Success Is A Fine Line

The margin between success and failure is often a very fine line. In football, this ‘fine line’ is generally made up of player’s split second decision making, and physical strength. Two areas in which Arsenal sadly, are very much short in. Practically every time we have come unstuck over the past 2 years has not been because we have been ‘outclassed’, or ‘outplayed’, but because of this ‘fine line.’ Our problems either being when our lack of height and overall physical power comes to haunt us in set piece situations, or breaking down stubborn defences. The other instance being costly individual errors, and poor split second decision making (Diaby own goal, Almunia rushing off line) ultimately culminating in an Arsenal ‘self implode.’ Against Chelsea this Sunday, both of these reasons are behind our defeat and why we are now effectively out of the title hunt. This is not me being pessimistic, but being realistic.

I believe that our overall performance against Chelsea, was actually, not that bad, and I for one do not buy into the hype in the media about this being yet another crisis at Arsenal Football Club. We’ve all seen this before, we will bounce back. It is however a shame that we do seem to have to seemingly ‘bounce back’ so often, and that our results can’t just go smoothly for once. I simply believe on the day, we were beaten by the better, more experience, clinical outfit, and that ‘fine line’ really haunted us once again. Our general play was okay, and our overall individual displays decent. Almunia was okay (dodgy for the 3rd goal, but we were already losing 2-0), the centre backs performed fairly well and were very unlucky to have to deal with some very difficult crosses which would destroy any defence in the world. I thought Traore was pretty much outstanding considering the circumstances, Song was solid, Fabregas done all he could, Nasri and Arshavin were okay in general play, but just lacked that cutting edge. You may have noticed, but I have left out 3 of the starters from the Chelsea game, and these are the players that I am now going to criticise in more depth, and I believe are the key reasons as to why Arsenal on the day were so ineffective, and comprehensively shoved aside by this Chelsea machine.

Firstly, and being the lesser of the 3 evils, it’s Denilson. He didn’t really do anything majorly wrong, the problem was he simply done nothing for 90mins! Now I am not a ‘Denilson basher’, in fact I think he is a good little player that has something to offer. He has good energy levels, good work rate, technical ability, and generally puts in a decent shift in the middle of the park by getting up and down the pitch, putting in interceptions and keeping the ball. However the problem with Denilson currently is that in big games he is simply anonymous, and the game goes by without you registering his presence. I think he is a good squad player, but like Diaby, should be nowhere near first choice when everyone is fit, but I do fear that he is.

Secondly, Bacary Sagna. A player who I believe, and still believe is a top quality full back. But for me, his defending has simply got worse with every season he has been at the club, which culminated in an absolute shocker against Chelsea. He switched off and in my opinion was solely responsible for letting both of Ashley Coles crosses in, which both led to goals. Andy Gray attempted to blame Nasri and Arshavin for these but I respectively disagree. Nasri and Arshavin are both attack minded players, who were asked against Chelsea to help out defensively perhaps more than usual. They were back doing a their job but like all attack minded players, do not see the full danger of a situation and ended up being drawn to the ball leaving Cole unmarked. Sagna however doesn’t have this excuse, he is a defender and it looks to me that he simply switched off on both occasions, doing practically nothing to stop the incoming crosses from Cole. A quality defender would have read the situation and seen the potential threat that the rest were blind to and dealt with it. Sagna simply didn’t. The other problem with Sagna’s performance the other night was his attacking display, for me his crossing just gets worse and worse, and whenever he gets the ball in the final third I know nothing will come of it. Generally speaking though, we let him off with this as we have enough attacking players and we acknowledge that he is a better defender than Eboue, even though Eboue has a far better final ball. The problem here is that, on recent form, I would say Eboue is the much more on form defender, and possibly Sagna has become a touch complacent. I would like to see Eboue giving a run of games in that position, to finally stake a claim and add serious competition for the place.

Last but not least, we have culprit number 3, Eduardo. Eduardo I believe is a player with plenty of ability, and is undoubtedly the most natural born goal scorer we have. But will he ever recover from that horrific injury we all know to well about? Or is he simply no longer cut out for the football, and mostly the formation Arsenal now play with? Having watched him closely against Chelsea, I feel my fears are very accurate and sadly, could come to haunt the next few months of our season. I haven’t for a very long time, seen such a woeful performance from an Arsenal striker. Every time he got the ball, he just gave it away without ever looking like a threat. His first touch made Bendtner look like Bergkamp, and his second touch on the odd occasion of him still having the ball was even worse. It never got further than that. On the one occasion that he did actually turn the defender and look to have an opening on goal in the very early stages of the 2nd half, he opted to take a second touch instead of taking on the shot, and the ball just ended up comfortably in the Cech’s gloves. Not only was his touch very much off, but he was simply bullied by the Chelsea centre backs, and made to look like a school boy. This I feel, is the main reason as to why we were so comprehensively beaten by Chelsea, and were so ineffective in attack. The big difference being that with Chelsea, they can play a ball into their front men in a variety of ways, in the air, on the ground, and even if it is not 100% accurate, you still know that with Anelka, and especially Drogba they will still make it difficult for you and cause you problems. You can not say that about our frontline, we have to play very precise passes along the ground to our front men, and even then they have no concept of holding the ball up.

See, the big problem is when you play a 4-3-3 formation, with one central striker, this player MUST be able to hold the ball up and bring others into play. Without this, the team has no outlet, no focal point, and ultimately gets nowhere because no one else can get forward to cause the opposition problems. Ibrahimovic does this so well for Barcelona, and Van Persie done this exceptionally for us up until now. Both have great feet, and good upper body strength to shield the ball against centre halves. Van Persie has been crucial in the majority of our goals this season, for the simple reason being that he holds the ball up, allows the others to get forward and then brings them into play. This is especially needed against physically strong teams, and at home against teams that’s first thought is to counter our attacking threat. If we had Van Persie playing, or even Bendtner I do believe the game could have been a different story. Unfortunately for us, Van Persie is out for the season, Bendtner is injured and still far from the finished article, with Eduardo and Vela simply being incapable of doing this. The problem we had offensively against Chelsea was that we passed, passed and passed without ever having anyone to hold the ball up, and bring others into play allowing them to get the other side of their defence and cause them real problems where it matters.

Personally, I feel that it if Arsenal really want to now move forward to the next step as a team in light of the Chelsea game, we have to do a number of things (which surprisingly, involves spending some money!). Firstly, and most importantly in the short term, is to sign a striker who is physically and technically able to fill Van Persie’s boots for the rest of the season. I would have loved to have seen Carlton Cole come in and lead the line for Arsenal, but with his latest injury, and his likely price tag, it is very unlikely to happen. Chamakh is obviously the most likely outcome, and from what I understand about him he seems pretty much the right type of player we need. Then we need to really look to bring in a strong, ball winning, box-to-box midfielder in the mould of an Essien, or a Fletcher to partner Song and Fabregas in the centre of midfield. This player would make us more solid physically and defensively, as well as offering a driving force from midfield in attack to support our smaller technical players. As for likely candidates for this, I am no expert, but I like the look of Gokhan Inler who we have been linked with in the past and I feel he could suit this role very well. After those two signings that I see as absolutely vital, I feel we still need some cover, and competition for places at centre back, and defensive midfield. There is a feeling that if we lose any of Song, Vermaelen, or Gallas then we have serious problems. In my opinion, this could be covered with one player, and I would recommend Vertonghen of Ajax for this role. He is very similar to Vermaelen, in that he is a ball playing defender, however he is taller at 6ft 2, slightly younger, and more capable of playing the ‘Song role’ in midfield. Finally, a position that is hotly discussed by many Arsenal fans and pundits alike, the goalkeeper. We could definitely do with a top quality stopper, as Almunia although good, falls slightly short of that standard. The only problem here is, who? There generally are no ‘world class’ keepers that everybody seems to insist we get who are available, we definitely missed out of Given but we cant get him now, so who? Only one I can think of is Russia’s Igor Akinfeev, who certainly has the potential to be a world class keeper. Problem is there’s that word again, ‘potential’, that we simply hear too often when a discussion on Arsenal arises. More problems with this is that inexperienced keepers have in the past often proved to be disastrous, and Igor would certainly not come cheap.

I would like now though to end on a more positive note. It is not all doom and gloom, we still have a very young squad who are learning with every game and every mistake they make. We just simply need some additions to take this team to the next level. Problem is I firmly believe that we need some success in the short term, to ultimately be successful in the long term with our undoubtedly talented young footballers.

In Wenger I Still Trust