The Great Cescape

This was supposed to be a post that was supposed to be posted post Wenger's conference where he was supposed to finally announce the bloody transfer of Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona. Life is full of suppositions that never come true. We say stuff like all cats are dogs even though they clearly aren't. It is like one of those things. I am not going to let Wenger's anti climactic conference make the rather clever title of my post go to waste. If you find the rest of the post unrelated to the title and find this wee bit of logical disconnectedness toppling your sensible world may I suggest you pause and go read Rubin Khazana. Done? You are not complaining about my post now, are you? Thought so.

I am going to skip what Wenger said in that conference. It was just ludicrous nonsense designed to taunt the press who had gathered to listen to Wenger reveal something about the transfers but instead had to hear him say stuff like "I expect no one to leave the club" - which the whole world and his dog knows is false. The reporters were pissed and it showed in their questioning which got more and more impatient and belligerent as the press conference progressed. It was if they had been told some dogs are flowers.

Let's start with the football. Firstly, football is back! Proper, actual, live football on the field which is a huge improvement from repeated viewings of the invincibles season or the second half of Arsenal-Barcelona. I decided to watch the first game of the season at a pub in central London with a bunch of friends. It turned out to be as fail as Wenger playing the lead role in Brewster's Millions.

We expected a rowdy gang of fellow gooners cheering every tackle and booing every appearance of the face of Joey Barton. Instead we found a bunch of elderly gentleman applauding politely at halftime and tut-tutting tackles. On of my friends even got admonished for cheering a foul. I think one of the elderly patrons of the pub as I believe they are called said "kids these days". It was in these library-within-a-pub setting that we watched yesterday's match.

Arsenal lined up without Cesc-not-expected-to-leave-Fabregas and Samir-not-expected-to-leave-Nasri. Szcz in goal, Sagna Kos Verm Gibbs the back four. Song Rosicky and Ramsey formed the midfield trio as Wilshere was out injured. New boy Gervinho and Arshavin started on the wings. RVP started up front. We started brightly and some quick passing led to the ball being set up for Rosicky early on who shot wide of the goal. Gervinho and Arshavin often switched flanks causing confusion for the Newcastle defenders. Both Gervinho and Arshavin had decent games. They were all over the place, working hard and beating defenders with their pace and skill. With an apparent lack of creativity in midfield much of the clever work fell to Arshavin who I thought did rather well. His clipped ball to RVP was Cescesque but since it was only esque and not the real thing it was not as perfectly timed as RVP would have wanted it to be and Van Persie could only bundle it towards the keeper. 

RVP had an okay time upfront and had to often drop back to pick up the ball from just front of the midfield area which meant there was no one upfront, which was kind of fail. There were many occasions when RVP had the ball and the Newcastle back four where in front of him and no Arsenal shirts cutting in behind the Newcastle defence. Gervinho was quick and tricksy enough to beat the fullbacks but had a very poor final ball to actually trouble the goalkeeper or create any solid chances. Ditto for Gibbs. He controlled the left flank for most parts of the game and played his part in going forward. Apart from one over the top ball which he misjudged and let Ameiobi get behind him, he did well overall and chipped in with some well timed interceptions. The over the top ball was his weakness during pre season and continues to be his achilles heel apart from his actual achilles heel from which he only recently recovered. Whether he can improve and battle against the top teams remains to be seen. 

The Verm Kos pairing worked yesterday as reflected in our clean sheet. Vermaelen showed what we missed last season with some crunching tackles and general steel in the defense. I cannot remember Newcastle having a proper chance at goal. That doesn't excuse us from buying a defender though. One injury as is prone to happen and we are looking at a Djourou Kos centreback pair which instills as much confidence as Barcelona's balance sheet (heh, football accounting joke). We were again all nice play no goal. It is the same ghost of season past - opponents defending their socks off and we lacking any sort of intelligence or killer ball to find that one goal. With Cesc and Nasri (who are not leaving by the way) leaving I don't see how the situation is going to improve. 0-0 at full time. We applauded politely and left the pub.

I think Wenger's wingerfest gives us an idea of things to come. We have more lightning fast, tricksy wingers now in the club than you can shake a stick at. Gervinho, Walcott, Arshavin, Alex-Oxlade, Miyaichi and possibly Joel Campbell. This seems to hint at some quick forward play and a departure from mind numbing sideways passing that we could pass off as tiki taka lite or the poor homeless destitute man's poorer friend's impecunious son's Barcelona. This new strategy should help us going forward (heh!). It bodes well as without someone like Cesc who can pull the strings from midfield and provide defence splitting throughballs on a consistent basis we would be better off having a trick up our sleeve in the form of some aggressive attacking play using our wide men.

Nil nil at Newcastle away is not a bad result entirely. But the other events that happened yesterday (about which I make no mention as they don't interest me much) make the forthcoming weeks dreadful. Gervinho got sent off for slapping Joey Barton. Alex Song faces a retroactive ban for standing on Barton's legs. This means we could potentially face Manu and Liverpool without the two. There is no cover for Song in the def-mid area. Bloody hell. I have no clue what Wenger meant when he said we have too big a squad! If Song gets a ban we are looking at a certain Emmanuel Frimpong who played the first 10 mins of his competitive career yesterday. Breath bating has begun about the Arsenal Liverpool game next weekend that I am going to watch at the stadium*.

I have a bad feeling about this season. Damn, not all cats are flowers.

*Author has red membership.