Inspite of the plenty of goals we conceded recently I think we have marginally improved in defense compared to last season(Not saying much but still). Considering for most parts they had to play with Mannone in goal I think they have done okay. Most of the goals we have conceded this season have been due to individual errors instead of Shambolic team defending with the main culprits being
This season we started the season clicking in new pieces into Wengerball that were adapting. Santi Cazorla whizzed from the very beginning. Lukas Podolski was also purring, Oliver Giroud needed to get the screwdriver out and tweak his game. Whoever was playing on the right of our attack kept
Jack Wilshere's follow through on Patrice Evra last weekend means that he will be resting his body rather than playing the game which will have positives unless we fail to win the game. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Aaron Ramsey are both likely to be added to the squad following recent injury, so that is a bonus. An even bigger bonus for me is that Tomas Rosicky is back in training. If I was Santi Cazorla
Lukas Podolski may well be a little limited in his play but he is a hard worker. He currently reminds me of Freddie Ljungberg in his latter Arsenal career. A worker out wide that didn't really give the team very much apart from endeavour. Now the Freddie at his prime was still pretty limited and hard working but, a huge round juicy but he gave his team mates runs into the box, he was at the far post when Henry missed the ball in the middle, he was on hand to poke a ball in during a penalty box scramble. He did all this as well as his great
When Giroud raced through you thought he was in on goal but the defender got back, luckily Theo had left his wide spot to nip in and tap into an empty net. I really like Giroud, a great team player, hard worker and strong in the air but as I said in the days when we had an injury prone Dutch chap up front, we really missed a player who can show the defender a clean pair of heals when balls are
Arsene admitted that Wilshere's suspension means that he is likely to play this match especially with the list of midfield injuries stacking on top of each other. I think Jack Wilshere or whoever is playing in that second midfield area needs to give more help to Mikel Arteta because his secret influence on our team is out there in the public. Chelsea and Manchester United have shown that restricting our
Thomas Vermaelen started the season very well, our defensive shape looked good and he was a big part of that. In recent weeks he has been a mess. Error ridden, nervous and the complete opposite of what you expect from your captain. I do not want this to come across as knee jerk because it isn't as I wasn't comfortable with this from the start but Laurent Koscielny was head and shoulders our best defender last season and in my eyes, it was always Koscielny plus one. He has had a bit part role this season and is now out of sorts
Something went wrong after the most recent international break and we came back out of sorts, but when you are playing every three days then it is hard to iron out your issues, those issues have to be resolved on the pitch. After the nightmare performance in Norwich we saw the hangover against Schalke and it was only against QPR that we saw anything like our game returning. Thankfully the league cup fixture at Reading meant that the madness of top flight football was thrust onto our current squad players and youngsters whilst the
Walcott could very well end up playing CF which would give us the boost we need. He is sure to give Ferdinand and Evans a headache while at the same time we have our defensive liabilities (and everyone say it together) Andre Santos. If we can some how contain RVP, Rooney, Valencia. . . okay so if we can basically contain everybody while effectively attacking. key word the is EFFECTIVELY we
Thomas Eisfeld replaced another youngster Serge Gnabry and you have to say, it was an unfortunate night for Gnabry who was only on the pitch during our most disjointed periods. If he had stayed on the pitch for the latter stages of the game then he would have had plenty more joy when the game was far more open. His replacement was wonderful though and once again I am left wanting to see