Kevin Whitcher
Brief one today, as I am getting the first printed issue of The Gooner to press and time is the enemy. Firstly, no piece after the Chelsea friendly in Dublin because yours truly spent an unscheduled 24 hours in hospital from 7pm on Wednesday, so plans to watch the game went out of the window. I’ve so far had time to catch up with the first half, but have heard that the team played much better after the interval.
However, watching up to then, and catching the game against Lazio last night, one thing is clear. Arsenal are giving the opposition too many very good chances to score. Sometimes, this is a consequence of giving the ball away cheaply in their own half. Guendouzi does look a very decent prospect, but he was guilty of this a little too often for comfort. Granit Xhaka has history for this, and Rob Holding was also guilty last night. Aaron Ramsey played neither game, and is another with this tendency.
Sometimes this is a consequence of over-dwelling on the ball. At others, it’s a result of Emery being keen for his players to break through the press by playing passes through the opposition. Ultimately, when you are under pressure, possession in your own half is something you have to be ultra cautious with, as Pep Guardiola found out in his first season at Manchester City.
It’s an area I expect Arsenal will improve on once there is greater familiarity in the team, a consistent starting eleven and more working together on the training field. But at present, I think as the growing pains of a new regime become evident, it’s something we, as fans are going to have to allow for. It would be nice to think Arsenal could achieve what Chelsea did in the first season under Antonio Conte in 2016-17. But it’s not the same. The Stamford Bridge outfit had finished 10th the season before as the players downed tools under Mourinho. However, in 2014-15 they had won the title. So Conte largely inherited a squad that knew how to win enough matches to finish above the pack.
With Emery, his job is much harder. The culture imbued at Arsenal under the previous regime was that just finishing in the top four was good enough. So the discipline and tactics to win crunch matches was never developed. People talk about how good Arsenal were at home last season. And yet, against the five sides that finished above them, they managed to win five points from 15. Arsenal could generally beat non-top six sides at home, because of the visitors’ tendency to sit back and try and come away with a point. However, when pressured a bit more, not so good. Additionally, under Wenger, the side of the game when the team were not in possession of the ball was low priority, never a focus in match preparation. In the shape of the side when they do lost the ball, I think we can all see this has been worked on by the new head coach.
So while I am excited about the season ahead, I am not anticipating miracles. You can get odds of over 20-1 at the bookies on Arsenal winning the Premier League, and frankly, that’s probably about right this season.
On that note, it seems a good opportunity to announce the launch of our partnership with Fansbet. This is an online betting concern that gives 50% of their profits to their fan partners, of which The Gooner is one. We will use that money to help keep the fanzine going. So if you are going to have a punt on the football this season, sign up with them and help The Gooner. Visit this page to create an account (click on the orange ‘join now’ button at top right), fill in your details and then, when you are asked to search for your club, type in Arsenal. Then, when a drop down menu of ‘fan partners’ appears, choose ‘The Gooner Fanzine’ if you wish to support us to continue printing (which has the knock on effect of maintaining the website to boot). Fansbet are also running a fantasy league, one free entry per member, with a prize pool of £100,000. And please, gamble for fun, only risking spare money that you can afford for your leisure enjoyment. If you think you can make a living from it, good luck to you, but it’s not something we at The Gooner would recommend.
Ok, so that’s done, now let’s look forward to the real thing. The warm-ups have been played, and it’s a fair bet the starting eleven next Sunday v Man City will not have started one of the pre-season games together (although I am certain there will be a few run outs in training this week, first v second XI). We do not even know what the formation to face Pep Guardiola’s side will be. This season is going to be the most unpredictable campaign for many years and there is a buzz in the air amongst Gooners. Sure, it’s not going to be a smooth ride, we know that. But, hey, for a change it’s exciting isn’t it?
In case you have not heard, the campaign to keep The Gooner going beyond the end of the current season, launched at the start of 2018, proved successful. As a consequence, there is now no longer a deadline for subscriptions, with all details on this form which you can download and print out if need be, or hit the links if you are viewing it on your computer or smartphone. For credit card payments, you can visit this page. We’ll be promoting the new issue for those that wish to order individual copies of the first issue this season in advance tomorrow.
