I think I speak for all fans of The Arsenal when I say Just f*** off! Seriously, it’s f****** funny any f****** more. Leave us alone. Stop tormenting us! What are doing is tantamount to straight up physiological assault
In the big ‘six pointers’, I would very much rather a scrappy 1-0 with our only shot on goal after playing in our own half for 89 minutes rather than being battered 3-0, ruing missed chances and ‘boasting’ about having more possession. – Me,12th May 2010
Being the self-absorbed, pompous egomaniac that I am privileged to be, I have decided to open this here summary of the game by quoting myself from my end of season review 09/10. I made this quote in reference to The Arsenal’s less than impressive surrenders during the cold winter months against both Chelsea and Manchester United but less than five months later becomes relevant once more. Same old Arsenal? You’d better believe it….
Drog Day Afternoon
Before we go on, I feel I need to get the following off my chest. To one Mr. Didier Drogba, I think I speak for all fans of The Arsenal when I say Just f*** off! Seriously, it’s f****** funny any f****** more. Leave us alone. Stop tormenting us! What are doing is tantamount to straight up physiological assault. Psychological rape some
might even say! Stay away otherwise next time I’m calling the authorities. This is beyond a joke.
Expect the Expected
The general feeling amongst the gooner fraternity is not one of bile-spitting rage but rather one of resignation and acceptance. At 10 to four on Sunday if someone had said the game was going finish 2-0 in Chelsea’s favour, you would be hard pressed to find many Arsenal fans who would have disagreed with you. People aren’t really
that disappointed because they knew we would lose. When it comes to Chelsea, the outcome is as predictable as night following day before a ball is even kicked in anger. Sad really.
Déjà Vu? Come again?
One of the main contributing factors to the expectation is that we’ve seen it all before. The veteran actor Bill Murray is perhaps best known for staring in the movie Groundhog Day. Although everyone knows that Ghostbusters was Bill Murray’s best film bar none. Anyone that disagrees is clearly mad and should have their tongue stapled to roof of a moving train so they can no longer pollute the populous with their misguided views on what constitutes good comedy. As I try and recover from what was quite simply unnecessary tangent, the premise of Groundhog Day involved a man doomed to relive the same 24 hours over and over and over again. Yes, as you’ve probably heard numerous times elsewhere before reading this article, matches between The Arsenal and Chelsea are now resembling a less funny version of that movie. The outcomes are all too familiar; lots of possession, failure to take chances, Drogba the difference, Chelsea win. Repeat to fade.
Charged with possession
Trying to look at the positives, in ‘football terms’ the possession stats will tell you that The Arsenal had the better of the game. No team will go to Stamford Bridge and keep the ball for so long in such a way as The Arsenal did. Also, you won’t find Chelsea sitting back as much in a home match against many (if any) teams in world football. The performance was a vast improvement on the West Brom game and if Kozza or Chamakhattack had taken the few chances presented to them, we may well be singing a different, more harmonious tune this morning. It’s games like this where I really wish Blatter went loopy and decided to award points for technical merit. If this were the case, The Arsenal would be head and shoulders above everyone else. Yes, I am aware this is a desperate and ludicrous suggestion but I’ll be damned if you ever try and prise my grip from this straw that I am tightly clutching.
The Indefenseibles
Despite the good performance, there were still one or two glaring deficiencies which ultimately means I’ll probably be cutting and pasting most of this article when we lose to Chelsea again in December. I’m loathe to criticise individuals but Alex Song needs to take a good long hard look at himself at the moment because he is at risk of reverting back to the gormless kid that was booed at Craven Cottage four years ago as he meandered around the pitch like a stoner trying to find his tent at Glastonbury. On Sunday he offered little protection to the defenders and on more than one occasion was in more advanced positions than Wee Jack. Having earned the love of gooners far and wide, Song has come a long way and I’m hoping that this is just a minor blip. Hopefully he can remember what he has actually been tasked to do and stop marauding forward so much. Also, the fouls he is giving away all too regularly are bordering on amateur.
Kozza and Squelch are, on the whole, a disciplined pairing. We are rarely at risk of them bombing forward too much ala Gallas/Toure/Verm. However, as this match wore on, they began to struggle and by the end looked about as secure as an Essex girl’s hymen on a Saturday night after one too many WKD Blues and some Akon blaring over the sound system of a cheesy nightclub. Aside from the lack of protection from the midfield, they were very indecisive and could well have gifted Chelsea at least two more goals in that second half.
I really like Gael Clichy and don’t want to keep criticising him but he worries me more than the impeding threat of global terrorist attacks at the minute. He doesn’t warrant a starting place in any team with serious title ambitions. Another dodgy game in which he struggled when under any serious pressure.
Left back to the future
There is a justified belief that when players leave Highbury/Ashburton, their careers go through the type of terminal decline akin to that of a successful city banker who pisses all his money away in a Casino, comes home and find his wife in bed with his brother, gets made redundant, loses his house and becomes an alcoholic who
finds himself now living on the stairs of a South London council estate suffering the indignity of pissing his pants on an hourly basis. But alas, while we can all point and laugh heartily at Adebayor, Sunday once again showed that one person is the exception to the rule. With Gael Clichy’s continued regression and Ashely Cole
looking about as good as he ever did playing for The Arsenal, the dirty little toe rag is continuing to make fools out of all of us and that almost hurts as much as any defeat.Turns out cheaters do prosper.
Keep it Up
Another plus was the performance of Fabianski who managed to get through a second game in a row with making a game-costing mistake. Still looked a bit unsure at times but could really not be blamed for either goal. Once more, I don’t think he deserves a massive amount of credit for the saves he made as they were all standard saves you’ve expect from any top flight keeper but kudos for not fucking up Lukasz. Long may it continue.
Injuries
Of course, things may have been different if so many players weren’t being wheeled around London Colney in wheelchairs and eating food through a straw. Yes, every team suffers from injuries but The Arsenal seem a special case. An excuse? Maybe. But what is being done to address these everlasting problems? How many years can
we keep saying ‘If so and so was fit’? By continuously doing so, we’re living in a fantasy world of fairies and pixie dust as it’s never going to be the case that the entire squad will be available for selection at the same time. Also, how many more chances do we give the perma-crocks? If van Persie suffers another long term injury this season, as good as he is, can he really justify his position as The Arsenal’s number one striker? When does it become time to cut your lose
s and rebuild? If your washing machine kept packing in every few months, rather than constantly paying to fix it, you’d eventually reach the point where you’d just buy a new one. I wouldn’t be
against getting rid of players whose contributions over a significant length of time prove to be minimal because of recurring injury no matter who they are. Mind you, they’d have to be sold at a discount like those bargain bucket broken biscuits that supermarkets have on their ‘reduced’ shelves.
People often talk about needing a ‘spine’ throughout the team. If we say that The Arsenal spine consists of Vermaelen, Cesc and RVP, then many a Jellyfish would be giving us a run for our money. Putting the terrible state of these injuries into perspective, The Arsenal lost just one game in all competitions last season (City
away) when all three of those players were on the pitch for a full 90 minutes. The trio also only featured in the same line up in 14 (winning 11) of 50 games (all of which were played before December!) last season telling you everything you need to know about the inherent problems at the club and how much injuries are hindering any team progress.
Mind the Gap
The performance would suggest that there isn’t much between the two teams but all the pretty play once again provided no end product. Yes, we look to the chances missed in the opening minutes with deep, near suicidal regret but beyond that, the next 89 minutes saw The Arsenal create the sum total of fuck all as Chelsea were
never really threatened. So despite what I said above, can we really pat ourselves on the back for a ‘good performance’ or has Le Boss been tactically outclassed yet again by a Chelsea manager? Jose Mourinho, Avram Grant, Gus Hiddink and now Carlo Ancellotti. Do Chelsea know they can allow Arsenal so much possession because they can rely on their deadly counter attack? Our recent record against The Blues can’t be
a fluke and ultimately leads to the despondent expectation of defeat detailed above. The sad reality is that they are better than us and the challenge we supposedly present is totally futile. If the match was replayed 10 times, how different would the outcome be on each of those occasions?
To quote a tweet (what is the world coming to?) from Arsenalvision Godfather Squid Boy: “is it not indicative of our relative standing that we have so few grievances[after defeat against Chelsea]?”
Losing against Chelsea is always a painful experience but in a perverse way, it is less painful the more it seems to happen. I know a Chelsea fan who told me that Arsenal “isn’t even a big game anymore”. A pretty depressing state of affairs it has to be said. I try and stay optimistic but our much talked about 10 year hoodoo over
them when they just couldn’t beat us is nothing more than a distant memory and quite poignantly, something that will probably never happen again. If fact, I struggle to see us being ‘better’ than them for quite some time. I hope I’m wrong and this is a case of the darkness before the dawn.
Ever heard of Battered Woman Syndrome? Thought not (Look it up). Well, it was a condition ascribed to victims of domestic violence as a legal defence for any retaliatory action including murder. The theory suggested that repeated abuse by their partner was a justifiable reason for any reaction. If there a footballing equivalent,
it seems to be apt in terms of Arsenal and Chelsea matches. Here’s hoping we can stand up to them and “lash out” in the form of some emphatic victory over them in the return match this December.
Get your tweets out. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Go on.
http://twitter.com/IbrahimMustapha
There’s a whole world of football away from Arsenal and sometimes I manage to brainfart some stuff on a page about that too.
EXAMPLE OF AD POSITION
