Arshavin made his name at the Euro 2008 where he played behind Tottenham striker Roman Pavlyuchenko. He hasn't been able to play that role for Arsenal because it was occupied by then captain Cesc Fabregas. Now that the Spaniard has departed and the creative void has yet to be filled consistently in his absence. Arshavin has often been overlooked in that position
RVP has been in inspirational form, anything he touches right now turns to gold. He came on Sunday when the game was tied for the ineffective Chamakh and instantly made an impact running' into the near post to tap home Gervinho's low cross. The 2nd goal was almost similar, Good burst of pace from Gervinho on the left hand side to beat his marker then put in a lovely cut
The calls to change to 4-4-2 are definitely becoming more numerous but why is that? One reasons is that, in the Premier League at least, the 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 is in vogue. The Manchester clubs have raced out of the traps using this formation (albeit different variations of the same shape). The red half have done what Sir Alex Ferguson’s teams have so often done in the past and used their pacy wingers to
A win is a win is a win, as they say, but it’s a shame that, despite winning, our games seem so often to exist merely to provoke further discussion about our flaws. Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy about winning, I just think it would be nice to sit down after a win and spend our time enjoying the performance and not just infinitely analysing our seemingly incurable ailments
His 1st goal was exquisite. Gervinho got the ball on the far side on the left, drifted in field and made a simple pass to RVP who dropped his shoulder shifted the ball to the other side with his right foot, beat Turner and fired home from just outside the box with his right foot to give us the lead.
When I say inflexible I don’t mean that we need Patrick Rice to sign him up for Spursday night Yoga sessions (Europa what?). No. What I mean is that he is inflexible tactically; seemingly reluctant to make significant changes when the system appears ineffective and openly adverse to adapting to suit varying
Arteta would be a perfect fit in a 4-3-3 provided Wenger can get the combination right. As it stands the best midfield 3 combo is Song, Arteta and Jack. The question here is if we look sound in the creativity department. Don't get me wrong Arteta and Jack can pull their weight creatively what I feel they lack is the ability to do it on a regular basis like Cesc did reason I said we need a super quality
It is clear that over the last year or so Wenger has been looking to add more fleet-footed players to the squad in the hope of producing a team more proficient at the counter-attack. This can be seen in the signings of Ryo Miyaichi, Wellington Silva, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Gervinho who are more suited to being played out wide on the flanks. It is commonly stated that there is no replacement for raw pace. Yes, defenders can compensate by anticipating play well or using expert positioning. Managers
The other most evident factor is our ability to lose two-goal leads (or more). Tellingly, if we look at the full list we see that the first eighteen games were all one-goal leads. However since that fateful night at the Emirates versus Spurs in October 2008 where we somehow contrived to concede two goals in injury time to our deadliest rivals, this has become increasingly – and
We should have made a Cesc replacement ready way before we sanctioned his sale. Mata looked all but a done deal, reports suggests we had agreed a deal with Valencia and Cesc had even spoken to him telling him where and where to live. Valencia waited for us to table the agreed fee but we weren't forth coming because we were waiting