Tag Archives: Champions League

Well that didn’t go to plan. By the time Arsenal’s name came out of the hat, everyone was looking to late March and the quarter-final stage. Monaco as opponents, the weakest of the group winners, was all that we could wish for, although to be fair Porto weren’t far behind.

For Arsène, it’s a return to his French footballing home and the papers are milking it this morning with his glory days relived. The departure is almost glossed over as is the Marseilles bribery scandal that seared a hatred of financial doping into his psyche. For a club still scarred by the actions of a former manager, Wenger’s conservative approach was – and remains – alluring, even if Arsenal’s majority shareholder is doting for different reasons.

It’s also a hiding to nothing for Arsenal. It’s a tie that they are expected to win and win comfortably over the two legs even at these times of inconsistency. A single goal defeat in a pre-season friendly might give everyone connected with the Monégasque a hint of hope but let’s be honest, Napoli probably thought that despite ceding a two-goal lead, when the group draws were made last season but it proved meaningless.

Defeat doesn’t bear thinking about to be honest. Even the alarm bells which rang through an ailing Dortmund winning the group well before the last fixture have been muted now the next opponents are known. I kid myself into thinking this might be a good year, that Arsenal have taken on board the lessons of the Italian national team when I grew up; do enough to qualify and then get better as the tournament progresses.

More than anything, it is nice to break the monotony of seeing Arsenal face Bayern or Barcelona and not just because of the regularity of defeat. Europe beyond the big clubs does exist, even if UEFA are determined to prove it doesn’t.

Consecutive 4 – 1 victories have lifted some of the pall around Arsenal but the underlying shortcomings remain as they always do. Every season is a case of how well they can be papered over, not just by Arsenal but every club; the Champions are invariably those whose strengths far outweigh others weaknesses. By that time, the hope is that reinforcements will have arrived from the medical room and the transfer window to give the season some semblance of sanity.

The first inkling of which come with the prospect of Theo Walcott returning to the bench for the weekend’s visit to Anfield. Hopefully, his setback on the road to recovery has been suffered and despite a heavy fixture schedule, there is no reason for him to be rushed back. The versatility in the Arsenal forward line is there to allow Walcott fifteen minutes here and there rather than being thrown in for an hour or more straight from the off.

Further hope comes with the recent photos of Mesut Özil. For a split second I thought, “Wow, he’s well ahead of schedule” only to be snapped out of it by, “Dad, for Christmas, I’d like…” Even so, the prospect of a January return is very real and in the attacking sense, the squad is in a lot better shape for it.

The same is true of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. The rapier thrust of brushing aside the early speculation turned out to be little more than a defensive parry. The midfielder will be fit for Anfield according to unnamed club sources but The Guardian notes that it will be with the help of an injection. In other words, he isn’t fit but he can be patched up and sent into battle. He doesn’t have much choice either, there is no sign of anyone who can be considered a first team regular, stepping into the breach.

Despite the irritation of the defeat, losing to Southampton in the League Cup is proving to be something of a blessing in disguise as much as Liverpool’s travails. By now, we should be looking at continuous reruns of the drubbing received last time we travelled to Anfield. Their descent into the bottom half of the table has occupied media minds more, losing to Bournemouth would be a huge favour in that respect as well.

Whether there would be a backlash on Sunday doesn’t matter. In those situations, it’s up to Arsenal to dictate from the off. Stoke undid the defence last week using the same lightning fast start, Arsenal did the same against Newcastle, instantly assuming control. Sunday might be about fighting fire with fire, something we haven’t done away from home this season. It’s certainly about scoring a few goals, single goal victories seem so unlikely at the moment.

But then again, does the scoreline matter as long as Arsenal have more goals than their opponents.

’til Tomorrow.

I am sure there was a spring in his stride as he walked down the tunnel humming, “There’s only one…me“, following Saturday night’s canter to victory over Newcastle. The familiar stoop returned as the extent of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s injury became clear with reports suggesting that the midfielder is doubtful for Sunday’s trip to Liverpool.

It isn’t very often that you will read me praising Sky but thank god they chose to screen the match; at least it gives an extra day to get the walking wounded, well, less wounded; fit would be too strong a word to use. Yes, it’s always tempered by any reports written this close to the final whistle are speculative at best but the way this season has panned out gives an uneasy credibility to the notion. Mainly because it reflects the nagging thought at the back of your mind.

Mind you, having seen how poor Liverpool were yesterday, we could play Arsène and Bouldie in the back four and still have a fighting chance of winning at Anfield.

We might not be so fortunate in coming seasons with the probability that weekends such as this one targeted for a ‘big clash’ as the new Premier League television deal is rumoured to include ten Friday night games per season. I still remember the false hope of a goal at Old Trafford when the BBC tried this experiment nearly three decades ago. I didn’t like Friday night football then, I don’t now. When I grew up, it was the preserve of Tranmere and a few other lower league teams who survived in the shadow of bigger clubs and more appetising Saturday afternoons for the denizens of their locality.

Yes, we had 1989 but that was a Friday night match through the most tragic of events. Events still being felt a quarter of a century later. It took Sky twenty years to reconstruct the drama of a title win in the last seconds of a match and even then the protagonists weren’t playing each other. United’s game had finished and they waited for Martin Tyler’s guttural shout. It was more reminiscent of Channel 4’s Football Italia where a squad – Lazio I think – waited on the pitch for their title rivals inglorious failure.

Arsenal lost 4 – 2 by the way.

The manner in which the prospect of the top-flight footballing weekend becoming more elongated, tells you all you need to know about the mindset of the game’s governing body. Matches, we’re told, won’t involve teams playing in that week’s Champions League. No prospect of Scudamore taking charge of a regime which punishes the Premier League’s top clubs by making them play twice in forty-eight hours.

No prospect either, of the Premier League bringing forward fixtures so that teams playing in the following Tuesday’s Champions League fixtures get a day extra rest. Despite being one of the most successful sporting organisations in terms of revenues, the Premier League – and the English game in general – still lag well behind their continental counterparts who have no qualms about moving matches to help teams involved in European competitions. Attitudes to the Europa League and European Super Cup underline the importance placed on success in any tournament.

Still we’ve got the League Cup and that’s ours to cherish.

Scheduling the additional evening into the calendar isn’t that different to other leading European leagues. Spain and Germany have Friday night fixtures to contend with but I do wonder where they will be fitted in so that some semblance of an attractive fixture is provided. I suppose for the major package it is a way of dumping the less attractive fixtures and leaving Sunday’s Super.

As usual, supporters will be the last consideration on anyone’s mind. TV companies want games to be well attended but they also need subscribers, it’s their lifeblood. Funny how we’re everyone’s lifeblood and nobody can stop leeching off us to take any notice.

And Europe comes to the forefront today with UEFA trying to tap into the traditionalist revivalism that has seen the BBC push FA Cup draws back to Monday lunchtime, by holding the Champions League draw for the Round of Sixteen today. One man who isn’t keen on a traditional fixture is Arsène who tempted fate by name-dropping Bayern and Real as teams he wants to avoid. The hat-trick might have come had he mentioned Barcelona but he didn’t.

Instead, like us all, he pinpointed the easiest route to the final: Monaco followed by a quarter-final against Porto then Bayer Leverkusen and PSG in the final. OK, so he didn’t pick the route quite that far but he is “not against Monaco because it would be a visit to my first home. I would love to go there.”

You can insert your own joke at this point.

If for no other reason, I would quite like this season’s draw to give us a tie Arsenal has a chance of winning. Knockout ties have been over at the final whistle in the past three seasons and a monotony is building over the failures. Referees have contributed but let’s not kid ourselves, in the Round of Sixteen, Arsenal have become their own worst enemies. A change to that needs to happen, not just for supporters but players also.

If the logic of players being demotivated once Arsène leaves is true, so is repeated failure in the Champions League. It becomes little more than a European League Cup for the club. OK, financially a lot more than the League Cup but playing wise, the club cannot take the next step on the field if they cannot make the quarter-finals on a regular basis. That said, reaching the Round of Sixteen is a true reflection of our playing abilities in recent years.

It is going to be harder to reach as well with revised seedings for the tournament. The group stage will be more unforgiving of poor results as Arsenal slip from the top pot to the last. I have little time for the contrived rankings applied by UEFA to ensure the champions of the richest league are more favoured than anyone else. Indeed this may the notion that kills the tournament when the supposed big teams fall into the Europa League. Not that happening to Arsenal but United led the way, if Real or Barcelona follow, you can be sure another change to the competition won’t be far behind it.

’til Tomorrow.

It just goes to show what a big girls blouse Samir Nasri is. As newspaper swoon over his 68mph shot, it’s worth remembering that Podolski hit the ball 10mph harder and Ramsey was 10 yards further out…

Barcelona completed the sextet of possible opponents in the next round of the Champions League, The round of Arsenal as it was cruelly but accurately labelled in yesterday’s Guardian. The usual bullishness emerged from the players, Aaron Ramsey was permitted his exuberance following what he considers to be the best he has scored.

He thought he was nearer and Yaya Sanogo couldn’t believe the strike either; I’m not sure whether he was astonished through the quality of Ramsey’s shot or that an Arsenal player managed to get one on target the way this season was shaping to pan out.

It may still go a bit further south before doing a u-turn. Ahead of the Newcastle match, the sensationalist aspect of the media has noted that Calum Chambers suspension means that Mertesacker is the only recognised centre back who is definitely fit to face the barcodes. It’s a cue, you are already thinking, for criticism of the manager for the failure to invest in a central defender in the summer. That you are thinking that way means I don’t have to say it.

Who Arsenal draw in the next round is irrelevant. A tie that seems winnable would be a pleasant change and break a cycle of failure to get beyond this stage. It is however, only putting off the inevitable of facing stronger opposition for a month or so more; you know that prospect is coming because it has to happen.

Logic dictates that Arsenal aren’t good enough to win the Champions League at the moment and their level in Europe is probably in the top sixteen clubs. Financially, yes, much higher but football isn’t played in the Annual Reports no matter how it might try to be portrayed. Playing within the rules? Morally correct but when the boundaries are flexible, it isn’t that hard to obey them.

City’s progress last season and now into the knockout phase this time around, suggest that whilst there is an element of luck on injuries, their disobedience of FFP is looking like money well spent. Deliver the title once more, progress to the semi-finals of the Champions League and it is hard to argue that their punishment was effective.

And Arsenal are not so virtuous when it comes to finances. The club still won’t pay the Living Wage even though most consider it to be a social obligation. Perhaps Luton Town doing so with no ticket or retail price increases planned to cover the cost will shame Arsenal into action. I doubt it, there is probably another £3m to wing its way across the Atlantic before it is even considered.

One of the (many) criticisms about the club and its structure is the lack of footballing experience in the administrative roles, i.e. board level appointments. Before we set out down this route, it’s worth noting that just because someone has been a success on the pitch does not mean that they will be one-off it nor that they will be useful in the boardroom. It is a common theme that there is no-one at that level to challenge the manager any more; no-one has yet put forward evidence to counter that view either. Indeed Sir Chips performance at the AGM reinforced the view that it is a nail squarely hit on the head.

At another club, there is evidence it is possible to make this type of appointment successful. A different club with a different structure, it should be emphasized. According to The Mirror, Sol Campbell is being lined up to take on a coaching role at Ajax. Jaap Stam is apparently standing down and Campbell is with the Dutch club finishing the work needed for his coaching badges.

The main thrust of the article and one that is hard to argue with, is that he has to move abroad to find his coaching role because of the colour of his skin. A simple scan down the list of managers and coaches underlines the issue. How you solve it is less clear; is it a necessity for interventionist policies at governmental level or can football with its rich history of being run by white middle-aged men induce change itself? The farcical goings-on at Wigan underline the size of the task.

Ajax are keen for their players to be coached, as Johan Cruyff put it, by former stars but the stark comparison to Arsenal comes not from that but in the willingness of clubs to embrace former players into senior roles away from the training ground. If you look at the elite clubs, they have by and large, former players in senior roles, people who would challenge the manager when he doesn’t have a plan and not keeping quiet because they don’t know what to say. Not that the latter is problem as such, sometimes it is a sign of a wise man.

Or a miserable sod, in my case.

Arsène wouldn’t tolerate such a presence on the board, he has made it perfectly clear in the past that a Director of Football is not going to happen during his reign as manager. Whether that is a philosophical view or simply intransigence having come this far is not entirely clear but I suspect the needle flicks more toward the latter.

But this isn’t about him, this is about getting the structure right for the club of the future, about laying down the parameters for such a role and from his point of view, having an input into such an appointment. It’s a role that would protect his legacy at Arsenal, preserve a footballing philosophy in terms of how the club operates. He probably has someone in mind already…

’til Tomorrow.

Galatasaray 1 – 4 Arsenal

0 – 1 Podolski (3)
0 – 2 Ramsey (11)
0 – 3 Ramsey (29)
1 – 3 Sneijder (87)
1 – 4 Podolski (90⁺¹)

Arsenal finished their group campaign with a flourish and having been put to the sword in the first half in The Potteries at the weekend, saw the immediate benefit of an early goal themselves. Except they were more ruthless than Stoke and ten minutes later, Aaron Ramsey scored the first of a brace which suggests the weight on his shoulders of trying to score, has been lifted. Would the Ramsey of a couple of weeks back, desperate for his touch to return, forcing matters, have hit as sweet a half-volley for the third?

For an hour, there was a sneaking feeling that this might not be such a dead rubber after all nagged at the back of your mind. You didn’t want to believe it and Ciro Immobile’s goal seemed to end any such thoughts. Mitrovic’s equaliser gave us a glimmer of top spot but it wasn’t to be; we knew that top spot was unlikely in the immediate aftermath of Anderlecht’s unlikely fightback at The Emirates. We’ve had plenty of time to reconcile ourselves to another Round of Sixteen exit.

Being Arsenal, there might be a price to pay. Having spent a decade and a half waiting for an hour to make substitutions, Arsène has developed a taste for making changes at half-time. Ramsey and Flamini, he hopes, were precautionary and should be fit for the weekend. It gave Maitland-Niles a longer than expected opportunity and Zelalem a welcome return to first team football. Neither will have been disappointed with their contribution in match that was perfect for such introductions even before a three-goal lead had been established.

With little expected at the final whistle, it was good to see the players more relaxed. They weren’t so much welcomed to Hell as a nice little cottage by the seaside. Galatasaray’s appalling Champions League campaign was reflected in the crowd, apparently subdued beforehand, they were cowed when Lukas Podolski rammed home the opening goal.

Arsenal’s clown prince turned in his best performance in a while – not just this season – with two well-worked and taken goal. The second – as rare as a Sanogo goal – came with his right foot, following good work by the French youngster. Talking of whom, his reaction to Ramsey’s second of the evening, the awestruck wonder and sheer disbelief is brilliant to behold: here.

It’s a result to enjoy given the performance at the weekend and the ensuing rancour. That situation hasn’t changed with one away win in Turkey. If Arsenal come crashing down to earth on Saturday night against a rejuvenated Newcastle, the same criticisms that followed the defeat at Stoke will resurface. But that’s another day, another what-if in a season of too many what-ifs already.

Ramsey’s second – Arsenal’s third – was a joy to behold and one of those moments when a player knows things are going his way. Wenger admitted post-match that like most of us, the shot was not the option he was expecting and would himself have chosen. Just goes to show that he knows what we know…

Attention turned inevitably to Podolski afterwards. Wenger tried to quash any talk of the German leaving,

It is a competition for places that is difficult. I had Welbeck, Sanchez and Giroud at home and you can only play a certain number of strikers. He came back later from the World Cup but he is now coming back to a very strong level.

It’s hardly a ringing endorsement of belief in the player, is it? More than the terse one-liner Joel Campbell’s future received. The latter did little to convince that his stay at The Emirates will be a long one. It isn’t that’s he a bad player, simply that he is no better than anyone else in that position. Which let’s be honest, is rather well-stocked at the moment. Whilst I would be surprised if he left in January, next summer is a different story.

Podolski meanwhile did a good job of advertising his wares in the shop window. He worked hard on the left, evidenced in the build-up to the second where he hustled possession before turning to support the ensuing attack. That workrate is something which has frequently been missing, a cornerstone upon which criticism is founded. Perhaps it is perception skewed by last night but his better performances in that respect tend to come on Arsenal’s travels.

What impact this result has on the coming Premier League games, I am not sure. When you consider that half the side will change for the weekend, it is hard to believe that there won’t be some loss of the ‘feelgood’ factor a resounding away triumph brings. Yet there will be some positives that even the non-playing members of the squad draw upon; the spring in the step, the bounce in the stride.

Certainly the makeshift defence did well to restrict their hosts to one goal from a well-struck free kick. Yes, the timidity of Galatasaray’s play in the first half meant a more comfortable evening than might have normally been expected but the back four still has to prevent the goals being conceded. Mertesacker’s block in the second half would have given him something of a boost in belief, seemingly strange for a World Cup winner but it’s been a strange season between the German’s ears.

As it is, Arsenal finished second. We knew they would, even when three up. It leaves the unlikely prospect of opponents, ranked from easy to difficult in my eyes, as: Porto, Monaco, Atletico, PSG / Barcelona, Real or Bayern. It’s more clearly defined than in previous years. Of course any of the six can beat Arsenal but for the first time since Milan, there is a real prospect of progress against three of those teams. So we’ll end up with either of the two Spanish giants – I expect Barca to win tonight and top the group – or Bayern.

’til Tomorrow.