Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Finger Ready For The Panic Button

Braga 2 Arsenal 0

I'm angry, but this is definitely a hangover from the disaster on Saturday. The goals were sloppy and it was amazing that we get caught on the counter-attack, at nil-nil, with ten men.

'How is it amazing?,' you say.

Well why is everyone pushing forward when all we need is a draw and we've been reduced to ten men because of Eboue's injury? I mean surely, when you don't 100% need to win with ten men, you should be defending. And it was only a long ball too! And why the fuck is our backline at the halfway line when we don't need to score!?

The Vela yellow card was ludicrous. It was a stonewall penalty and the ref, who was right in front of it, books him for diving. If we get that penalty and convert it the match is over. However that isn't an excuse for what happened after. We needed to be solid and it never looked like happening.

I want to pick out one player for criticism (a rollicking). Nicklas Bendtner bitched and moaned to the media about not getting his place in the team. Then when Wenger picks him, he does nothing. He was shite and looked like a man who has made up his mind on his future. He's a pathetic excuse for a professional footballer if thinks he can walk into this team. I mean, for fucksake, Chamakh came on and did more in twenty minutes than Bendtner did seventy! How can he expect to play in front of a player that actually looks bothered?

Villa away is a match that doesn't necessarily define our season but another defeat would be castastrophic for confidence. There's a lot of work to be done until then though so get cracking Arsene!

Monday, November 22, 2010

You're Killing Us.

It's turning into a bit of a cycle. One minute I start thinking 'we can actually do this', then the team commits the most heinous of sins and loses to the unmentionables.

It's amazing, though, how much ability is there in this group of players, not the forever-tomorrow potential that the Boss loves so much but actual clear-as-day, right-here-right-now ability. Nasri, Fabregas, Arshavin, Van Persie... these are all world-class performers, not legends of the game by any means yet, but players who would make it into any matchday squad in the world. How can these players turn up and capitulate like that to 'them'?

I have an opinion but, like it or not, there is no definitive answer.

This team has developed technically and physically over the past three years. The core group of players Wenger wanted has been kept and these have been supplemented with some astute purchases on the transfer market.

If this were a team of machines, we'd win the league every year. But it isn't, and like all-things human, there's the mental factor as well. And it has weighed this team down for years.

Wenger harps on about it all the time, this 'mental strength' we must show and how he believes the players have it.

No they don't.

That is a lie the Boss tells all the time.

And I call it a lie because there's no way in hell that genius of a man would delude himself into thinking that. He's just protecting his players and I admire him for it, even if it does grind my gears at times.

And in reality, the team collapses. Regularly. It's not something that's going to go away overnight and we'll probably still be talking about it at the end of the season. But mental weakness is taking away from this team's success and if it's not dealt with we'll be stuck in this limbo, between first and fifth, for five more years and I don't want that, I want this team to achieve what it is capable of.

This is Wenger's biggest challenge ever. In the past the mental strength was there with the likes of Adams, Keown, Henry and Vieira. But no one has showed they can provide it in this team. And I don't know who will.