last won the Premier League to see if there is any evidence to support the thesis that for a club to win the title it needs a dominant striker.

SEASON CHAMPION TOP GS GOALS RANKING
04-05 Chelsea Lampard 13 4
05-06 Chelsea Lampard 16 4
06-07 Man Utd Ronaldo 17 3
07-08 Man Utd Ronaldo 31 1
08-09 Man Utd Ronaldo 18 3
09-10 Chelsea Drogba 29 1
10-11 Man Utd Berbatov 20 1
11-12 Man City Aguero 23 3
12-13 Man Utd Van Persie 26 1
13-14 Man City Aguero 17 4
14-15 Chelsea Costa 20 3

The data above speaks for itself.  There were only four occasions, i.e. 36% of the time, when the league’s top goal-scorer was from the winning team. In contrast, 64% of the time the winning team in the league did not have the the top-striker. What struck me, in particular, was that in at least three out of the 11 seasons, the top striker from the winning team was ranked as low as 4th in the league’s Top Goal Scorers. The amazing thing is Chelsea secured back-to-back titles between 2004/5 and 06 with their top goal-scorer being Frank Lampard, registering only 13 and 16 goals in successive years. Their most productive strikers in those years, Gudjohnson and Drogba respectively, finished with 12 goals each. They both make Giroud’s 14 goals in 21 games last year look Messi-esque.

Despite such a miserly contribution from its strikers, Chelsea was able to rack up the 1st and 3rd highest number of points in Premier League history, 95 and 91 respectively. They won the league, not by goal scoring, but by having the meanest possible defense, conceding only 15 goals in 2004-05, an amazing 0.39 goal per game.

Similarly, while Manchester United may have a reputation for being swashbuckling goal-scorers, in two out of their five title-winning campaigns over the 11-year period, their top goal scorer was ranked as low as 3rd in the league. In 06-07 Ronaldo only scored 17 goals. For the next two titles they won 07-08 and 08-09, United simply did a Chelsea, locking down on defense, conceding a miserly 22 and 24 goals respectively, ranking them 2nd and 3rd in the Goals Against department in the entire history of the Premier League.

In summary, since Arsenal last won the title, the top goal-scorer from champion team was ranked an average of 3rd in the league with a median average of 20 goals per season. The range was a low of 13 and a high of 31.

Based on this routine analysis it is self-evident that the constant demeaning at Giroud and the belief that if only Arsenal had a “world-class” striker they would surely win the league is not supported by the facts. To the contrary, the data is shouting at us that restricting the scoring of goals by the opposition is the key to success. Hopefully this is evident from the following table:

11YR MEAN AFC-2015 AFC-2016
W 27 22 ?
D 6 9 ?
L 4 7 ?
GF 83 71 83
GA 29 36 26
GD 54 35 57
PTS 88 71 ?

In contrast to the 11 year average of 83 Goals For and 29 Against to win the title, in the 2014-15 Arsenal finished with 71 and 36 respectively, a difference of 12 and 8. By doing this analysis I stumbled on how the Wenger came to the conclusion that the team need for 10-12 more goals to win the title as stated at his press conference before the Emirates Cup:

“What we want is 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.”

He has made it clear that he is not dependent on Giroud for more goals; he and Alexis did their part last season with 14 and 16 goals respectively, the only ones to make double figures in the league. Obviously they can and need to improve their goal-scoring but going forward, it will be up to the British Core (Theo, whose contract is now secured, Ramsey and Oxlade-Chamberlain) as well as Santi, and Ozil to do the business.What is lost in the noise of the transfer market (as the media fan the flames of clubs competing for big-money signings) is the importance of reducing the Goals Against column.

Unlike my earlier sentimentality towards Ospina and Szczesny, the manager has harbored no such idealism. Apparently in 2014 he made an inquiry for Cech and again this year. If Arsenal is to become even meaner in defensively, who is better than the man who was between the sticks for Chelsea in their most miserly years? Who’s better than the goal-tender who is described as obsessed with clean sheets?In stressing the importance of defending, at the same press conference, the manager was clear about not doing a Liverpool or City:

“Our target is to improve our number of goals but you as well have examples of teams who have scored 90 or 100 goals and have not won the championship. We want to combine good defensive efficiency with 10 more goals.
“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.”

Instead of depending on goalscoring the manager was moved to stress the importance of  defending and not conceding unnecessary goals. We hardly see or hear this discussed by the pundits who keep nattering on and on daily about signing another striker.

I was therefore very encouraged by what I saw vs Chelsea in the Community Shield. While it was good that Wenger broke the Mourinho streak, what was even better was the team’s commitment to defending our one goal lead.

I shall conclude by noting that over the past three years Wenger has been able to build a squad of top quality players especially after he could spend some money, developed a consistent way of playing, and finally forged consistency and cohesion especially in the spine. Similar to Ferguson and even that classless hypocrite Mourinho, that is ultimately the predictor of Arsenal again winning titles.

 

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Friendly You Say? No, Anything But

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on August 3, 2015 in All Posts

A guest post from @foreverheady

All Community Shields matter, but some matter more than others.

You’d certainly wish you were playing, rather than just watching, given you only get the traditional curtain-raiser invite if you’ve won either cup or league the season before.  Other countries glamorise such ties with titles like Supercup, but the UK settled first with Charity, and then Community (reflecting a more politically correct age) to highlight the fact that for once the riches on display might help those who are a long way away from any such wealth.

Some of these games are little more than a stroll in the Wembley park, a last opportunity to put the finishing touches to the long pre-season process, especially when the previous year’s Cup has thrown up an unlikely winner, such as Wigan or Portsmouth. I suspect yesterday’s affair would have been one such game had Aston Villa done what many predicted and beaten The Arsenal in May. But of course they didn’t, and what we were left with was a Premier League marketing dream.

A London derby.

Chelsea v Arsenal. Jose v Wenger.

You see, every so often the Charity Shield throws up a game that really does matter, and which has significance far beyond the actual result.

Liverpool and Leeds in ’74 is the first I remember, the animosity between the teams palpable, but in later years Liverpool and Manchester United, Manchester United and Arsenal, Chelsea and City. Heavyweight contenders, Bull elephants circling each other, marking territory, establishing dominance.  At times all that seems missing is the dulcet tones of Sir David Attenborough, so primal are the encounters.

Last year’s Shield proves the point in reverse somehow; with several of the players still in post-World Cup drowsiness, and City clearly not rating their opponents, Arsenal secured a bloodless win that surprised one and all and which seemed at the time almost an irrelevance, such was the sense that the real title contenders were keeping their powder dry. And so it proved: although City and Arsenal eventually proved comfortably better than all the rest, the Premier League title was Chelsea’s well before Christmas.

It wasn’t like that yesterday, not like that at all. In the second half of last season’s League campaign, Wenger’s Arsenal emerged as a side to be reckoned with, a side that many felt could prove to be genuine contenders once more.  Although they never got close enough to land a proper blow, the celebrations of the Chelsea team on securing a goalless point at The Emirates in April suggested that they too had begun to see Arsenal as credible and feared opponents.

But something else was happening too I think, namely the increasing intensity of the animosity between Wenger and Mourinho.

The English game has lacked a proper feud for a while. Clough and Revie ages ago; then Clough and just about anyone; Ferguson and Keegan; Ferguson and Wenger for a while, but then, not much – to be honest the last few years have been positively beige. Van Gaal can’t be taken seriously, Pellegrino seems hardly bothered, and Arsene has not really had the team for anyone to reckon it be worth spending too much time on mind games. But it has been clear for a while that there is something about Wenger that really rankles Jose, and the feeling, it would appear, is delightfully mutual. Taunts in Press Conferences, measured and barbed responses, touchline scuffles, cold shoulders and faint praise. It has all been escalating very nicely, and if anyone thinks that as the managers led their teams out yesterday they were treating it as a friendly then I would respectively suggest that not only do they not really understand football but they haven’t a clue about human nature either.

Certainly the full-studded stamps of Ramariez on Cazorla, Ivanovic’s scything’s of Ozil and the heaviness of Coquelin’s challenges in the first several minutes suggested that pre-season was well and truly over, as did the intensity of Arsenal’s forward surge immediately after kick-off. This was a contest, and although essentially even, with both sides enjoying plenty of the ball, The Arsenal always seemed just that little bit lighter on their feet, more direct in their approach.

Close matches between top teams are decided by the smallest of details, and by moments of individual brilliance. A couple of years ago I wrote this about Mesut Ozil:  “great players make it seem like 11 against 10, for their vision reduces defences as surely as if a red card has been issued. Özil is a space maker and a game changer.” And he proved my words just right yesterday. Look again at the Arsenal goal. Ozil has the ball on the left hand flank, seemingly intent on attacking down that wing: in a moment he switches play to Theo in the middle, his pass cutting five defenders out of the game. Suddenly there is space, which Walcott maximises by immediately releasing Oxlade into the box, who then cuts inside and fires unstoppably with his weaker foot into the top corner.

It was the goal of a great striker, initially enabled by a master craftsman.

And in the end it proved the difference.

First Ramirez and then Hazard might have equalised, but only last ditch defending and great goalkeeping prevented Arsenal from stretching their lead too.

Both clubs will take things from the game.

Chelsea will point to the missing Costa, to a slight unpreparedness, to the ring-rustiness of Falcao and conclude that on another day things might well have gone differently. They have time between now and September to enter the market and acquire the players that will allow them to confidently defend their title, and I am sure they will. They probably need a centre-half, a defensive midfielder and a new striker as yesterday their spine looked vulnerable.

Arsenal will remember that they have Alexis and Wilshere to add to the mix, and will no doubt also look to strengthen and perhaps improve key positions.

I suspect that both managers will be looking at the same players and that after yesterday both clubs will be keen to back their manager’s choices. But most of all, both clubs will know that their next encounter will count for more than just another trophy of debatable worth, and that they will be playing for Premiership points and real bragging rights.

Saturday, 19th September will see the hottest tickets in town; the battle lines have been drawn and there won’t be any charity on offer, not even a handshake.

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Yeah?? Yeah!! Get In There

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on August 2, 2015 in All Posts

There is no point me pretending I’m not over the moon with that win, I am.

I couldn’t give a flying that it is a friendly because there was nothing friendly about it.

They were trying to win just as much as Arsenal were. The tell tail signs were there early on when Santi had his Achilles raked. A dive in the box from Ivanović, further evidence that there was no charity involved in this encounter.

I make no apologies for thinking Chelsea are our fiercest rivals. I detest everything about the club, especially that horrible hypocrite of a manager. I love the fact that we beat them, I love it.

There is even less point me trying to review the game. All I know is we won, we were the better team and we deserved to win.

Three things that stood out the most were how much of a difference Giroud seemed to make, how good Coquelin was and Laurent Koscielny is as world class as it’s possible to be.

I am not going to predict we win the league, but I will say that there will have to be some very bad luck, on the injury front, to stop us making a genuine challenge.

So that’s it, my comprehensive match report. I hope you all enjoyed it.

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Arsenal Versus Chelsea: Just Arsène meets Violet Elizabeth

Posted by steww on August 2, 2015 in All Posts

Floodlights At West Clewes
A couple of short months ago I wrote to you of a harbinger. Like the early snowdrop suggests the first death knell of another long winter, the removal of the goal posts from our local park signified that the football season was nearly over and summer lurked around its traditional seasonal corner. In what seems the blink of an eye the complimentary bookend to that perennial phenomenon has popped up in the very same park. Just last weekend I sailed down the A367 in my ailing Vauxhall Zafira and saw a group of lads bibbed and booted, balls at their feet taking turns to slalom through a row of slender red and white striped poles; pre-season training, Sunday league style.

Similarly, I was enjoying meandering with my dogs on a late evening stroll catching the last stare from the eye of a setting sun as it burned the horizon into a kiln of deep furnace red, when drifting on the breeze I heard distant, unmistakeable cries lifting from the town beneath me. The voices were carried aloft from West Clewes, home to Welton Rovers and while the ground itself lay consumed in an inky murk a twin row of white pearls glittered, an earthbound constellation distinct against the blackened town made by the floodlights used to illuminate a noisy and enthusiastic rehearsal for the approaching Toolstation Western League Premier Division season.

I’m sure these scenes are being repeated up and down the country. Boots are being dragged from under stair cupboards, football jerseys strained over summer paunches, hamstrings and calf muscles tentatively stretched in readiness for the battles ahead. For you and I there is only one point of focus today. Liverpool’s triumphant pre season victory over HJK Helsinki means as much to us as Exeter City’s use of Arron Davies at right back for their warm up against Torquay United. We have bigger fish to fry. Today is the only summer friendly watched by football fans regardless of the teams involved. The Charity Shield is the closest to a competitive game any side will play before the real blood-letting commences.

The result is irrelevant, and that fact is also irrelevant. This paradox arises mainly from two things. Firstly none of us enjoy seeing Arsenal lose and Chelsea win and secondly Jose Mourinho. The silly little man has been stamping his feet and threatening to thcream and thcream until he’th thick and all and thundry, sorry, sundry, have rushed to give him precisely the attention he so craves whether arguing his ridiculous contentions, belittling or agreeing with them. It’s all one. We as Arsenal fans didn’t need his most recent inanity to want to beat him. His club represents all that is hateful in the modern game and as such any chance to wipe the smirk from his smug mug is to be grasped and enjoyed to the full. To be honest if they brought back It’s A Knockout as a warm up for this game I’d be watching the proceedings with clenched fists willing the Arsenal side to fill their buckets of coloured gunk more quickly than their opponents.

I should probably apologise for this small departure from my usually calm and sober reflections on proceedings. Since the demise of Man United and because of my geographical remoteness from traditional North London rivalries I’ve needed a new pantomime villain and Chelsea just goes out of its way to fit the bill. Rest assured the result today will have no bearing on the league campaign, no relevance to our future performances against Mourinho’s soulless automatons nor any other side and will have no lasting emotional impact upon me. But I really, really hope we win today. If you sense a certain contrariety in my approach to this game all I can offer by way of excuse is this: Life is full of such disconnected inconsistencies and football is no different. Just because defeat in a non competitive pre-season friendly has very little actual venom in it, any triumph of our rivals at our expense still carries a certain sting, and like a schoolboy relieving himself on a wasp’s nest I will take the pleasure but happily avoid the pricks.

So what will happen today? I have no idea. Of course not nobody does. No matter how many of you spend how ever many hours debating the line up and whether it carries hints for the competitions to come, you had just as well argue as to whether or not it will snow on Christmas Day 2022. I do, however, have the ability to analyse previous encounters between the sides and can surmise from those that Arsenal will attempt to play with ebullient exuberance and Chelsea will look to contain and smother and hit with fast efficient counter attacking football. But then, having said that, I can also imagine Arsène sending his troops out to employ a more pragmatic approach like for instance that we saw against Man City lasts season and Violet Elizabeth to throw caution to the wind and prove his critics wrong with a free flowing attacking game of flair and invention. Who knows? After all if you wanted to experiment against top opposition with a little pressure but in a game where the result didn’t matter today would be the day.

The fact that there is such debate as to our best first eleven or the possible permutations for future fixtures speaks loudly as to the incredible depth of talent in the squad. Put simply, it is impossible to name our starting line up. Whichever way you slice it Arsène has assembled a group of players of such an outstanding calibre that more than one man who would walk into any other Premiership eleven will be sat on the bench today and, injury Gods willing, for many matches to come. It is of course the very extent of the squad which will assist with our injury situation. Look how long the manager was able to give Theo to properly recuperate. With high class cover in so many positions there is simply no need to rush a man back from injury nor play him when in the fabled ‘red’ zone. Given that outrageous bad luck with injuries has been the principle if not the sole reason we haven’t won the league at least once in recent seasons this augurs well for the future.

Anyway, I’d love to share more of my wild assumptions and reckless assertions with you but I am taking part in a film today and need desperately to attend to both hair and wardrobe lest I disgrace the Black family name before an adoring Youtube audience. Before I go allow me to make one small suggestion. All this afternoon should really mean to any of us is the chance to see our boys have another run out before the real stuff starts next Sunday lunchtime against West Ham. Of course I know you’re getting a bit excited and I am too, so how about this. I submit that we celebrate in an entirely over the top and inappropriate fashion if we win and shrug it off as an irrelevant pre-season warm up game if we lose. Think about it – it’s win win. The only people who should get bent out of shape if we fail to raise the shield today are the same troglodytes who always come blinking out of their holes after a setback, and they provide us with the perfect distraction while we come to terms with defeat.

It’s a day out at Wembley in the sun for those lucky enough to be there and a pleasant couple of hours in front of a screen for the rest, no more no less. Next week the proper games begin, today is your last opportunity to simply relax and enjoy a match so why not do just that? Before you know it the goal posts will be taken down at the local park and summer will have rolled around once again. The more time you can spend happy in between then and now the better your life will be.

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Will Arsenal’s British Core Meet The Challenge?

Posted by shotta_gooner on July 27, 2015 in All Posts

The British Core

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

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“Commencing countdown, Engines on, Check Ignition and May God’s Love Be With You”

Posted by anicoll5 on July 26, 2015 in All Posts

highburysquirrel

So the long close season is drawing to an end, the evenings are shortening, arable crops stand tall and golden in the fields, cheery yokels chew on a shared stalk of straw by my gate, and the slamming of the transfer window is no longer the distant dream it was a billion tweets ago. Hip-Hip-Hooray!

Shedding the sleepy early Summer shroud we must prepare ourselves for another season supporting our club, mountains to climb, let us get to work then:

What did I learn from this weekend ?

As Stew said yesterday and we all know, the thrashing of Lyon and what was a much more interesting game against Wolfsburg a pleasant interlude. I expected more from Lyon but they were knocked out of their stride and suddenly found the game lost. Wolfsburg were a much better work-out, the first half an hour was particularly tricky. We looked a little unsure of one another in that opening, a little rattled. We settled though, we took control. Nacho probably did as much running as I have seen him ever do in 90 minutes. The Germans controlled the ball well and do not give it away. We shall come to more of that below. What they lacked was a really sharp striker, but you know that.

Both sides are in the hat for CL group stages. We may see them again. There will be tougher opponents who do not fold as Lyon did. Mossy will not always be as obliging as he recently has been.

The evidence yesterday and today confirms that we enjoy a squad of formidably talented individuals, technically the best squad I can remember. And beyond the first eleven another what ? …. eight, nine or more players who could come in and do as good a job as those who are on the team sheet.

Clockwork, very fast clockwork. They enjoy an excellent understanding of each other’s movement and pace, short and long passes are pinged about. And did you see the finishing yesterday ??? Oh my ! Arsene has taken several years to assemble this selection of players. It has taken time, it has taken patience, there have been errors, and so often progress of the team has been set back through injury. The dish seems just about ready to serve.

And that perhaps brings us to a second thing I learned yesterday. The necessity of ensuring that players are fit, physically and mentally, for a full season of football when the contest gets underway. For the first time we embark upon a season with neither a) numbers of key players knackered because of summer competitive commitments, or b) carrying long term injuries that will bar them for months from contributing. The players looked, to me, rested, confident, and ready. That has not always been the case.

And the third valuable learning experience ? Well this youngster Jeff Reine-Adelaide must have made a hell of an impact in training, on coaching staff and manager. To get at his age and experience from new recruit from the admittedly highly rated Lens academy, and never having played a game for the French side, on to the Emirates pitch in six weeks as a starter is not usual, is untypical, is downright odd. We have a LOT of teenage talent and most of them have served their time. Iwobi I see joined the club at eight years old. Young Jeff’s rapid progress caught my eye even though, by the time he did get on yesterday, the game had lost its fizz. Today though he was a central figure, made Theo’s goal, a creative player and so strong for a 17 year old. One point of concern though, the name “Jeff”, is that French ??

One pot down, I admit is was a little embarrassing not having won the Ems Trophy since 2010

And what do we think the next week will bring ?

Sunday – Chelsea at Wembley of course. 3.00 Kick off time as it should be. Checking the records we have never played them in the Charity or Community Shield at the stadium. During the Millennium years there was just one meeting, in August 2005, with the Fulham Broadway posse winning 2-1. Jose’s only Community Shield, their winner from Droggie, our goal from the 18 year old prodigy Fabregas and, according to the match reports I looked at today, an excellent performance from Peter Cech keeping us at bay in the final quarter. Oh for the wheel to turn the full circle next Sunday.

A step back though from the edge of the wishing well.

Like just about everyone, everywhere ( including a number of CFC fans I know) most people consider Jose Mourinho to be the incarnation of football evil, a man who consciously sets out to destroy any semblance of art or beauty in the game. He almost invented bus parking in modern football with Inter. He acquires and discards footballers like disposable paper hankies. He treats opposing manager, often former colleagues and mentors, with contempt.

Not only does Jose have that satanic core running through him like a stick of rock but, unforgivably, the man keeps winning trophies. He is not lucky, he works hard. He uses the massive resources he is given well. And each time we anticipate bagging the bastard, cutting him down and mounting his smug Portuguese head on the library wall, he eludes the hunters. He even, once or twice, contrives to get the hunters to shoot each other in the head. I wince at the recollection, for the 1,000th time.

But what Jose is very good at is setting up his football team to stifle the opposition, to stop them winning. No side managed by Jose ever is profligate with the football. They keep it and keep it. ( Rather like Wolfsburg but with a greater propensity for violence) At worse Jose’s approach ensures a share of the points, at best his cautious control of the ball allows his side, if they can force a chance or error, to win.

So this week Jose will be working very hard indeed. He will be looking at the tapes of yesterday and of our closing games last season, and from his careful and shrewd analysis setting up Chelsea next week as the immovable object against which our artists will batter themselves to exhaustion. It has worked so often before, will it work on the 2nd of August ? The Community Shield will be no friendly, it will be no sham display, at the end of the game there will be a trophy won by the better side with plenty of sweat expended.

Enjoy your week.

Mr_Happy

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