Annoyingly, I’m missing the first two Arsenal home games of the season, as a mate has scheduled his stag do this weekend, and his wedding on the weekend of the next one. I mean, really, who has a wedding during the football season?!
I’ve sold my tickets for those games to the guy who sits behind me, which is handy as it funds (some of) the drinking on the stag do, but if we don’t get a home game in either the 3rd round of the League Cup or in the first Champions League group game, then I won’t see a match at the Emirates until 25th September.
And even that’s touch and go: I land back from a holiday just before 2pm at Gatwick, and will then have to get up to north London for a 3pm kick-off. If that flight’s delayed, I’m screwed, and it’ll be mid-October before my first game.
Barely worth having the season ticket!
So, what can we learn from the first weekend of the Premier League season?
From an Arsenal perspective, there’s good news and bad news. Firstly, Chamakh looks like he’ll be a very good signing. He’s willing to mix it up with the defenders physically, and is better than Bendtner in that he’s actually able to control the ball without it bouncing awkwardly off of a shin or a knee. Even during the brief period when Van Persie and Chamakh were on the pitch together, they worked well, with Chamakh’s presence enabling RvP to just drop off a little and try to find some space.
I was similarly impressed by Koscielny, the new centre-back. He’s quicker than I expected, and looks OK in the air. Hopefully he’ll form a good partnership with Vermaelen sooner rather than later. Oh, and harshly done by with the red card, I thought.
The bad news concerns Arsenal’s lack of penetration once more. Despite playing against 10 men for half of the game, and dominating possession, we only rarely threatened the Liverpool goal. We still lack a killer pass, and there didn’t seem to be too much willingness to shoot from distance.
Look at one of Chelsea’s goals which had a big deflection: if you don’t shoot you don’t get lucky. It’s harder to get a goalbound deflection when you’re playing 5-yard sideways passes…
Speaking of Chelsea, it’s a little tiresome to see teams roll over so easily against them. Fine, you’re probably going to get beaten, and it’ll probably be 2 or 3-0. But don’t just lay down and give them 6, 7, or 8 goals, for crying out loud. Yes, you could say it’s Chelsea being relentless in their attacking, but for me it’s a lack of fight from the opposition.
Chelsea looked impressive, again, and Manchester United eventually got going against a pretty poor Newcastle team. I still think both are very reliant on their centre-forwards, and Arsenal will be competitive in the league with them again this year.
Whether we can compete during the 90 minutes against each team is a different story. They seem to have figured us out, but hopefully our defence will be better this season. We definitely need a goalkeeper though, and I’d like to see Shay Given arrive.
That’s more likely now that he’s no longer the first-choice at Man City, who flattered to deceive in their first game. I thought Tottenham looked very good, although that has been tempered somewhat by their performance last night, especially defensively. Bale looks like he’s picked up where he’s left off though.
City’s defence seems equally porous, which is odd considering the number of defensive midfielders they deployed on the pitch. Up front, the Spanish winger Silva looks fantastic, especially centrally. Man City are going to be one of those teams that wins games 3-2 or 4-3 rather than 1-0.
Elsewhere, Wigan looked awful, West Ham too. Despite Blackpool’s win, I expect them to be relegated, joined by Wigan and one of the two clubs with West in their name. Newcastle, Wolves, Stoke and Birmingham will stay up by virtue of not being as bad as those three, even if they will get a thumping at some of the bigger teams.
That’s the first weekend done and dusted, only another 37 games to go!
Anonymous asked: Did you see Jensen score?
If only, if only! I remember it happening, but I wasn’t there, unfortunately.
Back story: John Jensen was a Danish midfielder that Arsenal signed in the early 1990s. At his old club, and for the national team, he was known as a goal-scorer from the middle of midfield, but he didn’t live up to that reputation whilst at Arsenal.
He used to shoot really often, but it would never go in. It became a joke, eventually, and I think it was something like 130 games into his Arsenal career before he finally scored. Away at QPR, if memory serves.
This moment entered into Arsenal folklore, and immediately there were t-shirts made up with the slogan “I was there when Jensen scored”. I think I’m right in saying that they sold many, many more t-shirts than the actual number of fans on the night…
afootballreport asked ‘Who has been Arsenal’s Player of the Year so far? For me, it would have definitely been RvP, but now I’m not sure.’
OK, this was originally asked on my other blog, but here seems a better place to answer.
For me, it’s got to be Alex Song. He’s been absolutely fantastic in the defensive midfield role, and has really grown into it this year. You can see just how much he dominates that part of the pitch, breaking up attacks and intercepting passes. His positional sense is just tremendous.
He’s also very good with the ball at his feet, unlike other players who do the Makelele role, including Makelele himself. Song is a lot more confident taking the ball on and going past players, surging into the box ahead of the other midfielders.
But he’s equally aware of times when one of the centre-backs goes past him, just dropping into the middle of defence when Gallas or Vermaelen heads upfield momentarily. Gilberto used to do the same thing, effortlessly, and it’s a sign of footballing intelligence to recognise the need to cover gaps when they arise.
He’s also a very physical player, which is something we sorely lack in midfield. He adds a bit of grunt and an ability to compete against teams which come to kick us off the park.
I should also add that Gallas has been immaculate this season. His partnership with Vermaelen seems to be one that just works.
First things first: I’m an Arsenal fan, and have been for nearly 20 years. I have a season ticket, and go to pretty much every home game. I also watch most away games on TV or on the web. I read a couple of Arsenal blogs, and Arsenal-related news is what I look for in newspapers first.
I’ve no bones about letting this influence my writing here, but this isn’t an Arsenal blog. Go read Arseblog or the like if you want that.
I intend to write about anything that comes to mind football-wise, be it thoughts on the last Arsenal game, transfer rumours, laughing at other teams’ misfortunes (I’m looking at you, red half of Merseyside) and just about everything connected with the beautiful game.
I’m not one of those people that harks back to the “good ole days” of players earning a pittance and every game kicking off at 3pm on a Saturday. I love the amount of coverage that football gets nowadays, on TV and in other media. I think it’s added something to football as a whole, even if the tabloid lies when it comes to transfer rumours leave a little something to be desired…
If you like it, let me know on Twitter or leave a comment (when I get that up and running).
