Just Own Up to the Obvious

I haven't written or posted a piece on Our Arsenal for a while since our humiliating defeat to Manchester United (I don't need to remind you of the score) and also our deadline day excitement of several players joining the club.


Since that day we have endured an International break, which we though would help the dust settle and hopefully bring us back with a fighting spirit to try and get our performances raised and a chance to have at least a false hope of any challenge (which I don't believe we have any capability in the slightest).


The match against Swansea didn't fill us fans with any confidence. Arteta was somewhat of a presence in central midfield with some decent passing, but he's no Cesc Fabregas and we won't ever find a player with his ability to find a pass, although Arteta does have some ability to find a killer pass. The scoreline was a lucky one with a gifted goal, which was still a decent finish from Arshavin.


We've missed Gervinho's directness and this showed against Dortmund in the Champions league, but even though we could have won the game, a sublime finish made us draw the game 1-1. It was a hard scrappy draw. Germany is not an easy place to go, especially against the champions of Germany.


The defeat to Blackburn showed some of the old Arsenal back, but most in terms of bad defending. Why can we never sort this position out? Santos looked decent, Mertesacker looks slow. Gervinho and Arteta both got their debut goals for the Gunners. That was the only real spark. The two own goals from Song and Koscielny summed up our lack of defending.


You have to face it Arsenal fans, we're not the team we once were, I'm not even going as far as the 1998, 2002 and 2004 invincible teams. I only have to go as far as last year, because this team has changed and it'll take a few years to form any type of challenge. The teams dynamic has changed, it doesn't have the ability to play quick touch passing. We have to adopt a more direct play, which in this league you need to have. Wenger must not try to make a team made for the Champions League.


But van Persie is the only world class player we have left, so the fans have to wake up and notice we're just not a top 4 team anymore with the players at our disposal. In this case maybe it'll force our hand to play more as a team. It's still early days of the team gelling together. But keep your expectations realistic because we're no longer a force in English football.

Ryo MiyachI Granted Work Permit

I don't know who's excited at the prospect of seeing Ryo Miyachi play for Arsenal in the league. To hopefully see him do what Cristiano Ronaldo did when he first arrived to the English game (albeit getting kicked to ground on every opportunity, but that was for making defenders look silly). But now we will get to see the Japanese born player this season as Ryo has been granted a work permit to play this season.


This is great news as the player brings pace, skill, and crossing ability as a natural winger. He's only eighteen but I believe he can be a force this season. But I think it's best he gets minutes on the pitch when we're two/three nil up with twenty-thirty minutes left just like Ronaldo used to for Manchester United in his early playing days. Wenger should unleash him to not be frightened to use his skill and pace for defenders to fear him, as any defender hates an attacker, especially with pace, running at them.


From complaining having no wingers in the past, we now have Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gervinho and now Miyachi. It's something we were missing for a while as we had no natural width. We may see an improvement.


Ryo has to await for the formalities of the paperwork to be complete for him to play his first official match for Arsenal.

REPORT: Hangzhou Greentown - Gervinho - More Signings to Come

HANGZHOU GREENTOWN 1 - 1 ARSENAL

Team Line-ups

Arsenal:

Mannone, Sagna, Djourou, Squillaci, Traore, Rosicky, Frimpong, Nasri, Arshavin, Vela, van Persie

Hangzhou Greentown:

Jiang Bo, Wu Shaokun, Li Yan, Pazzaolano, Longyuan, Xuan, Jiashu, Vazquez, Liu Bin, Wang Song, Randy

Match Report

Pre-season Friendly

Meihu Stadium, Yiwu

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Kick-off: 12:30

Just a quick summary of Saturday’s last match in the Asia tour for Arsenal. THe opponents were Hangzhou Greentown, a proper club team compared to the Malaysia XI that was chosen to face Gunners. The match was going to be a test as Greenhouse are used to the conditions and are a fitter side at the moment.

The team had a relatively mix of starting eleven players and fringe players. You could tell with the line-up we had we weren't fluent in our passing and were quite sloppy. Also pressuring the opposition when needed wasn't at its best. However this is the bets time to get rid of those rusty performances.

The brightest players on the pitch in the first half for us were mainly Arshavin, Nasri and Vela. But it came as no surprise with Greenhouse taking the lead due to, that's right you've guessed it, another poor show at the back from a set piece. Green house were quite dangerous and hit the post prior to taking the lead. It was Squillaci and Mannone with school boy errors that saw Arsenal take an unexpected lead. Thankfully these two don't start for Arsenal on a regular basis.

Arsenal soon enough got back in the game  and drew level in the first half with Vela finishing it off with, sorry not a chip over the goalkeeper but the simplest of tap ins from a well worked one-two from van Persie and Arshavin. van Persie's shot was saved after Arshavin's lobbed pass, which fortunately landed into Vela's path (fox in the box anyone?).

The second half was a much better performance from Arsenal as it saw a complete change of the eleven that started the first. The fact that the core of the usual starting eleven began the second half, with the likes of Szczesny, Koscienly, Vermaelen, Song, Wilshere. Also a big factor was natural pace speedsters in Miyachi and Walcott to stretch Greentown.

To sum up the second half, we had many chances that we should've finished with ease. But with time and more match practice that hopefully shouldn't be the case.


Match Highlights:

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So the new man in town has now arrived, but you already knew that a few weeks ago didn't you? That's right Gervinho has finally been unveiled in both Arsenal shirts, clearly it's a marketing scheme in order to try and sell more shirts.

Marketing ploy with both home and away shirts

Gervinho himself states that he will play in his best position, which is on the right of a front three, but he can also play on the opposite side as well as down the middle. I personally want to see him down the right hand side. For the past few seasons now with Walcott, we haven't seen that natural ability to get past a player with skill, it's all about speed with Theo. Gervinho has skill as well as pace. He contribues with a lot of assists, which I think Walcott needs a lot of work on still. But then again Walcott should be down the middle anyway as he thrives on instinct.

Anyway back to our new striking sensation (if you can call him that). I relish to see what this player is going to be like for us, he seems an exciting and electric player and although I've heard of him before, I've never really watched him apart form the odd substitute appearances for Ivory Coast, otherwise he's an unknown quantity to me really.

However I'm glad we've signed someone finally, I hope this spending spree continues.

Welcome to Arsenal Gervinho!

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So more signings looks like it's on our way with rumours going about again that we're still in for Cahill from Bolton, Samba from Blackburn and Mata from Valencia. Now these rumours persistently never stop, just as the never ending saga of Fabregas and Barcelona, when will they shut up and just pay the asking price or just go away and leave our club alone?

I wouldn't be surprised if we signed any of the aforementioned three. However it seems whenever it's English sources the transfer never comes off. Most of the reliable sources come form France (is that because we're run by a French manage, who knows?)

But the outs seem like they've started as well. Denilson will be heading back to Sao Paulo, that's pretty much confirmed as it was on Arsenal's official website. Bendtner is in talks with a few clubs. Eboue looks like he's on his way to Galatasaray and it's gone all quiet on behalf of our No.1 goalkeeper (his shirt number, not literally) Almunia. So I'm sure something's happening there.