
Finishing above Tottenham would be a bonus so we have to turn our attentions on saying goodbye to some 'propa' professionals. Mikel Arteta, Tomas Rosicky and Mathieu Flamini will almost certainly be heading out the door this summer so this will be our chance to wave goodbye. That said Arsene did say that Flamini has hurt his foot or something. Is it me or am I the only one who gets suspicious whenever we hear one of these injuries stories? I mean Arsène can't exactly say "We can't include them all in the squad so I am leaving out Flamini so I can include Rosicky and Arteta"

While scouring through the Coquelin videos, it struck me just how good that lad is at winning the ball back. We all know this already of course but when you watch his highlight reel, it's just amazing. The speed of which he gets across the pitch and the timing of his challenges is really second to none. Rosicky is just such a classy player but at 35 and coming off a long term injury, I don't see him starting many games unfortunately, perhaps a few cup games perhaps but what a player to bring off the bench when you want to grab some control of the game. Watching Ramsey earlier in the season, I thought to myself that a fit and younger Rosicky would suit that role so well.

Manchester City were pushed into a box in their own half and were not allowed to get out. The likes of Yossi Benayoun, Tomas Rosicky, Alex Song and company forced them to turn over possession time and time again. Manchester City only managed one shot on target in the whole game. As good as our defence were on the day, they did not have to perform heroic clearances off the lines or last ditch
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Arsenal team”, the same people also called for Wenger’s head and called for a new manager at Arsenal, it’s worth pointing out that even before our recent form, we had a run from Oct 21 till the end of December where we only lost 1 game in the league and that was a narrow loss to Man city away. It bothers me that paid journalists failed to spot the correlation between our injuries and our form that was so glaringly obvious for all to see, yet still, most journalists and pundits alike don’t point this out and still call this Arsenal side “The worst ever” While reading the match reports this morning, little

Nonetheless, assists aren't the only way to create chances; in most cases (excluding stoke city) it takes more than a pass and a shot to score. In this respect, Rosicky is excellent. Firstly, he has an excellent awareness of space in the final third. His uncanny ability to spot gaps between the opposition defense and midfield means he often assists the assist (similar to Hleb few years back). These 'pre-assists' are not statistics often mentioned, but the fact is, these passes are often just as important as the assists. He has made 5 'key passes' this season (a key pass is a pass that is instrumental in creating the goal but not the assist itself), joint highest at arsenal along with Ramsey (note that Ramsey had 3 times the amount of starts). A great example of this is in the video below against West Brom (jump to 0.40), where he gives the pass to van
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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.
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Perhaps the young Catalan has been taking strides forward in front of Arsene Wenger during training sessions. He looks very assured on the ball and he gave the defence a nice balance due to his preference to use his left foot. It was very hard to gauge his defensive attributes as he just wasn't tested until the 88th minute but he looks very calm and is certainly an Arsenal defender in the making
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The situation is as follows. We have four center backs. Two are new players and are unlikely to be sold after their first season at the club, the other is the best center back at the club but is injured, the other is soon to be the best center back at the club, Johan Djourou. Can you add a fifth center back? What are you going to do with a Gary Cahill when everyone is fit?