Tag Archives: Champions League

An Arsenal-free Saturday is normally greeted with derisory comments about the state of English football and how it rides roughshod over the common man. Today is different, the wounds from the midweek defeat have not been entirely licked and no end of strong financial results is going to change that. A listen to this morning’s playlist, A Change Is Gonna Come will help improve the mood; as per usual, it’s on Dad’s Jukebox on the right sidebar, the page of the same name or here.

Everton will provide tough opposition. They are normally obdurate, Arsenal have only scored more than three goals at home against them once since the seven-goal spree in 2005. The saving grace is that their Premier League form is wretched; winning just three of the last seventeen games and one of the last ten. They will be buoyed by their Europa League progress in midweek and let’s be honest, having seen Arsenal’s form since the North London Derby, they won’t be frightened.

Worried, yes; the wounded beast theory and all that, concerned that the Arsenal players will now be motivated to prove the deserved and strident criticism of them wrong. It’s a good theory although I am not sure if it applies to this Arsenal squad. I’m not sure it doesn’t, before you ask; it’s a case of there is no way of being sure how the players will react.

I want them to come out fighting, to be determined to put the defeat behind them and to start scoring so freely that the unlikeliest and seemingly most improbable of second leg victories in the Champions League. I want to but I can’t, there’s been nothing from this squad that indicates this is a realisable prospect. The win at Manchester City is increasingly becoming an anomaly and not a corner being turned.

One of the biggest hurdles the players face is their own fear. They were so easily dismantled by Monaco that I expect a natural trepidation to surface in their performance. I won’t be unhappy with that so long as it isn’t a burden. If the legacy of Wednesday’s defeat is to take them back to the basics of getting the defence correct, I won’t complain so long as it isn’t at the expense of attacking confidence.

Leonardo Jardim put the tactical balance quite simply as being “an art, defending and attacking“; Arsenal were devoid of that and whilst there is some truth in Arsène’s view that the team became frustrated by their inability to break down their opponents, descending into individualism and rushing, there is a more deep-seated flaw at work to allow that to happen.

It’s been a regular criticism back to the beginnings of Project Youth. It’s a lack of leadership. Per Mertesacker appeared to have sold that problem over the past couple of seasons but this campaign has, by his own admission, only just come to terms with the legacy of the World Cup and its impact. At this point, there is a strong point to be made that relying on one player is not how this experienced a squad should be.

The question which will never be answered properly – publicly at least – is why it happened. Arsenal school their players well in media relations and the searing honesty needed is never displayed. They are as uncontroversial as can be. Let’s be honest, our bad boys like nothing more than a crafty fag. It’s hardly a throwback to the days of the Tuesday Club, is it?

Do we want that honesty anyway? There’s an interest in why the defeat happened but until the summer reshuffles begin, is it more a case that the only answer we want is on the pitch? It is for me, there have been too many false dawns in recent years and this entire season nestles in that category. Finishing third won’t represent any progress as far as I can see as we remain as far away from a genuine title challenge as we have ever been.

Wider questions emerged about the English – and club – game. Arsène believes the Premier League too intense over the course of a season for the English clubs to succeed in European competition. I have no doubt that playing four more games than some others takes its toll but what this week has reinforced is that the problem remains in the tactical abilities not physical games.

Arsenal and Manchester City were both exposed by brighter-minded opponents. Their opponents employed coaches and players who were cleverer than their counterparts. Monaco’s post-match comments when you discount the bragging all boiled down to one point; they knew exactly the style Arsenal would employ and worked quickly on exploiting it, dictating the game.

If opponents so obviously know Arsenal’s weaknesses, why don’t we? The bike is lying in a heap on the floor, we have to get back onto it and start riding.

Elsewhere, Arsène’s backing for the Qatar World Cup to be played before Christmas signalled the acceptance of FIFAs flawed decision-making process. The bigwigs at European club level are rumoured to be less than enamoured, especially with Jerome Valcke effectively telling them to ‘do one’ if they think they are getting any more money for the disruption.

That was enough to send the owners running to the armoury to get their sabres out and you hear them rattling from here. The Premier League clubs, we are told, are being lobbied to form a breakaway federation, to take control of world football. First stop Switzerland, next it’s Uranus.

Which is where this is all coming from; the clubs won’t do it – if they were genuinely serious about it, they would be putting up a candidate to take on Blatter. Instead Luis Figo has stepped into the breach on the basis that he can’t do any worse than David Ginola as opposed to believing he has a genuine chance of winning.

Little wonder international football suffers a credibility gap.

’til Tomorrow.

There comes a point in every season when things need to be changed. Depending on performances, it might happen once, twice, three times a season as Lionel Richie opined before he realised a more commercially astute path beckoned by substituting ‘football’ with ‘lady’ in a song title. And the masses fell for it..

Sorry to shatter a myth or two there.

Arsène faces such a moment. There are those who will point to the results going into the Monaco game as a sign things were going OK and football is nothing but a results-based business. When that doesn’t come, focus turns to performances and when they don’t come…do you stick or twist? And if you twist, how far do you go?

It’s a tough question to answer. The options for Arsène are limited. He has options in most positions but not all of them. Most, if not all, of the team were markedly poor on Wednesday night; how does he decide who to axe. It’s a pivotal moment in the season with a top five finish nowhere near assured. A poor response by players and manager to the defeat could undo the hard work in the past twenty games.

The notion of fielding an unchanged side on Sunday is not as fanciful as it seems. There is history of the same players putting in an entirely different level of performance within a week; God knows we’ve seen them play well enough at a weekend only to lose the plot completely in the next match. My immediate reaction was to look at half the side and change it. I don’t think that will happen but the option of using Santi Cazorla in a deeper-lying role has been exposed. It works against supine opposition but can easily be neutered. In those circumstances, the likelihood of Jack Wilshere returning to the starting line-up increased.

There will be beneficiaries of course. Wojciech Szczesny must have looked at Ospina’s performances recently and having been envious of the luck the Colombian enjoyed, is probably wondering if Arsène is judging his goalkeepers to be on a par. There are others, Nacho Monreal, who will fancy their chances of establishing themselves as the outright first choice whilst Theo Walcott is surely thinking likewise. It was that kind of defeat.

What concerns me is the ease with which any gameplan that Arsène put in place beforehand was so easily undone. Monegasque players and officials are rightly and understandably crowing about the fact that Arsenal played exactly how they expected, making the visitors job straightforward. The Arsenal players collective failings exacerbated the problems which Monaco were already prepared to try to exploit.

What the second leg holds, I don’t know and I’m not sure I want to contemplate right now, especially with experienced players talking openly about how the only option now is to go to the Principality and attack. Easy meat for headline writers to use the phrase, “Gung-ho“. Disconcerting and downright worrying when you see how easily Arsenal were picked off on Wednesday.

Before that the Premier League and FA Cup interrupt our thoughts. Sunday sees Everton who have by turn been obdurate and easy opponents. Like Monaco, they haven’t conceded many goals, certainly not since Christmas. They are however not scoring many either. Like Monaco. I can’t be the only one with a sense of deja vu here, can I? No, I don’t think that it will be a breeze.

The pressure is always on Arsène but there are cracks appearing in the fabric of the club’s loyalty. Like Jeremy Wilson, I don’t expect the club to change manager before the end of the current but it’s interesting that it seems someone has fed the journalist some off-the-record thoughts. It’s definitely appears to be an attempt by the owners to quell criticism about a lack of investment in his other sporting enterprises, to ensure that Arsenal are not tarred by the same brush.

We look forward now, the players must redress the wrongs as much as the manager. The response comes Sunday; the right words beforehand but now, more than ever, it’s a time for action.

’til Tomorrow.

Arsenal 1 – 3 AS Monaco

0 – 1 Kondogbia (39)
0 – 2 Berbatov (54)
1 – 2 Oxlade – Chamberlain (90)
1 – 3 Ferreira – Carrasco (90⁺³)

Yes, the wheels on bus do indeed go round and round. I know this because Arsenal’s bounced past the window before disappearing down the hill as the Champions League bus crashed unceremoniously to the ground. It was, Brian, a night of stunning ineptitude.

All the talk beforehand was of how lessons of previous crushing first leg defeats had been learned. Monaco would find Arsenal a different proposition. Instead, we saw the repeat of the ineptitude which was the hallmark of the defeat in Milan and the porous defending which Bayern took full advantage of. It was all too stunningly and depressingly familiar.

The defending was so bad that Arsène referred to it as suicidal. It was a performance which he thought the players hearts ruled their minds. It wasn’t even that good; it was brainless and spineless. Above all else, it was a night where all the myths were laid bare. It isn’t money which stops Arsenal competing for the Champions League, it isn’t even unfavourable draws. It’s much more ingrained in the club’s psyche than that.

It’s hard to argue with the substitutions Arsène made. I’m just amazed he could make his mind up; there were eleven candidates, all putting forward a strong case for their replacement. Olivier Giroud decided to have a woeful night in front of goal and was hauled off. He is the one who was the focus of the media’s attention but he was far from being the only guilty party.

And whilst the forwards were a problem, the defence was even worse. Arsène pointed to Per Mertesacker turning away from the shot for the opening goal which is to a degree, nit-picking. The back four were much more naïve and disorganised than they have been all season.

On the second and the third goal we were suicidal. We had the luck to come back to 2-1 but not the right to give away a goal the way we did

That sums up how bad Arsenal were. Arsène, a man who is unrelentingly positive about the side (although he has to be in public), thought it was luck that the players hauled themselves back into the tie as the game moved in injury time. I dare say what he really thought about the staggering stupidity of conceding the third minutes later is unprintable.

I understand the desire to retrieve a two-goal deficit and having halved it, why the players were eager to level the scores. But they forgot that the complexion of the tie had already changed, the result needed to progress was so much more achievable and the belief that they needed so much easier to instil. Now they must attack more ruthlessly than before as well defending more disciplined than they have managed. Do you seriously believe they can do that? I don’t.

This was a Monaco team which struggles to score more than once each league match and had amassed a total of four from six group games. It’s only the third time this season they had scored three times; Rennes and Bastia were the other reckless parties. To put Arsenal’s task into context, only Bordeaux have scored three times against Monaco this season and that was in the second Ligue Un game of the season. Scoring three without reply? On the basis of last night? What possible case can anyone put forward for that?

If you wondered how to approach such a match, Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim told it like it is,

Football is an art, defending and attacking. It is difficult to score a lot of goals in the Champions League, but we were able to take advantage of the space Arsenal gave us.

Simple really, isn’t it. And it makes you wonder why Arsenal didn’t approach the game in the same way. I can understand one or two players being off-key but none of the fourteen on the pitch can hold their heads high, none of them.

It’s down to bad preparation. It looked as if they were complacent, a charge Arsène struggled to deny,

I hope not. I hope not. It looks like that when you don’t have that kind of sharpness. Anything is possible – it’s very difficult to say that straight after the game.

The problem is that this is a performance that you knew Arsenal had in them. Recent weeks have been unconvincing in part, this dragged all their failings into one bad night at the office. The trouble is, I expect them to have more this season. We saw in the last fifteen minutes at Selhurst Park how timid they can be in defence and god knows Leicester caused enough problems recently.

Rising to third place ought to have given them confidence. Instead, it bred arrogance, a sense they think it’s their right to be in that position. It overlooks that they relied on the failings of others as much as their own ability to get where they are. Is it a false position? Last night’s performance would indicate that to be the case.

Ordinarily you can take some positives from a defeat, see that there was something to work with but there’s nothing from this one worth looking at in such a light. Whatever passion the players have for the game was noticeable by its absence yesterday. And don’t mention pride in playing for Arsenal; they had none.

’til Tomorrow.

It was alright. We could have done better. Twelve draws; it was probably five or six too much

Thirty-eight games unbeaten and still it was considered there was room for improvement. That’s Jens Lehmann’s opinion at the end of Invincibles, a documentary celebrating the achievements of the 2003/04 title-winning side.

When Arsène and those players reflect, it will be their crowning glory in terms of club football. Henry went on to win the Champions League with Barcelona but you sense that whilst he enjoyed that victory, there is something altogether more prestigious in going a season undefeated, a sense of greater achievement.

It’s an interesting documentary – to be screened on Sky this week and subsequently released on iTunes – with the manager and players honest in their assessment of season. Parlour, Keown and Henry pointing to two pivotal moments in the season as the spur for success; Old Trafford and half-time at home to Liverpool.

Keown was pivotal in both, as protagonist on the pitch with van Nistelrooy, whose actions in getting Vieira dismissed don’t improve with time. The defender isn’t proud of his actions in general terms but recognised the galvanising effect that the match had on the team, particularly the punishments afterwards which entrenched the feelings of being hard done by.

Against Liverpool, trailing in at the interval in a week which had seen the dreams of a treble crumble, Keown spoke rather than Wenger. His words around a central theme of reminding the players how good they really were, had the desired effect. All responded, according to the interviews, Henry the most with his goals.

It would be easy to gloss over that season’s failures but Keown didn’t shy away from doing so. The regret is tangible when he talks about the missed opportunity in the Champions League, losing to a Chelsea side which they know they should have beaten, especially being one-up and an away goal in the bank. Winning that, he supposes, would have marked the side out as one of the greatest.

I’ve said before, more than Paris, that was the one which got away, the season when Arsène will most regret not winning the Champions League. There is a certain symmetry in the release of the documentary this week, knowing that had Chelsea been defeated, Monaco awaited in the semi-final.

Even so, the achievements of that season should not be downplayed. The question of whether it will be matched is always asked and to me, earlier in each season. City, United and Chelsea have all been marked out as the next Invincibles; none has yet delivered, underlining just how difficult a task the players achieved.

It was bloody impressive 

Indeed it was, Mr Keown indeed.

However, attention is turning towards the Champions League and planning applications. The interest in the latter is not quite down to the process itself, more the outcome although I am sure some will want to know the i’s have been dotted and t’s crossed.

The club continues to invest in an infrastructure which will last beyond Wenger’s tenure and some of this at least, will have been driven by the investigation into why so many injuries have been suffered. The FA continues its drive to soften the shins of players by not charging Ashley Barnes for dangerous play, despite replays showing Matic might well have had a point in being so angry. The Chelsea hierarchy meanwhile, are happy that attention has been diverted away from the despicable events on the Paris Metro.

It is interesting to note that Sepp Blatter, so long an advocate of the infallibility of match officials, is open to video technology and replays in particular, with his latest wheeze presumably having come from someone else because it actually makes sense. Indeed there is nothing new in it; many people have long suggested that managers be given two appeals each game against incidents. For Mourinho, I am sure that will not be enough and will spark a well-timed PR stunt to engender a siege mentality in his own mind.

Monaco meanwhile talk the talk but like Arsenal must wait until tomorrow to see if they can walk it. Arsène is on the edge of a busy period in the fixture list, midweek games and cup competitions pock-mark the Premier League campaign.

The latter is now in Arsenal’s control. Win and third place is theirs; it’s tempting to say match the results of one or other of the pack brings the same result but none of them seem to want to finish in the top four as much. Experience on Arsenal’s part or fear of failing to reach a basic target; which has spurred the players into consistency? It does matter, if it’s the latter then the collective approach of the group is wrong so you always hope it’s the former. And a smattering of talent showing through.

It’s almost perverse that the Champions League offers the opportunity of progress. Having screwed up the group stage by yet again finishing second, the draw has been favourable. It’s a time to look forward to breaking out of the rut of failure in this competition. That so much store is placed in just qualifying for the group phase highlights the grip money has placed over the game. There’s no sense of achievement in anyone’s answer as to why qualifying is so important; just a fear of missing out.

The profile of consistently qualifying through the group has taken Arsenal to a certain point but the consistent failure of not progressing to the last four on an even regular basis, undermines any sense of sporting excellence. It’s time to make that leap out of Europe’s top sixteen into the top eight on sporting grounds rather an aura created by wealth. Putting the infrastructure in place is part of that but its on the pitch where the transformation must be seen.

Arsenal have been offered a golden opportunity and they have to take it. We then trust to the same luck we had in this draw – on paper at least – to going further than we have for some time.

’til Tomorrow.