Tuesday 22 November 2011

Good Form

Is the current Arsenal team our best for years? No, of course it isn't but I can't remember the last time our form was this good. This could have more to do with the in and out nature of my brain but we seem to be winning a lot recently. We're not playing as spectacularly as we have in the past but we're at our most cohesive as a unit possibly since 2007/8. Obviously I would take Fabregas back in a shot but when he was in midfield we didn't have the balance we do now. There is a calmness to our play that is completely at odds with the gung-ho, attack-at-all costs mentality we've seen in recent years, there is dare I say it a maturity to our play. Now this is probably because our players are a bit more mature. On Saturday our least experienced players were Szczesny and Ramsey. Both established internationals, one of them the captain of his country. Our team is finally coming of age.

You would think then that we'd be pretty confident going into tomorrow's game against Dortmund, the 4th seeds for our group, but despite the results on the pitch I still get a sense of tension from the Arsenal fans. We are of course conditioned to believe that Arsenal will do things the hard way, we always have, but it's a bit more than that. I think at the moment none of our fans want to put they're heads above the parapet and admit that right now we're actually a pretty damn good team. Which is fair enough because the first person to do that will be responsible for the inevitable jinx that such a statement would inevitably cause. And I think I may have just done it. Whoops.

But we really are good at the moment. Mertesacker's mistake aside our defence looks more solid than it has done for years, and we have a commanding keeper behind them. Our midfield is getting such a good understanding that I'm not even certain Wilshere will walk into the first team when he returns and up front Robin, Theo and Gervinho all look like creating chances even if only Robin looks like scoring them.

All this can change in an instant, of course, but you can't judge the team on what might happen but on what is happening now. Too often in the past we've got ahead of ourselves, imagined glory based on what ifs and now we're imagining tragedy on the same basis. But I've decided to live in the here and now and right here and right now, we're doing pretty damn well actually.

Monday 7 November 2011

Best So Far

At the end of the season we will look back and as ever we will ask ourselves what was our best performance. Now hopefully our best game is yet to come but at the moment most people would probably plump for our victory against Chelsea. I, on the other hand, would say it was the game against West Brom. Yes Chelsea are a better class of opposition, and yes we put 5 goals past them at their ground but overall in the game against West Brom we were better.

We worked as a team, arguably for the first time this year. Yes Van Persie scored one and set up two but his performance was backed up by the other 10 men on the pitch. It was possibly the most comfortable we've looked this calendar year and we barely gave West Brom a sniff at goal. It was professional, and it's hard to remember the last time we looked like that.

We have a run of games that on paper look pretty easy now and that should send fear up the spines of all Arsenal fans, it has been a feature of Arsene Wenger's reign that these are the games we screw up. However the display against West Brom should have eased our fears, perhaps it's the fact that we have a few more older heads in the team now but in recent weeks we have shown far fewer signs of fragility and we're starting to go about the job with calm efficiency. Which is very much unlike us.

In other news Marco Van Basten, who I have always had a huge soft spot for, has said that Van Persie should stay at Arsenal for life. He made some very flattering points about Arsenal as a club and it's nice to see that the view of our club on the continent may not have been as damaged as it has in England by our recent form. Whether Robin will listen to Van Basten is doubtful, but I can't imagine his words would go unnoticed. At this point I was going to try and use a former England international giving advice to a current player as an analogy but I couldn't think of any player in recent times that has the same sort of status as Van Basten has in Holland, I then thought about using Geoff Hurst but quite frankly he get's on my tits and is living off his 1966 hat-trick if you ask me. So imagine if you will a former England striker who had similar qualities to Wayne Rooney but unlike Rooney had performed brilliantly for both club and country and had actually won stuff at an international level giving Wayne Rooney some advice in his career. Rooney would be a fool not to listen wouldn't he? Of course Wayne Rooney is a fool, let's hope Van Persie isn't.

Thursday 3 November 2011

Trend setting

The 0-0 against Marseille was down to many things. Fatigue after the Chelsea game, apparently; The lack of Van Persie up front and good defending by the French team. We could sit here all day and argue the relative merits of all those arguments but we won't because I don't want to.

What I want to do is to highlight a trend I've noticed over the last few years when Arsenal draw 0-0. Now I'm not going to back this up with empirical evidence so it could just be spurious nonsense but has anyone else noticed that while we don't have that many scoreless draws when we have one we tend to have a little run of them. In many ways they're like buses: they're ugly, they're annoying, they smell and if you haven't got your earphones in then you end up wanting to punch some noisy child in the back of the head. To be honest though I'm not sure a run of scoreless draws is what we need right now. Sure the clean sheets would be nice but we've got a little run of winnable games coming up and it would be quite nice if we could, y'know, win them.

In order for us to do that it seems that we need Van Persie to play every game because no other bugger can score when he's not there. This is problematic. Firstly because there's an international break coming up and we've got through two without Robin being murdered so there's no chance of him getting through this one and secondly because we need to be able to trust our whole squad and at the moment we can't. Our first team is looking pretty balanced at the moment and I think with Vermaelen back and Koscielny looking excellent we can start stiffeningup our defence. I like Song and Arteta in midfield despite what Graeme Souness was saying after the Marseille match "once you get past those two your right on to the back four". Yes, Graeme, but that applies to all midfields doesn't it? If you get past them you reach the defence, you moron. Ramsey is starting to look like he really can pull the strings and link midfield with attack and Walcott and Gervinho seem to be able to provide the chances for RVP but without our captain none of our attacking players seem to have any kind of understanding. Hopefully that will come with more games but at the moment we can't afford to give them the time to get that understanding. It's catch-22.

Speaking of Catch-22 there is a scene in that book where a man is lying in hospital covered head to toe in bandages with a drip in his arm providing sustenance and a cathater to store all the urine. Every now and then a nurse comes in and swaps the bags around. Maybe Arsenal should take this approach, surely people would work a lot harder on there recovery if they were being force fed their own filth every day. In fact perhaps we've already started doing it. I mean we currently have Tomas Rosicky, Robin Van Persie AND Thomas Vermaelen fit. Now if we can just cure Abou Diaby of his human waste product addiction we'd be laughing.

Tuesday 25 October 2011

A Change of Tactics

I realise it has been quite some time since I updated this blog and I confess it may be quite some time before I update it again. But I have decided that when I do add blogs they will now be in a more serious vein (see my last post below for an example.) This is not down to the fact that I can no longer extract humour from Arsenal's situation, I can, plenty of it. It's more down to the fact that I want to attempt to flex my writing skills in a more traditional blog format. I may pop the occasional sketch on here if I feel it's of "Super Quality" but mainly this will now be a forum for my actual thoughts and feelings, which is quite scary because I'd previously assumed I didn't have any.

So let the bona fide blogging begin:

You can't go wrong with the Carling Cup. Unless you count last year's final, obviously. But in general these games are a far more relaxing proposition to the higher profile competitions we're involved in, and I personally love them. Not just because it's a chance to see the kids and fringe players but because it's one of the few chances we get to sit back and just enjoy a match. If we lose, then it's a shame but it's not the end of the world it's still a good learning curve for the players and if we win we can pretend that all these youngsters are the future of Arsenal and that the future is bright.

The truth is a little different however. If you look at the players that have made it through the youth ranks at Arsenal very few of them have played a large amount of Carling Cup games before they became first team regulars. Fabregas, Wilshere, Cole all went pretty much straight in at the top. On the other hand the likes of Lupoli and Simpson both impressed often in the Carling Cup and where are they now? I hear Simpson is at Millwall and Lupoli is slopping out the pigs at Godstone Farm in Surrey.

Today we may see Chuks Aneke, who as far as I'm concerned should be a first team player on the strength of his name alone and Emmanuel Frimpong who IS a first team player on the strength of his name alone. We could also see Vermaelen's come back which would be a great boost for the club but with Koscielny's recent form I'm not certain he'll get his first team place back without a fight. Unless he can play right back, or Wenger finally decides that he wants a left back who understands what defending is but I can't see that happening. In truth I've always been against using Vermaelen as a left back unless we're truly desperate, he is far too good a central defender to be wasted out wide but that's a debate for another day and that day is about two months ago.

So back to the Carling Cup. I'm excited about this match in a way that I haven't been for an Arsenal match all season. I think even with our youngsters out that we should win and I have absolutely none of the feelings of dread that has blighted the pre-match build up for every other game this year. It's a feeling I'd like to hold on to but I fear by Saturday I'll be back to the more familiar feelings of impending doom. Until then though it actually feels good to be a Gooner again, let's revel in it.

If you desire you can follow @johnjensensgoal on Twitter.

Tuesday 22 March 2011

With fans like these...

It's always hard to sort out the genuine, pessimistic Arsenal fans from the wind up merchants from other clubs because most of the time they're in total agreement.

Now I don't believe us fans aren't allowed to criticise our club, it is entirely our perogative but the vitriolic abuse that our players and manager receive baffles me. There seems to be no desire to get behind the team, no wish to look at the positives and in many cases a complete lack of any kind of grasp on reality.

Now I fear I may have lost some people by now who will have dismissed me as one of the 'Arsene Knows Brigade' as if there can only be two kinds of fan, those who blindly support Wenger and those who forcefully despise him. This is not the case. Wenger has made mistakes, every manager does, but in general I believe Wenger's mistakes are far outweighed by the good things he brings to this club.

"But what about the 6 years without a trophy?", you cry. Well what about it? 6 years isn't really that long. If we'd gone 6 years without challenging for a trophy then I'd be angrier but that's not the case.

In fact I'd go so far as to say the only reason you expect us to be winning more things is because of Arsene Wenger. What he did in the first few years at the club was remarkable and he hasn't been able to match that but he has raised our expectations massively. Under George Graham we were a good team, tough to beat and not a team you'd write off in any competitions but we were never favourites for anything. We were the underdog in most of our European games, we were a club who'd generally be towards the top of the table but if we weren't challenging for the title each year it was no great surprise. We were just happy to be out of the mid-table mediocrity that had beset us during the 70's. We were always a pretty big club rather than a massive club. A club with history and tradition but not on the level of the likes of Liverpool or Man Utd.

Wenger pushed us to aim to be at their level and for a few years we were, and more recently we've slumped. Perhaps Wenger should have splashed the cash more. But financially we've not been able to compete with the recent super-rich clubs and it's all very well saying £10m for Smalling wouldn't have broken the bank but if we'd put in a £10m bid for him who's to say Man Utd wouldn't have raised there's to £15m and we just can't afford to compete for every player in a bidding war. But Wenger still has sway, it was him who convinced Ramsey to join us rather than Man Utd. Very few other managers in the world have that sort of lure.

It's easy for us to shout about what we want to happen but are we so arrogant as to believe we really know better than Wenger about what's right for the club? Why didn't we buy Cahill and Schwarzer? Well is Schwarzer really so much better than the keepers we've got? And if he is why hasn't a bigger team than Fulham ever tried to sign him? And Cahill who would cost anything upwards of £15m really good enough to come straight in ahead of Koscielny and Djourou? And if he is would those players be willing to accept that they're 4th choice? I doubt it, which means we'd lose at least one of them and we'd be back to square one.

As I say there are areas that we need to strengthen. We need someone who can compete with Song as neither Diaby or Denilson are good enough in that position. I also personally think that if Wenger doesn't think Bartley or Miquel are ready for Premier League football yet then we need to bring in a decent young defender who'll be happy to be a back up but is ready to throw straight in to the big games.

Finally I'd like to point out the one thing people seem to be ignoring at the moment in order to spread their messages of doom. We're in a really good position in the league. We can be masters of our own destiny rather than rely on other results and we can win the league. We might not, but we can.

Wenger has once again put us in a position that our expectations have been raised and maybe we'll end up heartbroken but if you're not ready to have your hopes shattered then don't be a football fan. And remember compared to over 90% of clubs in this country we've got it really, really good. We are consistently one of the top four teams in the country. We've played and beaten Barcelona we've reached cup finals and we've fought for leagues. We play Champions League football every year. Most fans would give their right arm for even a fraction of what we class as a poor season. Arsenal in my eyes have always been a flawed diamond, and I like it that way.

I don't really go in for the pithy slogans that some fans use to describe their support but if you said I could have all Man Utd's success, I could have all Man City's money or I could have all Barcelona's skill my answer would always be the same.

I'd rather be watching Arsenal.

Thursday 10 March 2011

Harry's Lab

In a dark basement on a stormy night in the dirty half of North London Harry Redknapp is working in his laboratory.

Harry: Jamie! Come here!

Jamie: Yes Dad.

Harry: How many times? You call me master in the lab boy. And lisp more.

Jamie: Yeth Mathter.

Harry: Tonight my boy we're going to create the ultimate footballer, strong, quick, intelligent, unbreakable.

Jamie: Like I wath Dad?

Harry: Yes...just like you were...Now first we need a footballers brain.

Jamie: I'll go and kill Paul Thcoleth.

Harry: Who?

Jamie: Paul Thcoleth.

Harry: I'm sorry, again?

Jamie: PAUL THCOLETH!

Harry: Nope, I'm still not getting it.

Jamie: I'll kill Michael Carrick.

Harry: Yeah that'll do. Now we need pace.

Jamie: I'll thteal Theo Walcott'th legs, mathter.

Harry: Seo Walcott?

Jamie: No Theo! Oh thod it. Aaron Lennon'th will do.

Harry: Now strength!

Jamie: (under breath) Eththein? No. Mathcerano? No. Thong? Definitely no. How about that bloke from Wolveth who'th built like a brick thithouse?

Harry: I don't know his name?

Jamie: Nor do I, which ith a bonuth. I'll take hith tortho.

Harry: Now unbreakability.

Jamie: Not really my thpecialty mathter.

Harry: No. We'll just chuck in a shatterproof ruler, that'll do.

Jamie: The monthter ith ready mathter.

Harry: Now all we need is a lightening storm and we'll have the perfect footballer.

Jamie: I could jutht plug him into the mainth?

Harry: Good idea, Jamie. Mwahahahahahaha!

Jamie: Erm...whoopth.

Harry: What?

Jamie: I theem to have uthed Carrick'th pace, Eboue'th thtrength and that bloke from Wolveth brain. And the thatterproof ruler theemth to be bent.

Harry: You idiot! What will we do?

Jamie: Call it Jermaine Jenath?

Twitter

Due to technical incompetence the podcast has been put on hold for a bit.

However you can follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/JohnJensensGoal

And I might even try and post reasonably regularly on here again.

Keep watching this space.