When I was a kid, I liked reading and re-reading Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Light reading that was, a kind of fairytale with a happy ending and not much meaning, but there was one passage that I remember even now. Here's a slightly changed version of it: "Hope makes a show of reviving - not with any reason to back it, but only because it is its nature to revive when the spring has not been taken out of it by age and familiarity with failure". This sums up perfectly well how I feel (and have felt down the years) about Arsenal.
Because life without hope would be extremely hard (unbearable, maybe) for any human being, it is in human's nature to hope for the better, when there's nothing to back it up with.
I hoped, a couple of resounding failures in these two months will ensure the players and the manager do their best to avoid another heavy defeat in a match of vital importance (important for other reasons, but important nonetheless). They did not.
We were condemned to watch an atrocious first half, which saw Everton take the lead and the worst thing about it, was that they completely deserved to be 2-0 up at the break. A listless, disinterested Arsenal side had more of the ball, but never looked like they could do anything with it. Everton executed their plan flawlessly, by sitting deep and exploding on counters.
We looked toothless in attack, only getting as close as Everton would let us and pathetic defensively, allowing the Toffees to cut us open through the middle with simple passes.
All goals were disgusting, if you think of it. For the first, Baines split our defense with a simple through ball. Sagna wasn't quick enough to close Baines down, Arteta just stood and stared as the ball rolled past him, Mertesacker did the same, counting on Vermaelen to cover him up and the captain himself was late to return from his latest charge up the pitch. The situation wasn't beyond repair even then, thanks to Szczesny pulling off a brilliant save, but Naithsmith was allowed all the time in the world to put the ball into the empty net.
For the second, Lukaku received the ball on the right and had at least Monreal and Vermaelen in front of him. Lukaku drifted inside as if these two just weren't there and then fired an unstoppable shot between Mertesacker and Vermaelen.
The third one came as a result of another through ball, which Szczesny got down to well, but the Pole's effort was in vain, as Arteta failed to track back Mirallas and then further compounded the misery by sending the ball into his own net in a last-ditch effort to stop the Belgian. To be fair to Mikel, Mirallas would have scored anyway, but the fact that it was our vice-captain who allowed Mirallas in that position in the first place is atrocious.
Up front, things didn't look better and, to my immense surprise, Wenger was reluctant to change this until the game was beyond salvation. Podolski, who was taken off in favour of the Ox, was our best bet to nick a goal right up to 60th minute and that's saying a lot. A guy who, with everyone fit, only makes the bench and is inconsistent in his performances to say the least, was the best chance we had to score.
Giroud was, frankly, shit. Suggestions that even an actual tree up front would fare better don't seem that funny anymore. Hell, Sanogo did better when thrown on. The Frenchman would have actually scored a goal, had he not been wrongly flagged offside.
The only bright spots of this game were Ramsey and the Ox. The latter had hit the bar and saw another goalbound effort blocked, while the former pulled off clever passes left and right, threw himself about and was, all in all, a very positive influence. Why these two weren't thrown on at half-time will remain the greatest mystery to me.
I had last had such emptiness back in August, after our first game of the season. It didn't come on a back of a bad stretch of form, rather on a poor decision-making from Arsene, who failed to bring in reinforcements we so desperately (and painful obviously) needed. We have a good squad, but, as the commentator rightly noticed yesterday, our style of play will always result in quite a few injures and it's about having as many players as possible to avoid a downfall in both the form and the results.
This group of players was pushed to the limit in January, but managed to stay top. It's easy to see how, with a new striker and a centre-half, we would still be top. As it is, we now have to fight for the Champions League football and even this is not in our hands anymore.
Until later
Because life without hope would be extremely hard (unbearable, maybe) for any human being, it is in human's nature to hope for the better, when there's nothing to back it up with.
I hoped, a couple of resounding failures in these two months will ensure the players and the manager do their best to avoid another heavy defeat in a match of vital importance (important for other reasons, but important nonetheless). They did not.
We were condemned to watch an atrocious first half, which saw Everton take the lead and the worst thing about it, was that they completely deserved to be 2-0 up at the break. A listless, disinterested Arsenal side had more of the ball, but never looked like they could do anything with it. Everton executed their plan flawlessly, by sitting deep and exploding on counters.
We looked toothless in attack, only getting as close as Everton would let us and pathetic defensively, allowing the Toffees to cut us open through the middle with simple passes.
All goals were disgusting, if you think of it. For the first, Baines split our defense with a simple through ball. Sagna wasn't quick enough to close Baines down, Arteta just stood and stared as the ball rolled past him, Mertesacker did the same, counting on Vermaelen to cover him up and the captain himself was late to return from his latest charge up the pitch. The situation wasn't beyond repair even then, thanks to Szczesny pulling off a brilliant save, but Naithsmith was allowed all the time in the world to put the ball into the empty net.
For the second, Lukaku received the ball on the right and had at least Monreal and Vermaelen in front of him. Lukaku drifted inside as if these two just weren't there and then fired an unstoppable shot between Mertesacker and Vermaelen.
The third one came as a result of another through ball, which Szczesny got down to well, but the Pole's effort was in vain, as Arteta failed to track back Mirallas and then further compounded the misery by sending the ball into his own net in a last-ditch effort to stop the Belgian. To be fair to Mikel, Mirallas would have scored anyway, but the fact that it was our vice-captain who allowed Mirallas in that position in the first place is atrocious.
Up front, things didn't look better and, to my immense surprise, Wenger was reluctant to change this until the game was beyond salvation. Podolski, who was taken off in favour of the Ox, was our best bet to nick a goal right up to 60th minute and that's saying a lot. A guy who, with everyone fit, only makes the bench and is inconsistent in his performances to say the least, was the best chance we had to score.
Giroud was, frankly, shit. Suggestions that even an actual tree up front would fare better don't seem that funny anymore. Hell, Sanogo did better when thrown on. The Frenchman would have actually scored a goal, had he not been wrongly flagged offside.
The only bright spots of this game were Ramsey and the Ox. The latter had hit the bar and saw another goalbound effort blocked, while the former pulled off clever passes left and right, threw himself about and was, all in all, a very positive influence. Why these two weren't thrown on at half-time will remain the greatest mystery to me.
I had last had such emptiness back in August, after our first game of the season. It didn't come on a back of a bad stretch of form, rather on a poor decision-making from Arsene, who failed to bring in reinforcements we so desperately (and painful obviously) needed. We have a good squad, but, as the commentator rightly noticed yesterday, our style of play will always result in quite a few injures and it's about having as many players as possible to avoid a downfall in both the form and the results.
This group of players was pushed to the limit in January, but managed to stay top. It's easy to see how, with a new striker and a centre-half, we would still be top. As it is, we now have to fight for the Champions League football and even this is not in our hands anymore.
Until later