Mr Arsenal Blog's 1/2 term report. What has gone good and bad for Arsenal so far? Where can we improve?

We are now at the mid-point of the 2012/2013 Barclays Premier League season, and to this point Arsenal have been one of the most "talked about" teams in the league, with many pundits and so called "experts" (Stewart Robson to name but one), having plenty to say about Arsenal and in particular Le Boss, Arsene Wenger. On the face of things it has not been the greatest of seasons so far for Arsenal, as I write this we are 7th in the league, although with a game in hand on those above us. We were eliminated from the Capital One Cup by a League 2 side and beaten at the home of football in the champions league for only the 2nd time since the move from Highbury. So on the face of it all is not really very well. Whilst there are issues that need to be rectified, I believe much of this can be misleading. In this article I will access what issues we have had, and also look into how this can hopefully be rectified, with one eye firmly set on the impending January transfer window.

So, let's dive straight into it. As I said above, many people have had lots to say about Arsenal so far this season and not much of it has been positive, but as I have said many times football has a habit of looking disastrous in defeat, and also has a habit of being taken out of proportions in times of difficulty. So let' me first try and put things into some kind of perspective. In the table below you can see how the team compares to other teams in the Premier League, in terms of many different statistical sections based on their play so far this season. It proves the point that it many ways we not by any means in bad shape at all, in fact far from it!

We have the 3rd best defence, the best possession percentage, 2nd best passing accuracy, have put number of crosses into the box in each game e.t.c So therefore, as we can see from this chart, it is a big surprise that an Arsenal team's achilles heel if you will, would actually revolve around scoring goals, as opposed to conceding goals, which is what we have spent a lot of time talking and moaning about over the last 5 years or so. But why is this?

Well firstly as I have written on this webpage countless times so far this season the quantity of our possession and the quality of our possession have been two completely different things. Yes we have the 2nd highest accuracy % for our passes, and yes we have the highest % of average possession for the entire league, however the way in which this possession is actually used is more important and this has been, in my opinion, has been an issue for us this season. In a number of games we have had so much possession, made so many passes, kept the ball excellently, but have not won the game and in some cases have lost the game (e.g. Norwich away, United away and Bradford away). This is because our passing, whilst making lots of passes in and around the middle of the park, is not penetrative enough and therefore doesn't threaten the opposition defence enough. This is something which certainly needs to improve. This is not really a personel issue, more of a mindset issue, the players must start looking to get the ball forward quicker, rather than just playing it around the middle, because that is easy to form up against and ultimately therefore easy to stop, and keep out.

Another reason I believe Arsenal have struggled relatively to score goals, compared to previous seasons is because of a lack of intelligent movement on and off the ball. Given our formation of only playing with one striker, you really require the advanced midfield player and the wingers to make runs beyond the striker, in behind the defence. This has rarely happened for Arsenal this season, therefore making it difficult to score as many goals as we have been used to. Gary Neville was talking about this on the Monday Night Football on Sky before the Reading match (where we won 5-2), and this was interesting to hear. He outlined how that whenever he played against Arsenal, he always knew that when a defender went out to mark an Arsenal player, another would run off the ball, into the space that the defender has just vacated, thus creating an overlap. This season we have not had enough runners beyond the striker, and beyond the ball. We need to get one player running into space, dragging the defenders out whilst someone else runs into the space that the defenders have just been dragged from, the movement has got to be more intelligent.

As much as Santi Cazorla has been brilliant for us so far this season, I don't think he is the sort of player like Cesc was for us, and what Rosicky was for us last season, who runs and charges forward off the ball. He is more of a ball player, someone who gets on the ball, and likes to manipulate it around the field, which is great! I therefore believe we need a "runner" in this position. Would love to see Diaby fit of course, Rosicky too, either of these could fit this mould, and then I would play Santi on the left with Jack, Mikel as the 2 deeper players and then either Rosicky or Diaby playing in "the hole" or the "Cesc role" if you like.

All in all it has been an up and down season for us so far. On the face of it seems we are miles off, but in reality I don't think we are. We need to re-discover that intelligent movement and passing that I talk about. Statistically there really is not much wrong, other than our goals scored and shots to goals ratio. Therefore we can see that we have to improve our ruthlessness and also improve our movement and efficiency on the ball. As Gary Neville said in this same clip (which I will link below). I believe that we are a quality player up front, short of being a very very good team again. You can see that our defence is good, our midfield is good (all of which is outlined in the stats), what is missing therefore is that clinical, ruthless edge up top.

This is why it is so frustrating that RVP left, because you put someone back into this team (considering we have added Podolski, Cazorla and Giroud in since last season), we would be a very very good team). This shows that we are not far off, and therefore the January transfer window is really key for us this year. If we can get a quality forward through the doors, to really help improve our goal scoring stats, everything will take care of itself, and I genuinely believe we can challenge towards the top. Everything else is taking shape OTHER than the goal-scoring, which of course whilst it's massively important is very fixable in my opinion. On the whole, we can do better, we must do better, but there are many reasons to look forward with excitement and anticipation for the rest of the season because this team is very capable of being very good, it just needs a slight sprinkling of gold dust up top, which hopefully can arrive in January!

Let's hope we see a productive January transfer window, and a successful end to the season with Arsenal finishing as high as is possible. We have only lost one more game than the team in 1st place (Manchester United), but have been let down by the number of draws that we have had, therefore given that little extra quality we can turn these points into 3 points. I also hope that we can see some decent runs in the FA cup and Europe.

UP THE ARSENAL!!!!

@Mr_arsenal_blog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAsYAB-kD6w - Gary Neville talking about Arsenal.

Mr Arsenal Blog's Tactics Weekly. 

19/12/12 - reviewing the Reading game.

Well, after what can only be described as an absolutely disastrous week for Arsenal, with the loss to Bradford, media speculation about tensions/moods within "The Camp" e.t.c. It was absolutely imperative that the boys put out a statement against Reading at the Madjeski Stadium on the Monday Night Football. The team had to show that they are still capable of playing fast, exhilarating, attacking, fluid football, like as Jack said "The Old Arsenal" did, the Arsenal that we have been so used to watching during the "Wenger Years".

What was pleasing is that we did indeed see this once again in patches. In the context it was against a very poor team in Reading, however the movement the speed of passing, and the freedom of expression that we have been so lacking recently seemed to return. It is a bit of a cliche but "you can only beat what's in front of you", and that we did in style because we put five past them. This was great to see. Only real negative from this outing was that we were un-able to keep a clean sheet, which is frustrating to be honest because Reading hardly really threatened and the two goals they did score were massively sloppy on our part, to say the least. The top teams are clinical at one end, which on this occasion we are, but are also clinical at the other end in the sense that they will never let the opposition back into, no matter how many goals they themselves have scored. This is slightly irritating. However take nothing away from the boys as this was a magnificent performance all in all, and what is important is that it was a massive response and a huge improvement on the last game. That is what we ask of the players, and that is what they gave us.

The main difference between this performance and the: slow, bogged down, limp, un-imaginative, rubbish that we had to sit through last week Vs Bradford was speed. This is something that I have talked about so many times this seasons. When Arsenal play with speed, with intelligent freedom of movement in the final third, it is very hard to stop us. Against West Brom last time out in the league, this was evident as we played better, but against Reading this went up another couple of levels more, which was great. It is all very well having great passers of the ball in the midfield, in Arteta, Wilshere and Cazorla, which of course they are, but if you do not have intelligent and effective movement and freedom further up the field, it is near on possible to break any team down. As was evident against Bradford. Against Reading we moved the ball effectively, manoeuvred the ball into good areas, got players running of the ball into space, and at last we looked much more effective and much more threatening. The fact we had 17 shots on target and 28 shots overall outlines the increased attacking threat that we showed.

I actually believe that Theo made a big difference playing through the middle because of his pace. Why? Well because of his pace playing off the shoulder of the defender, and his potential to run in behind, meant that the defenders had to play against him deeper to decrease the space that he could run into. Not only does this mean that he was a threat to their defence, it also meant that there was a heck of a lot more space in front of the Reading defence for the likes of Santi, Jack, The OX, Podolski e.t.c. to exploit, and exploit it they did. The way in which these players linked up was fantastic, and this was in my opinion down to the space available which in turn was caused by Theo pushing the defence back, with his pace and threat.

I also thought that our wing play was much much improved against Reading, which was also a key reason as to why we looked a lot more threatening in the final third than we did against Bradford (although to be fair, you couldn't be much less threatening than that). The likes of Podolski, The OX and Gibbo and Sagna breaking from defence, were very effective in beating their men and getting good balls into the box, which was great to see.

In terms of the Mr Arsenal Blog's man of the match there is only really one candidate, Santi Cazorla. He was absolutely immense in the game, he created chances, took shots on and of course scored a very well-deserved hat-trick to return to the capital with the match ball firmly placed under his arm!! However having said that, I thought the whole team played well. Apart from the mistakes that led to Reading's two goals, which of course on any other day could have cost us, they all played well. I thought that it was great to see Podolski have more of an impact after what can only really be described as a quiet few weeks, I thought he had a great game. Same really with The OX, who also looked much sharper than he has in recent matches. Also, special mention to Mikel who I think is starting to really look comfortable in his "anchor man", defensive midfield "role" in the team. During this match he made many key interceptions and tackles, and also was his usual influential self in terms of passing. Hope this continues.

Overall I was extremely happy with the way that Arsenal played on Monday night Vs Reading, and to score 5 goals, away from home in the Premier League is absolutely no mean feat, so the lads can be very pleased with that. Moving forward we have the game against Wigan away on Saturday which has been a bit of a tricky hunting ground for us over the years to be honest, so hopefully we can put in an equally good performance, hopefully minus the mistakes at the back, and get another good win. With the West Ham game on the 26th cancelled this is a very important game because our XMas period is now not as congested, so the lads have much more time to recuperate and recover from this game, so let's hope that they make it a good one!!!

In other news, today the club announced that it had secured the future of five key young players: Jack Wilshere, Kieran Gibbs, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlin, Carl Jenkinson (all English) and Aaron Ramsey (Welsh), all of which Arsene hopes will develop into a "British Core" of the team who we hope will all grow into top players. Clearly Jack Wilshere is the stand-out name there, and in my opinion certainly has the MOST ability however Gibbs for example is also getting a lot of experience now, and should grow into a fantastic LB! Many people have raised their eye-brows at Ramsey being given another deal because of his lack of form, which I can see is fair enough, however this is not a contract for NOW, this is a contract for 5 years, and this boy I don't care what some say, he has a great deal of potential and a great deal to give over the next 5+ years, I have no doubt about that, he will be a key player. Granted he is going through an extremely difficult patch at the moment, and seems to have lost confidence. But I believe he has shown that he has ability (before his injury and early last season), and will be a great player for this club, so him signing new deal is also great news! Of course The OX and Carl also have big futures ahead of them too, and have also equally shown lots of promise in their Arsenal careers to date, and of course are both England internationals! That's great!

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/five-young-internationals-sign-new-contracts

UP THE ARSENAL!!

@Mr_arsenal_blog

Mr Arsenal Blog "Guest Page"

I have recently set up a guest page which is: mrarsenalblogguest.blogspot.co.uk.

If anyone would like to write an article for it, then please contact me on Twitter (@Mr_arsenal_blog), and then I will let you know my email to which you can send an article for me to put on the page!

Hopefully will spark some good discussions!!

Ollie

@Mr_arsenal_blog

Arsene Wenger an Arsenal legend, perhaps nearing the end of the road at this club. How to solve a dilemma like the Arsenal boss? 

12/12/12 

Arsene Wenger is club legend, who has collected 11 major trophies over his tenure. He has re-shaped this club from top to top, overseen a period of unparalleled success and change at this club, and in my opinion has well and truly "built" Arsenal, into the club and the brand that it is today. Without Arsene Wenger I don't believe we would have the stadium we have, play the brand of football that we have enjoyed since his arrival, as an apparent unknown, and we definitely would not have seen players such as Patrick Viera, Thierry Henry, Cesc Fabregas e.t.c. grace the pitch at Highbury and latterly The Emirates. He is also of course revered for masterminding arguably the greatest league season in English league history, 2003/4, where of course we went the entire season without loosing a game in the Championship, an incredible achievement, to win the Premier League with an astonishing 90 points, 11 points clear of 2nd place Chelsea. Besides that he has led us to a number of other league titles, FA cups, a champions league final, which we unfortunate not to win, in 2006 and a number of other cup finals. Furthermore he has led us to the knockout stage of the Champions League for 13 seasons on the bounce, and incredible record.

It is therefore astonishing, when you read it like that, that this great chap could be under severe pressure from many fans to step aside from his job, a position which has seemed completely safe for all these years. However we are now on a run of 7 years without a trophy, for our great club to celebrate and pressure is at an all time high really on him to rectify this.

Many people feel that he has lost his winning "touch", something which was so revolutionary when he first arrived. Some say he has become "stale and complacent" however the impact that he had upon his arrival will go down in history. It is well known how he changed the club in terms of training methods, dietary programes and of course style of play. But in the present many people feel that he has failed to develop this philosophy further since his arrival  and therefore is too easy to "second guess" for opposition managers and coaches alike.

It is an incredibly difficult topic I believe for Arsenal fans to discuss because this is the man, as I said, who has in many ways, built the Arsenal that we know, watch and love today. As I said without him our club would have a completely different complexion, and therefore the club is a credit to him. He really is a Mr Arsenal, he has said on many occasions that this is the "club of my life". This is why it is extremely difficult and emotional really for me to be writing this because this man has just been incredible for this football club, and to be honest I do still believe in him. I do think he has been let down by a combination of players, board members e.t.c. over the last few years in that players have been allowed to manipulate him and basically stick two fingers up and him and leave. Whilst the board have perhaps not allowed him the freedom to bring in the quality of personell that he acquired when he first joined (e.g. Viera and The King), and the quality of player that was already at the club to work with on his arrival.

However I do believe he has it in him to re-create the success and trophy winning ethos that has brought him so much success during his Arsenal career, and we must not forget this, but questions are certainly being asked now, stronger than they have ever been asked before, and until a trophy is brought back to the home of football and placed in the cabinet, or until a proper and prolonged challenge for the Premier League and Champion League titles especially is brought about, these questions will continue to get larger and larger, and more and more fans will jump on the "Wenger out" band-wagon. This is the sad fact of football!

I would like to make one thing very very clear before I continue in this piece, and that is that I am absolutely NOT a "Wenger-outist" (as I like to put it), I do not believe that Arsene Wenger should be sacked at this moment in time because as I said I do believe that he has it in him to re-create such success. He definitely needs to add some more quality to the team, and he also perhaps needs to consider tweaking his philosophy and his tactics here and there. For now, in my opinion he is definitely the right man for the job, for what he has achieved in his career at this fantastic club, and also for what he is capable of. There is certainly no one out there who is available NOW (and that is a key word), to come in, who is more capable that Mr Wenger himself. Besides changing a manager mid-season is rarely a success and never really achieves anything other than a short-term response or revival. This has been clear at Sunderland for example.

However in the more medium-term looking forward to the summer, I am beginning to feel (and this is something which seriously saddens me), that perhaps it is time for a change, and new impetus to be fed in to the club, I believe we need some new ideas into the club, a fresh start, to really move the club forward again. Wenger is very capable of doing this, however a slightly honed philosophy and new impetus would be beneficial in order to achieve this. In my opinion there is only one man that can deliver this, and that is Mr Josep Guardiola or as he is more commonly known, Pep!

This is a young man (41 years of age), who in my opinion revolutionized the club of Barcelona, in a similar fashion to what Arsene did to The Arsenal back in the late 90s. He is a man who shares a similar philosophy to Wenger and to Arsenal, but who perhaps has more modern, contemporary methods, which I believe would suit us going forward. What is this? Well we all know that Arsenal and Barcelona share one thing, that is there belief in keeping the ball, attacking and playing good exciting football. However during Guardiola's reign he took this to a completely new level. It is very easy to forget that during the late years of Frank Rikkard's reign at FCB they were not massively successful. This changed when Pep arrived, and what followed was incredible period of success for their club, which was built around Guardiola's insistence of a specific defensive system. He acknowledged Barcelona were not the best defensively, but were going forward, therefore if they could find a way of holding onto the ball for longer, and winning it back whenever lost it, they would be extremely difficult to beat. This was achieved through the pressing game that Barcelona played during Pep's reign and to an extent this season since his departure. I believe that apart from a few games every now and again, Arsenal do NOT do enough off the ball, in terms of hassling and harrying to win it back, whenever they loose it, that is why we often concede on the break. Guardiola would I think change this. Of course Guardiola would also change a few things with us on the ball, however I feel where his philosophy would help us most is off the ball. Football is about defending as an entire team, this is something I believe has not been achieved at Arsenal in recent years, and is something that Pep would insist on and therefore bring into the club.

What I am trying to put across here, is that Arsene and Pep are in many ways very similar. But Guardiola would revolutionize the way we play in a very subtle way. He would perhaps also bring in more top quality players to help the club move forward, however that would be for time to tell. It has been reported today that Pep has highlighted Arsenal as the Premier League side that he would most like to manage. I feel that this is down to the philosophy that we (Arsenal) effectively share with him, the philosophy of attacking football, with an emphasis on youth development and preparation. I do feel that we are the club most suited to him and I believe he knows that.

As I said I am NOT a Wenger-outist, as I acknowledge the massive intelligence of the man, and am forever grateful for what he has achieved and what he has brought to our club. As someone of my age Arsenal with Wenger is (apart from the first 4/5 years of my life) all I know, it is therefore extremely hard to imagine anyone else sitting in his chair at the stadium on the match-days.

However I am beginning to feel that a change could, perhaps, be worthwhile. Not necessarily is this change absolutely needed, because as I said the boss isn't a bad coach all of sudden, however perhaps a new perspective a new voice, and a tweaked strategy could benefit the club, and give us a better chance of winning major honours again. That is the key for me, I am not saying that with Arsene we would never win anything again, however I feel that with a new voice or new ideas we could perhaps get there quicker, because of the change that would perhaps come about with Pep at the helm. This team, this club, perhaps could do with this change.

With Guardiola currently on sabbatical until this summer, and it is been clear that he will NOT be taking up a job until then, at least he will not start work until then, and bearing in mind the immense qualities he has as a coach, and the success he has had demonstrated so early in his career, I believe this is perhaps too good an opportunity to pass up. After this summer it will be extremely hard to get him, because he will be in work, that is for sure. Arsene has done an un-believable job at this football club, and is a man who  I will love, respect and thank, in equal measure, for the rest of my days, but with someone who could lead this club for many years to come and perhaps take the club back to success available, should we turn it up? This is the dilemma. I do hope that Wenger would stay on at the club, perhaps in a "technical director" like position as I feel his work at the club merits this and we can benefit from having him still at the club in some way. However perhaps it is time for us to have new impetus on the coaching side! Given Guardiola's age he could feasibly go on to surpass Wenger's tenure at the club too, given suitable success that he is no doubt capable off!

To summarise Wenger is an astonishing man, but Arsenal I feel could this summer take the opportunity to go in a slightly different direction with a manager that has a very similar philosophy but would make changes all the same. Whatever happens what I want is for Arsenal to be at the top of the English game once again, how this happens I am not bothered. It is sure going to be a very interesting 6 months or so!!

Thank you Arsene for all you have done, but this summer it may be time for change!!!

UP THE ARSENAL!!!!!!!!

@Mr_arsenal_blog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQfsqbj0Skc&feature=plcp - my thoughts on this situation in video form!

Mr Arsenal Blog's tactics weekly.

10th Dec - reviewing the WBA game.

Well, that feels better. Today I can at least write more positively because we got a good win, rather than a sole destroying and depressing home loss, that I was forced to write about in my last instalment of this feature. This time around we put in a good performance all in all, kept a clean sheet, looked more confident and together as a team, and ultimately got a comfortable win. Was also good to see the likes of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlin start to play towards the level we know they can. This is good to see! However why were we better on Saturday compared to last Saturday? What changed? This is what I hope to make clearer now.

First things first, the speed of our play was unrecognizable compared to the rubbish that we played last week against Swansea. This came from a much more dynamic, progressive midfield performance and a much more intelligent performance from the front 3, in terms of movement and also in the way that they tried to take on their opposition defenders. It was much better to watch that is for sure. I thought that the midfield three of Jack, Mikel and Santi, were much fresher than they were last week against Swansea and the way that they moved the ball was much more dynamic and much more efficient. This allowed us to move the ball quicker up the pitch, and really push West Brom back towards their own goal line. Against Swansea we were so predictable and Swansea found it relatively easy to get the ball back, because our passing was not quick, and not efficient. This was key. I thought Mikel and Jack's work-rate was also much better this week. They chased the ball all day when we didn't have it, and they both put in a real shift for The Arsenal, which was great to see.

What was also good to see was the defensive side of the game. As I have said in previous articles, what has been somewhat surprising this season, is the fact that our defence has been more reliable this season than other attacking side of the game. This has certainly not been the case in previous seasons, where you would always expect us to score goals, but also let too many in at the other end of the pitch. Against West Brom, we scored twice and we also kept a clean sheet, so that was absolutely great. But our defence on Saturday was fantastic. We looked threatening in our attacking, and we also were hardly threatened at the other end. Think that Mertesacker and Vermalean seem to be starting to be really comfortable and confident together, which is absolutely fantastic. Anyone that follows me on Twitter, or have read these blogs, will know that I am a big fan of Mertesacker and he has been in great form this season, think he has been absolutely excellent so far this term. However Vermalean has had in all seriousness a very mixed season so far this season, however thankfully he seems to be getting back towards what we know he is very much capable of. On Saturday they were both fantastic. Why? Well because we hardly saw them. This is always a great sign for a team defensively, when we don't see much of the defence, it means they are not making any real mistakes, or not really giving the oppositions chances. This was great to see! Hopefully it continues!

The only negative point that I took away from the game on Saturday, was the amount of chances that we squandered on Saturday. And before people jump on the bandwagon, I am not only look at Gervinho here, I am looking also at Oxlade-Chamberlin who mis-hit a good chance, Jack Wilshere who missed a chance from real point blank range and then as I said Gervinho who also should have scored. It does frustrate me that we leave chances on the field. On Saturday we played really well, but had to rely on two penalties, which red tinted glasses of, perhaps should not have been given, so these missed chances on most occasions would have cost us the three points. So I really hope that this improves, and that the players become perhaps more composed in front of goal, so that we can be more sure of results like we got on Saturday, without relying on two perhaps dubious decisions, which we know we very very rarely get (we didn't get ONE penalty at home last season), so it is clear that we cannot rely on referees to get us out of trouble (unlike another red club you could argue). Hopefully composure and calmness in front of goal, will come, and of course when it does we will start to really bang in the goals!

Finally my MOTM for Saturday was my favourite player, Mikel Arteta (who by the way if you didn't know is now on twitter - @m8arteta). I think that his work-rate was absolutely fantastic, he chased the ball all day long, tracked back whenever needed, and also he stayed true to his skill set of producing great passes. However on Saturday his passes were much faster and more dynamic than the last few weeks, which was partly down to better movement and dynamism in front of him and also a more progressive mindset in my opinion. Was great to see. Of course he also won us the match with two very composed and intelligent penalties! Think not only did it take guts to take the penalty on the face of it, it also took a lot of nerve to stand up and take the 1st one, having missed a key one against Fulham. So that was great to see.

Looking forwards, we have a very important game tomorrow night up at Bradford in the Capital One Cup which we have to progress in. Many people call it the who gives a f**k cup, however I believe that its an extremely important cup for us, each year at the moment, because it gives us both a chance to win a trophy and end our agony of not winning for 7 years, but also because of it's position in the calendar  it is a chance to really put wind in our sails for the final months of the season. We saw a couple of years ago when we lost it, how our confidence dropped, so if you flick that around, if we were to win the cup in February I believe our confidence will be given a huge lift because not only would we have ended our drought, it would also give us real impetus and momentum to play well for the rest of the season, and also experience what "winning is", creating a real winning mentality and experience of winning titles at the club, which is in my opinion missing (you could argue). So let's hope that we put in a good performance tomorrow night, and most importantly get through to the next round, and looking further into the future, hopefully we can pick up some silverware in this competition at Wembley early next year.

UP THE ARSENAL!!!!!! 

@Mr_arsenal_blog

P.S I have recently set up a "guest page" for this blog, which is mrarsenalblogguest.blogspot.co.uk and if you are interested in writing an "Arsenal blog" on this page, then please message me on twitter (my account adress is above) stating your interest, and hopefully I can get you on!

Frustration, Frustration, Frustration. Good players but no run of form. Finding the right formula to get success for AFC.

In property terms there is a widely used phrase of location, location, location however unfortunately if we had to coin 3 words to describe Arsenal it would be: frustration, frustration, frustration. Now I am someone that thinks about the game, set-ups e.t.c almost constantly and at the moment I am really struggling to work out why it is that Arsenal are struggling to put a run of good form together. It really is hard to pinpoint the issues. Why? Well because I simply do not accept people's opinion when they say that we do not have good players, because quite frankly we have some very very good lads at the club who can play to an exceptional level, however at the moment it is not working. Therefore we need to find the right formula to rectify this.

However I can notice a few issues that need to be rectified. Unusually for Arsenal in recent years, these issues do not surrond issues at the back as I do believe that on the whole our CBs have done well this year, especially Mertesacker. But the area that ironically that we are actually strongest in, the midfield, is in my opinion the real issue that is evident to me. Because we have many good players in a central midfield role and because of the space that was made available after Songo's departure, we have tried to get as many of these players on the field at once, this has meant that we are really struggling for balance in our midfield. We lack of point of difference in my opinion.

Now to re-wind a bit at the start of the season we were actually playing particularly well, and in all honesty we played Liverpool away and City away and played both of them off the park, surprisingly especially at the home of the champions. In recent weeks we have lacked that real spark and imagination, and as I said balance. What is therefore missing? Well in my opinion it is one thing. Abou Diaby! At the moment we are playing Mikel Arteta and Jack together, both of which are exceptional players on the ball, however neither of them really have that physical strength or size that you would associate with most midfields in world football, at least in "top" sides. Abou delivered for us at the start of the season, and it is in my opinion no supprise that since he returned "home" to the physio room at Colney, our form and performances have significantly dipped. So basically it is going to be really good for the team if we can get Abou back, but knowing his record this seems unlikely which is extremely extremely frustrating, because this lad in my opinion has the ability and the talent to be an absolutely TOP TOP class midfield player. Therefore should we buy someone in this area in January?

I am not convinced about this because if we did this we would have to take one of the quality players we have in midfield out, and I am really not sure if that would be a good thing. It is therefore perhaps more sufficient and crucial that we find this balance from within. Jack and Arteta for the time being at least, need to develop more of an understanding, and get one of them playing a more deeper defensive, quarter-back like role. This is going to be important in my opinion. As I said before on my blog, I am not convinced about the whole "defensive midfielder" thing, I think it is more important to have two balanced players, that "sit and go" effectively. This is something we had with Arteta-Diaby and have not managed to replicate since Jack and Mikel have been playing together. Let's hope they can develop this.

The second thing that has been lacking especially this season, and to be honest actually for a number of seasons, is a lack of running of the ball!! We don't chase down the ball enough in midfield when the opposition have it. At the weekend Swansea worked their socks off and got a result, when we had the ball they chased, they harried they hastled and they pressed us. We never seem to do this. We have to acknowledge that we don't have the players in midfield that can just sit of and stop players coming through, and therefore we have to actively chase the ball down and therefore hold on to the ball. We allow teams to play, and we cannot allow to do this, because as I said we don't have the players to sit of a team and just pressurise them when they get to the box, we have to pressurise them ALL over the pitch, and win the ball back quickly.

Finally what has got to improve is our movement off the ball. Watching the highlights (or lowlights) from Saturday again, we gave the ball away so much because players had to gamble on passes, because there no real options for them to pass to, because our players were not moving around enough. Sky Sports just showed a stat that showed in passing terms we are 1st and 2nd in the league for all their different statistical collections of passing. Therefore we can pass the ball, it is just key that we start making more effort than we did against Swansea, and give the opposition more to think about, by moving clinically off the ball! Would it help if we tried a different shape, perhaps two up front, to give oppositions more to think about?

I am as always extremely confident that we will turn this around because we do have good players. But I just think we have really missed Diaby, and have not worked to get the right balance in his absence. And finally on the ball we have become static and predictable because our movement is too slow and at times non-existent.

Let's hope this changes.

UP THE ARSENAL

@Mr_arsenal_blog

Mr Arsenal Blog's tactics weekly. 

02/12/12 - reviewing the Swansea game.

Well, what a horrible performance and result for us yesterday against Swansea City at The Emirates, and you could argue to make things worse, as I am writing this, we have drawn the same team away from home in the FA cup to be played in January. The performance yesterday was very poor indeed, and is to be honest the coming together of the things that have been wrong for much of this season, and things that I have been discussing on here for weeks now.

As I have been saying on here, our passing has been lacking penetration and direction in recent weeks and months. And this was absolutely the case yesterday against Swansea. We all know the way that Arsenal play, we like to keep the ball and we like to attack, that is fine. However, what has been a problem recently especially in games such as Norwich, Villa and United away, is the way in which we use the ball. Against Swansea yesterday the team's passing was once again limp and un-imaginative, and therefore naturally we had absolutely no penetration across the field. Against Aston Villa for example we had 650 passes, did we score? NO. That is so poor, we have to use the ball much much better! It is so frustrating to have to KEEP talking about the same things on here, but there really is not much else to talk about.

This has been a real issue this season, however we have usually had the majority of the ball because we are good at holding on to it. However yesterday we just kept giving it away, and this led to something which we hardly ever see which is the opposition team actually having more of the ball than us at The Emirates, and I believe that just shows you how poor we were at passing the ball, and also shows how poor our movement was. And this was the other main issue with our performance yesterday. As I said we were unimaginative and limp, and this was emphasised with the lack of movement in our team. If you want to play the way that we want to, keeping the ball, playing possession football, moving opposition teams around (like we always have in the past), you have to give your team-mates options to pass to, by moving intelligently, getting into channels of space and putting your man under pressure. This was NON existent yesterday.

If you are going to play like Stoke and just hoof the ball up the field then this is not an issue, you will get a certain amount of success by winning the ball in the air, and get men beyond the ball. However this is not the way we play and quite frankly, hopefully, we will never play like that. However to play like we do and be successful, you have to have intelligent movement, otherwise you will just keep loosing the ball because the opposition will get men around the ball and win it back, as happened yesterday. It was very frustrating to watch it back that is for sure.

This is something which is very un-usual for an Arsenal team to be limp in attack and have no movement. We have been so used to watching our team spreading opposition men all over the place with quick, intelligent passing, and effective movement too. It is also somewhat telling that we have conceded only 16 goals in the premier league compared to United's 21. But what's the difference? Well they have effective movement, they use the ball well, and they score goals. This has never been a problem really for Arsenal before. But this season it is, and why is this? Well because our passing is slow, un-imaginative and not precise enough. It is therefore quite frankly SO easy to stop, and with all due respect to Swansea who played well, they should not be able to have such an easy win, we should be putting teams like that to the sword, especially at home. But we are not because our passing and our movement is not at all effective. Defensively we are actually doing okay on the whole, but going forward I don't know what's happened. People are having a go at people like Arteta for not passing forward, but let me make something absolutely clear, movement and effective passing go absolutely hand-in hand. Without effective movement you will never have effective forward passing because there is absolutely no one to pass to, that is what we saw yesterday. We have to start making more of an effort on the ball to get into space, drag defenders out of position like we used to, and therefore goals will come. Until we do that however there will be more frustrating blank performances. I hope this is not the case.

Quite frankly I don't want to talk about this anymore, it is too frustrating. So to put some good news on the table, we are only five points behind 3rd place Chelsea, who by the way are in crisis, and we have a relatively good fixture list for the next few weeks. Therefore if we start to improve, which to be honest shouldn't be too taxing after yesterday, we will pick up points. However as yesterday showed we cannot afford to take ANYONE for granted. We are in a position that we are not used to being in (10th place), however as I said it is very congested in the table, and we are not far behind, but having said that there are teams that are NOT far behind us now, so we cannot afford to keep playing like this. In the week we have a VERY tough game away in Athens, and in a way I don't want us to play a strong team because the players did seem to have nothing in the tank, at least I hope that's the case, because the lack of movement e.t.c did look like a tired team, and I hope it is that rather than a lack of desire and effort. However the game in Athens is an important one, because we have to finish top in our group, so whatever team Le Boss puts out, we have to win. I wouldn't expect a full team to play however and I really hope that people like Eisfield are given a game instead of Cazorla who was effectively invisible yesterday and does seem to be knackred, he has played every game this season so we have to start giving players with great talent such as Eisfield a chance to prove what he can add to the team, and rotate this players in. Because we have a very busy Christmas period as always, and players WILL have to be rotated, so I expect the team in Athens to reflect this.

Anyway lets hope we get two good wins this week in Athens and in another tough game against WBA at home. Luckily they seem to have dropped a bit, but as I said we can no longer afford to take teams for granted, and have to come out absolutely firing and show that we can still score goals to go with what IS an improved defence.

UP THE ARSENAL

@Mr_arsenal_blog