Haha I think I will deliberately start delaying my game reviews just to get an opportunity to come up with post titles like the one above and cram as many bad puns as possible into one. That was a four in one! (Is that too dirty to be a STWSS?)
Now, if you want to read a blog post about the above games replete with sentences that inform the reader how a structured diamond became a fluid allotrope 4-4-2 graphite, or how a false nine is actually a made-up 11 and a slightly duplicitous 10 playing in front of a fictitious 8, or how the treqeuesteras requested to be sequestered after equestrian or how good the Vasquez and Rodrigues combination used to be in the glory days of Franco, Salvador and <insert Spanish name here>... then sorry you have come to the blog at the wrong time of the week when it is the turn of the other reader author to post about Arsenal. If you are into knee-jerk reactions than the rude knights who say nee oru jerk, welcome.
1. Blackburn-Arsenal: Zonal Marking might be a good website but clearly it is not a good system of defence for the clueless bunch at Arsenal. Anything more than a see-man-follow-man instruction goes well over their heads, just like all those incoming balls from set-pieces. That we contrived to lose a game 4-3 in which the opposition had only two shots on goal smacks of carelessness. All that Blackburn had to do to score was send the ball somewhere vaguely in the direction of our six yard box and wait for one of our defenders to score for them. ZM without any clear leadership and individual responsibility seems to me to be a very bad idea only headed for doom. Per has just joined this back four. Kos is cutting his teeth at the top level and Gibbs is inexperienced. Sagna is the only dependable guy in the lineup but ZM is a system that calls for complete coordination and that cannot be achieved with just one person learning how to. It is encouraging that we are trying to work on our defensive frailties but at the same time is is disappointing that we are mending the car by setting fire to it. As the Blackburn result showed, ZM doesn't seem to be the way ahead, at least with these defenders.
2. Arsenal-Shrewsbury: Our squad depth is a bit of illusion. On paper we have about 89 players. About 76 of them are also made of it. At any given time they are in the hospital getting glued. That we struggled to beat Shrewsbury (who?) is a reflection of the lack of quality of our second string players. Ju Young Park seemed overwhelmed by the occasion and kept running away from the ball as if it were a Korean military service personnel trying to draft him into the army. Fabianski is back to his usual form that earned him the moniker of Flappyhandski from the clearly very witty British press. Djourou, the rock-solid defender of the second half of last season who deputised for the original defensive rock Vermaelen has been reduced to a pebble-solid defender, a pebble made of clay. On the positive side, Benayoun was good. Oxladen is an immense talent and it was his cracker of a goal that saved us the blushes that night. He will provide good and much needed competition to Walcott. Coquelin was also excellent. His positional discipline in midfield and clever distribution made his performance a stark contrast to the performance of Frimpong, whose gameplay is usually built around robust play and strong tackles. The youth do inspire confidence but they have been doing so for the past six years.
3. Arsenal-Bolton: I did not see the match as I was cycling around an island with breathtaking views like most of us are wont to on weekends (what is that...you don't?), but having seen the highlights I can speak with impunity about how glorious the goals were. Very glorious.
4. Arsenal-Olympiakos: Zonal Marking might be a good website but it CLEARLY isn't a good system of defence as far as this bunch is considered. Arsenal started off with a 4-3-3 with Arteta Frimp Rosicky in the centre and Arshavin RVP Ox playing top. It comes as a surprise to me that over the past few games Wenger has been experimenting with his formation and changing it almost every other game, something he has never done at this frequency in the past. Anyway, Oxladen scored his debut CL goal after chesting down a brilliant over the top ball from Song and drilling into the right corner. Santosh also scored his debut CL goal that night. A flurry of give-and-go's on the left flank ended up in Rosicky releasing Santosh who crossed the ball on the ground for Chamakh, collected the clearance and shot past a goalkeeper who should have done much better. Arsenal then being Arsenal decided to let their Greek guests score one. Surprise surprise it came from a corner. Olympiakos took a short corner and floated it into the box. There was so much space and time in the danger area that the Olympiakos scorer could have driven inside in a tank, parallel parked it and then scored. He comfortably took a 50 yard run up, jumped up and thumped the ball into the net with a forceful header. It was almost like a handball goal (the sport not the illegal action). The problem was there was no communication between our defenders. No one knew what their roles were and they ended up marking whichever zone they felt like defending leaving loads of space free. Second half there were some improvements when it came to defending and I felt it was largely due to the imposing presence of Mertesacker and his long leg. It just kept cropping up in places you never thought it would. You would think there is no way his foot can reach such a great distance and he would lazily dangle a foot at the right place and time to deftly rob the player of the ball even before they realised what was it that hit them. As a result we were much tighter and calm in our defending in the second half and did not let any more goals.Quite a feet. But ZM continues to bother me a bit and I cannot help but feel that it was one of the main reasons why we were pushed to the wall by an outfit whose attack is not by any means as potent as, say, even Wolves. This could be a potential pitfall when trying to zone mark the thugs of EPL. There were some signs that it could be made to work, as Szczesny and Merte have said in their interviews but it would require that slightly daft players like Santosh and Djourou learn quickly.
These wins give us much needed momentum in the build up to the first North London Derby of the season which has always been a fixture of great drama and excitement even before kick off leading to nervous breakdowns, despondency and suicidal depression post final whistle. 2-0 to 2-3 last minute losses, 4-2 to 4-4 draws, 2-0 to 2-2 draws where anonymous twits score once in a lifetime volleys. Tomorrow there is the added bonus of Adebayor too. Ugh.
All set for a pleasant Sunday evening then.
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