Monday 18 October 2010

Arsene's defiance and Shakhtar preview

Arsene made it clear in his press conference that he is not a fair weather hypocrite who will change his stance depending on the way the winds blows, his attitude to tackling has not changed and remains consistent, unlike certain managers that one could name:

“I don’t say we’re untouchable and that we don’t make mistakes, because we make them as well. But overall I believe we commit very few fouls in the game and we try to play in a fair way. When we make a mistake, we come out and say sorry and we won’t do it again."

I know I have gone on about it but the hypocrisy from the media and certain managers is beyond a joke. Our manager and player have already apologised for a tackle that has done little harm. We are still waiting for Pulis/Shawcross to apologise for snapping Aaron Ramsey's leg and there are certain people who have never apologised for far far worse.

It looks like Cesc and Theo may well be on the bench tomorrow night, with Jack suspended this weekend, it would seem unlikely that Arsene would gamble Cesc in such a game. With various injuries and so on, I would expect a line up of something like:

Fabianski
Eboue Squillaci Djourou Gibbs
Song Denilson Wilshere
Nasri Chamakh Rosicky

I was quietly impressed with the centre backs on Saturday, they handled everything pretty well, Djourou seemed to be nicely physical at times as well. Arshavin's poor performance should see him dropped, while maybe Diaby's due a rest. The big story will be the return of Eduardo who is guaranteed a fantastic reception, one certainly wouldn't put money against him scoring tomorrow knowing his mercurial touch in front of goal. If we can find some form I am confident we can win, but Shakhtar will exploit a bad performance, they are no mugs.

7 comments:

Glenn said...

I think the over the top tackles is a by product of certain teams and managers whole footballing ethos. Of course any player is capable of a reckless challenge, all it takes is a rush of blood, a sense of injustice during a game, not getting the rub of the green, or in some of the Brum scum players cases; just wanting to give it back to them after their snide elbowing and niggly fouls that the ref just waved away!

Nope, the likes of Pulis, Mccarthy and our dear old chum, Alladyce send their cloggers out to stifle, foul, and try to intimidate.

Steve Bruce came up with a hilarious quote, read it today; something like;

"Well, if we got rid of the physical nature of the English game, it would be just like the Spanish, French and Italian leagues, it would ALL JUST BE ABOUT TECHNIQUE..." Oh my, we couldnt have a game based on technique now could we? How would that look? All nice passing, tricks, flicks and exquisite goals!!!

You couldnt make it up!

Nice article again fella.

Anonymous said...

Paranoias gonna get you gooners!

Gallas, wilshere, Eboue and others have all been guilty of leg crunching tackles in the last few yrs and there have been others. Arsenal are just as dirty as anyone else. Your digging a chilean sized miners hole for yourselves!

1979gooner said...

Anon 2039.

Unfortunately you are talking utter shite. To say we are as dirty as anyone shows a rank ignorance of several rather obvious things. You have clearly based things on your innate dislike of arsenal rather than anything that could be justified by a cogent argument

Anonymous said...

1979gooner-
So im talking utter shite?!

Then please expand, explain and justify your opinions otherwise you yourself are surely guilty of failing to provide any cogent argument?

Davi said...

Anon 22:51
Of the examples you picked of arsenal players making poor challenges over the past few years, 2 were from the last game, and one was by a player who doesnt play for us any more.
And all of them have been blown out of proportion to some degree. Wilshere's was a deserved red card, but to compare it to taylor's or shawcross' would be ignorant because his foot made contact with zigic's foot, rather than halfway up his leg (which would be a requirement for a "leg-crunching tackle").
Eboue's looked bad I suppose, but in fact he didnt use too much force at all. I wouldnt have called it dangerous, but it was a poor example a tackle, and the booking was fair.
Gallas stepped on someone's foot essentially. Could have done some damage, but it was harsh to claim it was intentional rather than mis-timed (as they did at the time).
None of these fouls were anything like "leg-crunching" because for one thing they didnt make any contact with any players' legs!
Diaby has made some bad challenges in his time as well, but it's noticeable that he always keeps his feet down, so even when he mis-times one, he wont cause an impact injury like the ones eduardo and ramsey suffered.
In summary players like shawcross need to learn to take more care and not just assume that their leg breaking fouls are just a natural by-product of an aggressive game and realise that if you keep your feet on the ground when you tackle you will never break someone's *leg* by impact (foot, maybe, but that's never quite as severe)

1979gooner said...

anon,

davi has replied nicely,

the point is if you are going to come up with an argument then you need something to back it up, you have nothing!

actually there is a hell of a lot to refute your baseless tosh

firstly arsenal invariably are fouled against far more than they foul

secondly we get far less yellows/reds than our opponents do, look at the figures for the last few years

thirdly we are very high up the disciplinary table and have been for several years

fourthly you will not be able to come up with many decent examples of bad reckless tackles by Arsenal players, we simply don't do many

fifthly you have nothing decent to back up your statements which appear to be made more out of a dislike for Arsenal than any genuine facts

interestingly the manager and player have apologised for the tackle at the weekend, something that the likes of pulis/shawcross simply do not do

if you still have some decent responses to this based on something other than your own personal bias, then please reply, i suspect you will either bugger off or come up with some more baseless tosh

Drew said...

Over the past few weeks, there have been quite a few concussions in the NFL due to helmet-to-helmet hits. So, logically, the NFL has said it will increase fines and impose suspensions on players guilty of such violations.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5702673

The NFL's willingness to protect it's players and change rules to benefit it's product is the main reason the NFL is the dominant sport in the US. The flip side of that is Major League Baseball, who is just now coming around to video replays and other ideas which would improve the game.

The parallel is obvious: the EPL is equivalent to Major League Baseball. Reluctance to change and a reluctance to improve it's product has relegated the MLB to the third most popular sport in the US behind the NFL and the NBA. True, they are different sports, which is all the more reason for the EPL to change. With La Liga and, increasingly, the Bundesliga already available to most of the world, the EPL will start to fade away if it doesn't change it's archaic mentality and start protecting it's players. The NFL tweaks it's rules all the time: midseason if neccessary. How can the most exciting league in the world NOT be able to do the same?