Back to the day job.

Another cold and wet Monday morning. However, any lingering tinges of doom and gloom should have been forgotten after the Manure result. I hope most Arsenal fans are now in a far better mood than they were seven days ago. Still, this won't stop the inquisition into why we don't play like that more often. How can we lose to Stoke and beat ManUre within a week?

I said on Saturday that the time for analysis of the ManUre game would come later, and now is probably as good a time as any for my tuppence worth.

Arsenal played very well against Manure. The Emirates was a cauldron of sound and we got the result we wanted. However, ever since Saturday afternoon, I have had some small niggling doubts about how good we actually were. Without wanting to take anything away from the performance or the result, this blog will try to be as objective in victory as we always try to be in defeat. Just as things often are not that bad when you lose, there are sometimes also not as good as you might wish for when we win.

The stats from Saturday are a little uncomfortable. ManUre had more possession and more shots (on and off target). They also created some excellent chances. I could not believe Rooney failed to even hit the target in the first half when ManUre put together the move of the match through Berbatov and Ronaldo (about the only good thing those two did though). Equally, I thought Carrick had scored at the beginning of the game. Clichy will not come closer (i hope) to scoring an o.g. and Ronaldo missed a sitter in the second half.

However, we for once took our chances and then defended well. From that perspective it was not a typical Arsenal performance. But we could so easily have gone behind to Manure and I'm sure the heads would have dropped. The fact that Manure only scored one (the obligatory opposition wonder goal at the Emirates) probably had as much to do with bad Manure finishing then excellent defending by us. Conversely, Vidic made a couple of uncharacteristic errors, one which let Nasri in for his second goal.

So what does this tell us? I think the Manure game shows what a good team like Arsenal can do when we believe in ourselves. But its important to remember how important those two things are - talent and belief. We have always had the talent, we perhaps could do with a little more belief.

We remain short of muscle in the team, but Silvestre is increasing looking like the bargain of the season. If anything, Fergie will be ruing his decision to try and play us at football - in the good old days he would have played 4-4-2 with one winger and at least one goat in midfield to do little more than kick us (hello Phil Neville or John O'Shea). Our problem is against the teams who lack a bit of talent and try to out-fight us (hello Stoke), or where we underestimate teams and don't focus on winning the game ugly if we have to (hello Hull, Fulham etc). Nothing has really changed in that respect.

So its back to the day jobs now. The Manure game should be used as a basis for some confidence but not dwelt on. We were 6 points behind the leaders on Friday and we are still 6 points behind them on Monday. Its going to be a long season and we have big games coming up in November, especially Chelsea away. Most of the first team should get a rest against Wigan tomorrow (hopefully all the first team but I doubt we have another 11 bodies available) and its Aston Villa next on Saturday, who are in mini-slump of their own. Just like we were until we beat ManUre, so we underestimate them at our peril.

Arsenal 2-1 Manure. Tribute to the Faithful

Wow. Where did that come from? Just goes to show that some of the old Arsenal spirit is alive and well in this young team.

Its not the time for too much analysis. That can come later. Instead, its time to sit back, open a cold one, and enjoy the warm glow of a thoroughly deserved three points against a virtually full strength ManUre team.

Make no mistake - this was an Arsenal performance of great vintage. Given no chance before the game, I suffered the shame of listening to 'Arsenal fans' on the train into London saying to one another that we were a mid-table side now and that today was all about damage limitation.

I can understand about people being depressed, but Arsenal have never dropped out of the top 4 under Arsene Wenger and the last time we were in serious danger of finishing 5th was in 2005 when we still had Henry, Vieira and Pires.

Anyway, the atmosphere in the Emirates was rocking. For once, it wasn't just Block 6 getting involved. The entire lower tier was standing for almost the entire game and in great voice. Well done the Gooners - it made a massive difference.

The game was about as open as I have ever seen between these two teams. Fergie did not flinch and played Berbatov, Rooney and Ronaldo from the off, throwing Tevez on for the last 20 minutes. For those who are constantly harping on about signing some players, those 4 players cost ManUre over £100m by my reckoning.  Whereas our back line of Sagna, Gallas, Silvestre and Clichy, which can't have cost more than £10m, where exceptionally good. The French Maginot line is alive and well. Even Gallas played well.

Nasri scored two great goals and will win the plaudits. Well done Sami - keep it up. But the star of the show was Denilson. I know I praised him after Fenerbahce, so this may sound like a bit of a mission, but I genuinely thought he was the best central midfielder on the pitch today. His work rate was excellent, he fought for every ball, he was disciplined in possession and used the ball sensibly.

This was a great result and we have to concentrate on using this as a springboard for the next 4 or 5 games. But for now, the Arsene Wenger Youth Experiment is back into the frame. In a week where I have heard more Arsenal fans than I care to think about genuinely question Arsene Wenger's future at the club, he could not have given a better response. Well done and thank you Arsene. As far as I'm concerned, its a job for life.

Fenerbahce 0-0. Positively delusional.

Its a difficult time for Arsenal and its hard to get the right perspective on last night's 0-0 draw with Fenerbahce at the Emirates. So, I'm going to start with some of the positives from the wider perspective and narrow it down from there. You will see that the results are alarming.

Arsenal's performance was the best from any English team in Europe this week. We outplayed Fenerbahce for 90 minutes and were far the better team. Compare that with Chelsea, who were woeful away at Roma and got thumped 3-1. The Scousers were also quite poor against Atletico Madrid and outrageously lucky to get (yet another) late penalty in front of the Kop to scrape a 1-1 draw. ManUre also underperformed against Celtic and had to rely on their usual late flourish to earn a point at 1-1. Celtic can also only dream of having a striker like Guiza playing for them. Fenerbahce are not a great side, but I think far too many Arsenal fans wrongly saw them as a walk-over. Aragones was heading for the sack last night if Fenerbahce lost, so its no wonder they fought hard for their draw.

Looking now at some of the individual performances, the mighty Arseblogger has rightly applauded Aaron Ramsey's performance. Well played Rambo - you look a class act and its a great testament that I would have preferred Cesc to go off and be rested so that you could have played the last 30 mins in the central role. Keep it up.

I would also like to praise Denilson's performance last night. His work rate was excellent and I lost count of the number of times he mopped up around Cesc's loose touches and made a pass. There is an enormous burden on his shoulders this year and last night was an indication that he can perform at this level. If Denilson had been signed for £15m over the Summer, people would have been raving about him this morning.

RVP was unlucky not to score, the back four had little to do but looked solid (Djourou to keep his place against Manure please). Cesc, Bendtner and Nasri were relatively quiet and ineffectual, so I won't dwell on them.

Perhaps the really positive spin is that Cesc has learned a trick or too from AW, whose cunning masterplan with the press was revealed this week to take pressure off the players by talking rubbish to the press. In a similar vein of genius, Cesc's half-steam, give-the-ball-away, head-down-and-look-depressed performance was actually a masterstroke to divert more attention away from the other players, to take even more pressure off them so they can really perform. What a clever quadruple bluff that is. (cracks in the positive spin are showing now. I certainly don't buy this clever double-bluff the media to help the players mumbo jumbo - AW got mugged by the press and Cesc needs to play far better than that against Manure.)

Right, back to the positive thinking. We kept a clean sheet, which is good. I don't think there are any new injuries to report (although Silvestre must be doubtful), which is also good, and we now have the rotated Diaby and Song fresh to unleash against Manure. (I am struggling to be positive now - what the **** is the point of rotating Diaby and Song? They have barely played this year. Cesc blatantly could have done with an early bath).

Its not clear yet whether either of Walcott or Eboue will be back for Saturday, but I expect Sagna to play, possibly allowing Toure to partner Djourou at centre back. Since that combination was the run-away winner in the blog-poll (top right), then I simply don't see any possibility than Manure can score a goal on Saturday, let alone actually win the game.

So its time for good old blind faith again. Strap yourselves in. Toure and Djourou will form the sort of defensive shield at the Emirates that we have not seen in London since the Spitfires downed the Luftwaffe. It will be a glorious celebration as Shrek-Rooney is felled by perfectly timed tackle after tackle, every long ball will be cannoned back by Johan towards Ferdinand's mutant head. At 0-0 and with seconds to play, the mighty Kolo will thunder in a free kick (RVP can't mess it up for him on Saturday) that goes straight through Van der Sar's hands, breaking each finger off at the knuckle, before smashing the net into ribbons. I simply can't wait.

So get up for it Arsefans. ManUre is a mere 48 hours away and as long as I have drawn breath, I have hated losing to those Manc bastards more than anything else on God's good earth. Draw on your own furies and sharpen your swords, because the team will need us on Saturday.

Time for Wenger to shut up and win

I was initially quite impressed after the stoke game that Wenger admitted that Stoke deserved to win.

On Monday, AW said that “I don’t approve or disapprove [of Stoke’s tactics]. They played the game they wanted and they played it very well. At the end of the day, they could express their strong points and we could not.”

Even then, that was tempered with a highly dubious excuse: "We did play the taller players but the wind is quite strong in the stadium, it is open on one side. That makes our game a little more difficult."

Yet by Tuesday, things were taking a turn for the worse: "Do you think Delap tried to play the ball when he tackled Walcott? Or that Shawcross tried to play the ball when he tackled Adebayor?" Frankly speaking Arsene, yes I did think they were trying to play the ball.

Tony Pullis, the Stoke manager, has now responded magnicently well: "I have tremendous respect for Mr Wenger, but as Mr Wenger is such a learned professional and on a great day in America electoral history, I would like to remind him of Abraham Lincoln's great quotation: 'You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.'"

The theorists are already boiling up explanations that this is clever Wenger deflecting the issues from his players and onto himself. That may be correct and only AW knows the answer.

However, what is loud and clear on Wednesday afternoon is that Wenger has made himself look an idiot. If the players felt under pressure before, I struggle to think that reading these things in the papers makes them feel any better about life. Or did AW sit the players down on Monday and say "we all know you are to blame and not me, but I'm going to spout off some rubbish in the press so that they stop writing articles saying you are crap and say instead that I am an idiot, which will be much better for all of us..."

When added to the long list of "I believe in this team", "they are immature and will learn from mistakes" we have been fed, its all a bit too much. Even Fergie's rantings have died down recently. AW's initial reaction after Stoke was the right one - admit Stoke were better and move on to the next game. Its the search for justification after the events that has gone wrong.

I am 100% a fan of Wenger, but any previously held beliefs that he was the master of the jedi mind games are long mislaid. This week has seen a string of rubbish from him, which helps no-one. I humbly suggest that he needs to shut-up and instead get his team focused to deliver three points on the pitch tonight.

P.s. If anyone is interested to see a gorilla-man grow a goatee beard for charity for the whole of November (he must have lost his razor) then please sponsor K-Man. If he raises £50 then he has promised to publish a photo on the blog on December in his appalling hairy state. Its a great cause with a huge amount of non-shaving effort from K-Man, so go get your wallets and click here.

Positive Injury News

The early rumours surfacing on Tuesday are that Theo Walcott is expected to be fit to play against Manure on Saturday, and that Bacary Sagna is tipped to be available tomorrow against Fenerbahce.

At last some good news, I hear you cry. Although Adebayor is almost certainly out of both games. To go into the Manure game without RVP and Adebayor is a real blow.

Tomorrow nights' game against Fenerbahce is all about settling the nerves after recent disappointments. I am not a big fan of chopping and changing the team for these fixtures - by all means tinker round the edges but we need some consistency in terms of formations and tactics. Recently we have had the high line of defence up the pitch against Fenerbahce away, squad rotation against West Ham, the substitutions against Spurs and then a wholesale change of formation and tactics for Stoke. No wonder the players are struggling to keep up.

RVP will be eligible to play against Fenerbahce as his suspension does not count in Europe. So there will be no reason why he doesn't give everything in that game knowing he has a rest coming up.

The problem is who plays alongside him (actually there are lots of problems, that is just one of them). Nik Bendnter is the obvious choice but then he will play 3 times in 7 days if he also faces Manure - far too much for a relatively inexperienced lad at this level, especially if you are looking to rotate. The jury is also still out on Mr Bendnter. I for one have not been massively impressed by his performances so far this season.

Having scene what Walcott's pace can do to teams, I therefore would not be surprised to see Wenger switch to a 4-5-1 for at least one of the games this week . Bendnter could be rested against Fenerbahce to allow him to play up top against Manure. Diaby is the obvious candidate for the free role in the hole behind with Walcott and Nasri given licence to attack forwards from the wings. You could also play Eboue on the wing and push Walcott forwards to leave Diaby on the bench. Who knows - Wenger might even give Carlos Vela some time on the pitch.

Either way, success on Saturday is likely to depend on whether Bendnter can hold the ball up and lay it off to the advancing hordes of midfielders. If he can then we just might give the Mancs something to think about.

Thought for the day

Its a gloomy Monday morning, and gloomy Arsenal fans all over the country are winding their gloomy way to work. I'm one of them.

However, having stopped for a minute to listen to the chuntering of my fellow commuters, it seems our Scouse brethren are also gloomy this morning after being robbed good and proper by the Spudders, that ManUre were surprised at the way they let Hull back in the game and almost dropped two points again, that Chelsea don't know which team will turn up from one week to the next and that Spurs are still in the relegation zone.

History tells us that Arsenal are sometimes at their best when the worst seems about to happen. We are in a spot of the brown stuff at the moment and blind optimism is not going to work alone.

The injury and suspension news is bad. Really bad. But to a certain degree it makes Wenger's job a bit easier this week. There can be no thoughts of rotating the squad much for the Fenerbahce game. Adebayor and Walcott look definitely out and Sagna is a big doubt. RVP is suspended. Wenger needs to decide what his strongest XI is and get their frame of minds in a better place between now and Wednesday evening.

I remember Paul Merson explaining in the early Wenger days the "unbelievable belief" that Wenger gave him as a player. We are monstrously short of that at the moment.

Wenger needs to have a rummage around in the back of the cupboard and see if he has a bottle or two left. I bloody hope he does.

Stoke 2 Arsenal1

A miserable result at Stoke and there is no hiding from it. I didn't see the game live but according to the commentary, Arsenal were dreadful and fully deserved the zero points we obtained.

Talk of title hopes should now be well forgotten. Some us were ready to write this Arsenal team off some time ago. I was so despondent after the West Brom game that I was one of them. Its not something I'm pleased to have been correct about.

For those of you now facing up to the fact that Arsenal will not win the league this year, the next few days will be extremely painful. I suggest whisky, beer, shouting, swearing, and then maybe some more beer.  I'll see you on the other side on Monday or Tuesday. You will feel a lot better for it.

Some people will want to see blood for this. Everyone likes a scapegoat and the usual suspect is the manager. Its also going to be a big period for Arsene Wenger. He made a massive gamble on Denilson in the summer and I think its backfired big time. Not that a blame Denilson, as such, its just that he can't replace Gilberto or Flamini. Wenger never seemed to really rate either of them but for my money, allowing both Flamini and Gilberto to go was the big mistake. 

I won't be joining in the calls for sackings or retribution. It hurts a lot to say this but Arsenal's priorities now need to refocus quite drastically. I suspect this result is really just the fall-out from the disappointment and blame that followed Spurs' escape on Wednesday night. Wenger needs to get the players focused for next week, otherwise a bad performance against Fenerbahce and ManUre next week and Wenger's head will be on the block.