Kevin Whitcher
Let’s start with the positives, shall we? Arsenal’s chance of securing a first title since 2004 still lies in their own hands. If they win every one of the nine remaining games they have to play (i.e. display title winning form) then they will indeed be crowned champions by the time they have played Fulham at Craven Cottage in May. You want more good news? Cesc Fabregas and Theo Walcott should be fit to face Blackburn in a fortnight. I have no idea about Alex Song, but a place in the team for him would be no bad thing assuming his injury has cleared up. Who knows on that one, but he hasn’t been ruled out for the season yet, so we must live in hope. Arsenal’s salvaging of a point at the Hawthorns yesterday gave some indication of what they are capable of doing when their attitude is right.
It is incredible that the Gunners still have their destiny in their own hands in spite of dropping four very cheap points in their last two matches, but facts are facts, in spite of the way everyone is feeling. However, there is a familiarity to the way the season is going. What would normally happen next is that Arsenal drop more points, and then when the title is realistically out of reach, the players relax and then start winning matches in style for fun. So on that basis, the back end of April and May should provide some entertaining, if meaningless fare.
You reap what you sow. It’s an idea I have a lot of sympathy with in life generally. And in terms of Arsenal goalkeepers, there tends to be an element of truth in that. When the manager refuses to prioritise the position in his teambuilding, presumably because of its lack of contribution to the beautiful possession football he wants his team to play, then you can end up with duds. He got lucky by getting Lehmann on the cheap in 2003, but as a rule, his signings have not really worked out in the long term. Five of the seven trophies he has enjoyed as Arsenal manager were won with the inherited David Seaman as first choice. When Manuel Almunia joined Arsenal in the summer of 2004, he was in his late 20s. Even for goalkeepers, by that age, if you are of any use you will have made some kind of a name for yourself. Almunia had made a grand total of zero appearances in three seasons for his club Celta Vigo – principally because they didn’t even value him enough to keep him at the club as a back-up option, farming him out to other clubs every season.
Since September 2007 until the autumn of 2010, the man has been the first choice keeper at Arsenal, a slightly more ambitious concern than Celta Vigo. Arsenal are supposedly a big club, but at times, behave with a small club mentality, in terms of positive action to back up any sense of ambition. Almunia would not have survived past his calamities in his first season under Alex Ferguson, even as a third choice. Nearing the end of his sixth (and surely final) season at Arsenal, the man who has cost his team dearly so often in so many different farcical ways still draws a salary thanks to the manager’s total incompetence at addressing fundamental flaws in his squad. It’s the reason decent chances of winning the title have gone by the wayside twice in the last three seasons, a pattern that looks likely to repeat itself once again.
Last weekend, I wrote in my piece on the Manchester United defeat, ’The combination of the injuries to Szczesny and Djourou will account for Arsenal this season. Yes, I know the Spanish waiter has had two decent games, but we all know what lies around the corner.’ We didn’t have to wait long. The unpalatable truth is that the club would be better off fielding a 41-year-old dragged out of retirement as emergency cover as opposed to the man thought good enough to be the best keeper at the club at the beginning of the season. These are desperate times. Wenger though, doesn’t have the bollocks to admit his judgment stinks, so I suspect the Spanish Waiter will return to haunt us further in a fortnight’s time. He will have plenty of time to work on his game in the meantime, given that one time keeper Julio Iglesias has more chance of getting an international a call-up for Spain than the Arsenal number 1. This is spite of the Latin crooner being 67.
However, there was another goal aside from that horrendous car crash of West Brom’s second. Set pieces have often proved the Gunners do not really defend well, and so it proved again. It was the right thing to do to play Aaron Ramsey, for the pure reason that he needs to play in the Arsenal side if he is ever to continue the progress halted so dramatically by the moronic Ryan Shawcross, and that, long term, he is a better option that Diaby or Denilson to play in Arsenal’s midfield if either of Song or Wilshere is injured. Having said that, in his attempts to get up to speed, mistakes are likely, and twice he cost Arsenal dear. For the goal, he simply failed to prevent his man from scoring by not getting up enough to deflect the ball or not being close enough to put off Steven Reid. Then, in Arsenal’s only meaningful attack of the first half, he failed to convert the rebound from Robin van Persie’s header. Still, given what the lad’s been through, and what we hope he will give to the club, it would be churlish to take him to task for yesterday’s failure to win. There were certainly others who performed poorly but did not have an excuse.
Arsene Wenger’s first mistake of the day was to treat West Brom with too much respect. Here was a game that demanded a 4-4-2 formation and pressure on a team fighting a relegation battle from the first whistle. One that concedes goals as a matter of course. Instead we got the usual 4-3-3 and Denilson. Part of the reason that Arsenal play with such a lack of incisiveness these days is that when Denilson is in the team, he slows things up with pointless passes that simply move the ball around without taking the team anywhere. There is so little cut and thrust. Even Wenger was forced to tacitly admit this with the Brazilian’s removal at half-time, a move that went down very well with the travelling support. The Gunners improved significantly but before they could force an equaliser, they were two down thanks to an Almunia moment. It’s not the first time he’s hared out of his goal when he’d have been better staying put and letting his defence deal with the problem. It could be the last though, at least if Arsene Wenger accepts that there is nothing to be lost by playing Lehmann. I mean, it can’t get any worse, surely.
By that time, Nicklas Bendtner was on the pitch and Arsenal had a very attacking line-up – pretty much 4-2-4 with Wilshere and Nasri as the holding midfielders. Finally realising that the best way of getting something out of this game was to have a go at the home side, the team rallied enough to gain a point that may prove crucial if they can sort themselves out and get back to winning ways. Who knows. Pessimism is understandably to the fore. I haven’t had the willpower to open my email since returning home this afternoon (Sunday) and being online for the first time since early Saturday morning. It’s because I am expecting a deluge of emails about the goalkeeping situation. I really can’t face them until I have got the writing of this piece out of the way. However, Alex Laidman texted me this morning to sum up the mood: ’Really have no leader on the pitch or in the dressing room. AW must carry the can playing players out of position and persisting with the hapless Denilson’.
Wenger admitted before the game that he has no obvious leader at Arsenal, but played down the importance of a strong captain. "For the English, sport is a combat,” he said, “The English can't imagine going into battle without a general. For the French, football is a form of collective expression." That might explain why on the solitary occasion that a French team have won the European Cup, they were stripped of the title due to the uncovering of the fact that they used bribery to win matches. Sometimes, sport is a combat, not an artistic statement. The brushstrokes of Wenger’s teams since the move from Highbury have looked good, but they ultimately it’s all style and no substance. It might be pretty, but it isn’t really effective often enough. Compare with Barcelona – and we have had the opportunity to do that four times in the last 12 months – where a combination of aesthetic and artisan has resulted in silverware aplenty. Sometimes, players need a kick up the backside from someone to convince them they cannot meander through matches and imagine their pure footballing talent will be enough to win the day. And there is no doubt that a lack of leadership has led to a team that, at times, feels like a rudderless ship.
Too often we have witnessed performances as lackadaisical and unpenetrative as that seen in the first half at the Hawthorns yesterday, often against average teams and more often than not at home. Even being a goal down did not fire up the Gunners. Only at two down did they really start forcing the pace and playing with a bit of attitude. They got lucky with the equalizer (with Bendtner handballing his assist) but Wenger had the temerity to criticize West Brom’s pitch. One day he might admit that his team were simply not good enough to win the three points.
You can’t read the Sunday Times online anymore without paying for it, but there were a couple of lines in Jonathon Northcroft’s report on Manchester United’s narrow home win over Bolton which stood out for me. ”(Gary) Cahill, quick alert, calm and authoritative, led his back four superbly” and (quoting Owen Coyle), “United have an enormous desire to win every game”. Switching over to Duncan Castle’s report on Arsenal’s game: ”You wonder where (Arsenal’s) troubles will end; certainly not with a Premier League title. Handicapped by injuries, harangued by personal demons, Arsenal have problems everywhere.”
The opera ain’t over til the fat lady sings. However, before she delivers the fatal warble, how about giving her a go between the sticks on Saturday week?
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I’ve been asked to raise awareness for members of both the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust and AISA that the two organisations will be staging an event to celebrate 25 years of Arsenal in the Community next Thursday, which concludes in the Club Level Champions Bar. So if you want to find out exactly what the club are doing to help out with local affairs, full details can be found here. You will need to RSVP whichever organization you are a member of to let them know you intend coming along. Plug over!
