And so it begins…
Unbelievable, we play one match and our most in-form midfielder gets crocked and out for a month. I hope it isn’t one of Arsène’s ‘months’ or we won’t see Nasri again before Christmas. Still at least he actually started the season this year.
We also don’t have Kos for the next game who, having survived a ‘committed’ tackle from an Englishman with both his legs intact, gets a yellow and sent off for somewhat less intent than Ngog displayed with his earlier handball. Dunno about you, but had the distinct suspicion of the ref having second thoughts and deciding to even things up a tad. Not that a professional ref would do that. Anyone still want Cole btw?
Although one match is evidently enough to conclude that Arsène has lost the plot, is too stubborn, etc I think it just shows that we got lucky. Now to me that’s good because one thing we haven’t had a lot of is luck. You need luck to win stuff and if it means our time has come, then so much the better. If you think I am reading a lot into one game then you haven’t read some of the other blogs. I will however readily admit that Nasri’s injury doesn’t count as lucky, although if Cesc is over his mystery illness and returns for the next match, maybe it won’t look so bad. Unless you’re Nasri I suppose.
So we ‘won’ in a most just fashion with the Pepe ‘suits you sir’ Reina trying to outdo our very own dumb and dumber and succeeding. If you can’t smile at that then you’re taking your football way too seriously.
Things of more specific concern are that we are still not playing fast enough although it’s still early in the season. We are going to get at least two banks of four against us most weeks and the more highly drilled they are, the more likely we are to fail to score if we don’t move quicker. Players were not moving quickly enough into what space there was and dragging the opposition around and were taking too long to decide what to do when they did get the ball.
Arsène has put great score on the skill of the players he buys and you can see that skill albeit in small part sometimes. So it makes me think that the times you see the best from our team is when the players are playing instinctively. They already have the technical skill (mostly) they just need to play quicker and think less. Yes you could make a case for individual instance s where that may not be the case, but I think it holds true. Except for Theo, maybe although I am liking him now trying to actually shoot on occasion.
Hopefully our unfortunate habit of taking ‘smaller’ clubs for granted won’t resurface and Blackpool will learn what the Prem is all about. I’m certainly looking for some outrageous sound-bites from their manager, he’s normally very good value for money on the after match comments.
I think our need of a new keeper is a Given (see what I did there?), and if we could get him, Given would I think be better than Schwarzer. However as apparently needs to be spelt out again and again, getting the World Class Goalkeeper We Have A Divine Right To isn’t as easy when you stop playing and turn your computer off. Doesn’t matter if we have had a need all summer, if a club doesn’t want to sell, it doesn’t have to. You’d think that the Cesc saga would have clarified that in Gooners’ minds if nothing else. Anyway here’s hoping we can do the deal and get someone who can judge the flight of a football within a few inches rather than feet. We have some of them already.
Personally I don’t care whether I have heard of another centre back as long as we sign one who knows which way to face, can head a ball in the right direction and doesn’t think that sulking is an appropriate reaction to adversity. Surely that’s not too much to ask?
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