Vermaelen has spoken about how aggressive the new boy is and what a good reader of the game he is and after watching the first 15 minutes of the match I would have echoed those exact sentiments

Match Review – Arsenal 1 AC Milan 1 – Emirates Cup

The Emirates Cup is usually the first place where the fans can get a good insight into the thoughts of Arsene Wenger. We have been watching plenty of mixed teams, new combinations and young players in the previous pre season outings. Many of them being given a chance to prove they can hold their own alongside the bigger boys in the squad.

But the Emirates Cup is the stage where Arsene first starts to think about the first league game of the season. He would have been watching his players in training and could probably decide what his line up will be at Anfield judging by those training sessions but it gives the rest of us a good look at the players, old and new.

One of the question marks this summer has been who will partner Thomas Vermaelen at the heart of defence. New boy Laurent Koscielny has come into the club with jagged question marks being thrown at him from all angles. Johan Djourou who missed 99% of last season is also fighting for a first team position.

Vermaelen and Koscielny have played the most amount of minutes together as a partnership and the combination yesterday told me that they are in pole position to start on Sunday August 16th against Liverpool.

Vermaelen has spoken about how aggressive the new boy is and what a good reader of the game he is and after watching the first 15 minutes of the match I would have echoed those exact sentiments.

We must be careful not to make complete judgements on players so quickly, we will need to watch 10 games or so to have a better understanding of all Koscielny and Chamakh’s strengths and weaknesses but from first glance in a semi competitive game for Arsenal, both players gave a very good account of themselves.

Laurent Koscielny appears to be taking the Thomas Vermaelen route. Having a few shaky moments in early pre season matches, being written off before a ball is kicked in anger then coming out with a classy performance when it really mattered.

Vermaelen did not get the chance to take part in last seasons Emirates cup due to injury but he burst onto the scene at Everton with a wonderful display. Earlier pre season games against Barnet and in Austria didn’t show his true ability, the script seems to be very similar with Koscielny.

He looked quicker than I thought which is good to see. He also seems to come from the same intercepting school as Gael Clichy. Waiting patiently for his opportunity to dash ahead of the forward and whip the ball away from the dazed center forward.

As he said in his recent interview, he likes a header and he showed that having a slim figure does not stop him from winning plenty of ariel duels.

Our passing was much quicker, the tempo had increased from the one paced side to side passing that we had seen in Austria. Huge credit must go to Jack Wilshere and Emmanuel Frimpong who at 18 had gone head to head against the likes of Seedorf, Gattuso and Mathieu Flamini who came back to his old stomping ground for the first time since he ran out his contract.

Our two youngsters more than held their own in the middle of the pitch, notably Emmanuel Frimpong who looked like he couldn’t care less about reputations. Without the ball Emmanuel Frimpong looks fantastic, very imposing and quick to get to the opposition player and ball. As I have repeated, he still needs to work on keeping the ball and making the right choices. In games where space and time is limited, he could be found wanting but at 18 years old, I would say that he is more than on track at this stage of his career.

Wilshere grew into the game after a slow start. He ran into a few blind alleys and tried to hold onto the ball a little too long at times but once he got into his stride and adjusted to the opposition he began to make earlier passes and dropped his shoulder at the right times.

Wenger has said that both players will remain at Arsenal this season, instead of being farmed out on loan. Hopefully both players can get some good game time, especially in the Carling Cup and FA Cup.

Super Samir Nasri continued his excellent pre season so far, I saw a more direct version yesterday. One that didn’t only try to come back inside his man and make a backwards pass. His aim was to beat his man and get past him. One piece of skill in the first half when he cut inside his man and laid back a perfect goal scoring chance to Rosicky who only managed to find the goalkeepers legs. Nasri was a constant thorn in the Milan side and could well be a big surprise this season.

Marouane Chamakh made his Emirates stadium debut yesterday and passed with flying red and white colours. Although Sky Sports rather annoyingly set us up as a 4-4-2 with Arshavin playing off Chamakh it was the usual 4-3-3 with Chamakh playing the lone forward role. You would have thought that Sky Sports would have known our formation by now, as we did actually play that formation all of last season and all through the pre season so far. But hey, I guess we are not Manchester United, Chelsea or Liverpool.

Chamakh is clearly a team player. He wants to bring others into play, he works very hard to close down defenders and win the ball back. He is a willing runner who made some very clever runs into the channels. He has mastered what Adebayor hasn’t and that is the ability to time his runs and stay onside. He spun his man and got free down the right channel a few times yesterday and I am wondering if we will see him playing there a few times when Robin Van Persie is back, taking the place of Bendtner at the start of last season.

Chamakh may not have the ability and flair of Van Persie, he might give the ball away at times when trying to find a team mate but his awareness and football brain looks very decent.

Arshavin’s direct run for the goal was what I want to see from him plenty more this season. Kieran Gibbs who was once again very impressive won the ball whilst on the floor, Arshavin nipped in and took over. His drive towards the penalty area, head down, leaning into the opposition player is what we need more often. His final ball was inch perfect, something that hasn’t always been the case at Arsenal. Chamakh’s run was good and his finish was tidy. The assist and finish was very Bergkamp and Ljungberg of old.

Nasri was first to congratulate the forward and you get the sense that Nasri and Chamakh have bonded judging by training pictures, pre game warm ups etc. Both players could be very important for the up coming season.

Those replaced at half time are likely to play at least a half in the game this afternoon. We got a chance to see the defence that I believe will line up against Liverpool in two weeks.

I suspect that Djourou will partner Nordtveit for most of the game against Celtic. Both of our flying wide men Walcott and Vela showed some flashes of brilliance. Vela’s quick feet on the left and curled effort on his right foot was a jump out your seat moment. It is time for the likes of Vela and Walcott to take that leap forward this season.

Milan and Seedorf in particular started to get a strangle hold on the game and begun to show their quality going forward. The free kick on Sagna could have gone either way, both players were pulling and pushing each other. It is disappointing to concede a goal from a set piece, especially after last season but we cannot take anything away from the fantastic Seedorf delivery. Played into the perfect area at the perfect pace. We didn’t win the header and Fabianski was beaten.

It is those types of goals that have punished us lately, having said that the same type of goals have punished Chelsea and Liverpool also. We missed plenty of height that would have been playing. Abou Diaby, Alex Song and Robin Van Persie but we should still deal with those situations better.

Mark Randall came on for the last 17 minutes for either a chance to prove himself to Arsene or to look pretty in the shop window could have won it for Arsenal. His two efforts were well saved by the Milan keeper but he should have done better, especially with the second effort.

Both teams could have won the game. Flamini and Zambrotta hit the crossbar for Milan, Pato curled over the bar in the first half whilst Rosicky, Randall and Walcott came close for the home side.

A decent display considering we were missing seven first team members out of the squad. Arsene will look at the minutes played so far and juggle round his troops to make sure no one plays too much. I don’t expect to see Jack Wilshere, Samir Nasri or Thomas Vermaelen today.

Jay Emmanuel-Thomas will get the chance to play as the center forward on the Emirates turf which will be interesting.

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