As I hope you are all aware the season is now two weeks old, after fixtures at the home of football against Sunderland, and away at Stoke City, the season is therefore in full swing! This is great! The madness has commenced once again! Marvellous! Where will the season take The Arsenal? Only time will tell, however what we do know is how we have looked and shaped up in the first two instalments of our countries' fantastic league! With these games in mind and the summer’s ins and outs so far most people seem to know what Arsenal need to add in the next 24 hours or so, what do I think? Well, hold your horses, you're about to find out.........
But first let me talk about the first two games of Arsenal's Premier League Campaign 2012/2013. After the acquisitions of, in my opinion, some quality players (Cazorla, Podolski and Giroud) I was very much optimistic ahead of our first fixture against Sunderland, and most of what I thought actually came to fruition, however this was not reflected in the result one bit. Did we dominate the game? Yes. Did we have lots of possession? Yes. Was Cazorla the hub of the team's attacking threat? Yes. These were all things that I expected prior to kick off, which were evident post the full time whistle. The team played well, and we looked very good going forward, and arguably what was more surprisingly following the trials and tribulations of recent years was how, in both games, solid we were as a team defensively. This use of the phrase "solid we were as a team" I believe is key, because as many of you who either followed me on twitter or read my blogs throughout last season, or people that have ever sat next to me at matches for that matter, will know I always bang on about defending from the front and "pressing" the opposition. It is all very well saying that a team has to be solid at the back, but I believe that it is more important to defend as a team. You only have to look at Pep Guardiola's Barcelona (from the last 4 years or so) to realise how effective defending from the front to the back can be. Regardless, in the games against Sunderland and Stoke, especially Vs Stoke, this was something that we did very very well indeed. Particularly in the 1st half whenever Stoke won the ball, our midfield and wingers seemed so keen to swarm around the man on the ball and hustle him to win back the ball, and this at times was very effective.
This of course needs more work to become very effective indeed, but I found it very encouraging to see. What was also very pleasing, again especially when you consider past difficulties, was how well we defended against Stoke's usual tactics, the methods that have caused us a lot of bother in recent seasons. We are very smart when defending near our own goal line not to give away needless corners, which they can hurt you from, and we were also very effective at defending their "trademark" long throws and free kick routines. This was naturally very pleasing indeed because, as we all know, since Stoke City's introduction into the Premier League we have struggled to counter their physical threat and unusual tactics, in particular when playing away at the Britannia Stadium.
The fact that we have not scored a goal yet this season, in the two games that we've played, is of course disappointing, however I have been encouraged by the quality of our play going forward, albeit not actually finishing them off, and how solid we have been as a team. Overall I am not buying into all the "doom and gloom" and other nonsense that both the media and some of my fellow fans seem to be banging on about. The facts are these, we have a few new players coming in who have integrated well, but who need more time to fully integrate into the team and to our style of play. This will come, and in the case of Giroud and Podolski in particular, they WILL bang in the goals, I am very confident of that. I believe that quality shines through, and these players are of a high quality. Cazorla has integrated seamlessly really, and is already, as I said earlier, the "hub" of the team. He is so composed on the ball, can pass in all manner of ways and is a very intelligent player. I am confident that these 3 players, plus one or two more that I hope will arrive today or tomorrow, will proove to be great success stories at The Arsenal.
So what can we expect from the next day or so in terms of transfer dealings in football's supermarket? Well, as it is football, not a lot! It is always un-predictable; I think we all know that by now. However the question of what we actually need or require to do, is certainly a much more answerable one. Well, much has been made of our midfield options people saying that we need to get a new "defensive midfield" player, I am not so sure. I have actually quite liked the shape we have had with two "non - specialist" defensive midfield players, I feel that it gives quite a nice balance. So far one player has sat deep whilst the other goes forward, and this is very interchangeable which I believe fits our style of player like a glove. This allows us plenty of freedom. Besides, Mikel Arteta is a very capable player in this role as he has proved last season as he actually covered for Song in that role a lot last season, when Songo was rampaging forward. Furthermore Coquilin is super talented and will play, and of course Jack Wilshere is, well we all know, brilliant and will be coming back in due course. This is without even mentioning Ramsey, Diaby, Rosicky, Frimpong e.t.c. So I actually feel we don't need a "specialist" DM, however that does not mean that I would not like us to sign a central midfielder as I do feel that we need another experienced player in there of technical quality (maybe Cabaye), but this is not a priority! What however IS a priority is a CF. Of course Robin Van Traitor has left, whilst the talented Giroud and the experienced campaigner Podolski have arrived. Despite this two strikers is NOT enough, we MUST acquire another. Chamakh could go, Bendtner will go and is not good enough anyway, and we can ignore Park. So all in all, if someone gets injured out of Giroud and Pod, we are basically screwed; we MUST do something about this, no doubt!!! I hope we will sort this before tomorrow evening 11pm.
Anyway, all in all, do not believe all the doom and gloom rubbish that is being bandied around all day every day in the media about us, Arsenal has always coped with players leaving, and will continue to do so for a long time yet! I am confident about the season ahead, not saying we will win the league, but we will win something, and for a club that hasn't won anything for seven years (and counting) that is the main thing for us this year, to end that ridiculous drought! We have to develop a culture of winning things at this club that will sort out the problems of players leaving all the bleedin time (but we won't go into that).
Where we have been weak defensively in recent years, big Steve Bouldy seems to have been working hard on, which already seems to be working, and with the new signings integrating I actually feel we have a lot to look forward to!!
Hope you understand my thoughts and opinions!! Let's hope we remove the dust in our trophy cabinet and add something of worth to it!
UP THE ARSENAL!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment