The dust after our loss to Stoke is starting to settle a bit, but I think there are a few things of note I failed to mention yesterday.
Firstly, I haven't touched on some rather poor performances from Wilshere and Giroud. While singling out individuals in a team game seems a tad unfair, the qualities I don't like at all in these two have been there for some time and were just thrown into stark contrast during our game against the Orcs.
Giroud, for example, was taken out of the game too easily for my liking. He's, after all, a tall and strong guy and I think he should throw his weight around more. He went down at every contact, instead of standing his ground, and tried to draw the ref's attention. Sure, Adam and Co acted like jerks (Adam was later charged by the FA for deliberately stamping on Giroud), but that doesn't change the fact the Frenchman needs to toughen up and not play into our opponents hands by tumbling to the ground. His link-up play suffered because of that, and so did the fluency of our passing, as a result.
Wilshere, meanwhile, was poor sitting alongside Arteta again. Careless in possession, sloppy in passing and, perhaps most importantly, lousy defensive-wise. Jack seemed unwilling to get stuck in challenges. It it was up to me, I'd play Flamini there, until Ramsey returns.
The Welshman will, most likely, participate in our next league game (against Spurs, mind you) and, if he's fully fit, he should start. We got through January without him alright, stumbled in February and started March with a completely avoidable loss. We miss Ramsey and it shows in both the way we play and the results we get.
In the meantime, we should deploy a Flamteta axis. With the Frenchman doing the "dirty" work and sitting back, Arteta can be moved higher up the field and serve as a link between Flamini and Ozil. We used this strategy quite recently (unfortunately, I cannot remember the exact game), buy I do remember we won that one. And played rather some good football.
Of course, putting the Ox alongside Arteta is another option, especially taking into consideration his best games came when the Englishman started in the centre of the park. This will, however, cripple our flanks. Podolski demonstrated why he can't start on the left on a regular basis, so it'll have to be Cazorla + someone else. Rosicky cannot play out wide week in, week out. He's 33 and, what's far more important, he's not your typical winger. The Czech doesn't have the same speed and aggression going forward, so he tends to drift inside. When it works, it's great, when it doesn't (like against Stoke) it can be disastrous. For this reason, the Ox must play on the right to try and replicate Walcott's qualities.
Should everything go well, Flamini will be paired with Arteta for two games only (and in both we'll have to be at our best), before Ramsey returns. I don't think, there's anything wrong with this setup. If we approach these games like we did during the final stages last season, we should be all right. Not conceding is a virtue, that will enable us to win the lion's share of the remaining games.
And while we're on the subject of the run-in, the boss backs Arsenal to finish strongly, while Rosicky says we still can become champions.
Arsene pointed out that, for the last couple of seasons, we showed brilliant resilience and ended up victorious twice. Well, third and fourth places respectively aren't exactly my idea of being victorious, but, under those circumstances, it was quite an achievement. I don't think we'll be able to replicate last year in terms of points gathered (26 from 10 games, remember?), but we may not need to. Besides, with everyone (bar Diaby and Walcott, of course) available, we may just pull off something in similar fashion to last year. Not likely, but not impossible.
And, to end it on a high note, Rosicky and Mertesacker have signed new deals with the Club. That makes it three (Cazorla has also signed his contract) and there's talk Ramsey will soon follow suit. These are all integral cogs in our well-oiled machine and I sincerely hope they'll spend many more (successful) years with us.
That's it for today. More as it happens here.
Until later
Firstly, I haven't touched on some rather poor performances from Wilshere and Giroud. While singling out individuals in a team game seems a tad unfair, the qualities I don't like at all in these two have been there for some time and were just thrown into stark contrast during our game against the Orcs.
Giroud, for example, was taken out of the game too easily for my liking. He's, after all, a tall and strong guy and I think he should throw his weight around more. He went down at every contact, instead of standing his ground, and tried to draw the ref's attention. Sure, Adam and Co acted like jerks (Adam was later charged by the FA for deliberately stamping on Giroud), but that doesn't change the fact the Frenchman needs to toughen up and not play into our opponents hands by tumbling to the ground. His link-up play suffered because of that, and so did the fluency of our passing, as a result.
Wilshere, meanwhile, was poor sitting alongside Arteta again. Careless in possession, sloppy in passing and, perhaps most importantly, lousy defensive-wise. Jack seemed unwilling to get stuck in challenges. It it was up to me, I'd play Flamini there, until Ramsey returns.
The Welshman will, most likely, participate in our next league game (against Spurs, mind you) and, if he's fully fit, he should start. We got through January without him alright, stumbled in February and started March with a completely avoidable loss. We miss Ramsey and it shows in both the way we play and the results we get.
In the meantime, we should deploy a Flamteta axis. With the Frenchman doing the "dirty" work and sitting back, Arteta can be moved higher up the field and serve as a link between Flamini and Ozil. We used this strategy quite recently (unfortunately, I cannot remember the exact game), buy I do remember we won that one. And played rather some good football.
Of course, putting the Ox alongside Arteta is another option, especially taking into consideration his best games came when the Englishman started in the centre of the park. This will, however, cripple our flanks. Podolski demonstrated why he can't start on the left on a regular basis, so it'll have to be Cazorla + someone else. Rosicky cannot play out wide week in, week out. He's 33 and, what's far more important, he's not your typical winger. The Czech doesn't have the same speed and aggression going forward, so he tends to drift inside. When it works, it's great, when it doesn't (like against Stoke) it can be disastrous. For this reason, the Ox must play on the right to try and replicate Walcott's qualities.
Should everything go well, Flamini will be paired with Arteta for two games only (and in both we'll have to be at our best), before Ramsey returns. I don't think, there's anything wrong with this setup. If we approach these games like we did during the final stages last season, we should be all right. Not conceding is a virtue, that will enable us to win the lion's share of the remaining games.
And while we're on the subject of the run-in, the boss backs Arsenal to finish strongly, while Rosicky says we still can become champions.
Arsene pointed out that, for the last couple of seasons, we showed brilliant resilience and ended up victorious twice. Well, third and fourth places respectively aren't exactly my idea of being victorious, but, under those circumstances, it was quite an achievement. I don't think we'll be able to replicate last year in terms of points gathered (26 from 10 games, remember?), but we may not need to. Besides, with everyone (bar Diaby and Walcott, of course) available, we may just pull off something in similar fashion to last year. Not likely, but not impossible.
And, to end it on a high note, Rosicky and Mertesacker have signed new deals with the Club. That makes it three (Cazorla has also signed his contract) and there's talk Ramsey will soon follow suit. These are all integral cogs in our well-oiled machine and I sincerely hope they'll spend many more (successful) years with us.
That's it for today. More as it happens here.
Until later