Obsinho in Arseblogger Banner!

As i was looking at Arseblog today, the uber-blog for all Gooners, I couldn't help noticing that one of our very own (very) small time bloggers was grimacing back at me.

For whilst Arsene takes the applause in front of the Clock End (it looks like the last game at Highbury, but not quite sure) Another Arsenal Blog's very own "Obsinho" can be seen gurning back at us - he's far right in the picture and looks like he's clapping. Its about the last time he was nice to Arsene Wenger.

Anyway, with apologies to Arseblogger for borrowing his banner, its also a big shout out to Obsinho - he's had a miserable week, the poor sod, coming third last in the South London Monthly Gurning league, and got his house broken into so missed the Chelsea game. However, I am sure he will be back in Block 6 for the Stoke game.

However, if anyone would like to buy a rather disappointing flat screen TV, please let me know.

Back to Basics

The fact that Arsenal took yet another beating at the hands of Chelsea on Sunday is hard to take, especially coming at home. 1979's match report is spot on, and whilst I tend not to blame the ref for everything, several key moments decided the game. Arsene Wenger has promised to unveil to the media today his statistical analysis that shows the gaps between Chelsea and Arsenal were very slim, and I look forward to seeing what he says, but i think the stats really only tell a fraction of the story of the Chelsea game.

The stats on the Telegraph's website say that we had 55% of possession, 50% of the territory, but only 4 shots to Chelsea's 8. What the stats don't tell you is how many times did Chelsea waste possession when in a good position (very few), how many times did Chelsea get out of position defensively (none)? In contrast, how many times did Arsenal - a number of times on both counts. And narrow margins win these kind of games.

However, what I have found very telling since Sunday is that the Chelsea's first XI has played together a great deal over the last 4 or 5 years. Of the starting XI on Sunday, I think only Ivanovic and Anelka have been at the club for less than 5 years. Their team is not just packed with talent, but its talent that has been playing together for years and years.

In contrast, I would be amazed if Arsenal's starting XI has ever played together before. It simply can't have done. But the only one of them that I would not describe as a "first xi player" is Armand Traore, who put in a respectable shift down the left side.

Its not just that the Arsenal team has not played much before, its that there is such a massive gap. Cesc has made 220 appearances for Arsenal, which is not bad, but then it falls off very fast - Almunia 136, Gallas 127, Sagna 100. Its really not great. Our front three of Arshavin, Eduardo and Nasri have only 106 appearances between them.

However, why does our lack of experience count? Surely if the player is good enough then thats it. No doubt many Gooners will spend most of the next month screaming that Wenger needs to get his chequebook out in January.

Well I don't think so, at least so long as Bendtner comes back to fitness by January. And thats because I don't think splashing the cash on any new players will make the smallest bit of difference to the basic problems in our team.

The first major problem at the moment is that we take a huge amount of time and possession to fashion any sort of chance. Without wishing to pick on Eduardo, he could easily have scored against Sunderland and Chelsea, but he seems utterly reluctant to chance his left foot from less that 6 yards out, especially if there is defender in the way, or a keeper, that he can try and skip round first. The answer is to just fucking shoot. If it flies in then you are a hero. And if it doesn't, then at least you tried. Good strikers are invariably slightly selfish - they want the goals and accoloades. So long as it goes in enough times, then fair enough. Truly great strikers just mix it up with some assists as well. Shite strikers pass to someone else in a worst position when they could have scored.

In addition. Not shooting regularly from distance plays right into the defenders hands. If the attacking player has no intention of shooting, the defender maintains composure, stays up right, stays tight, and waits. Waits some more. And then either tackles or blocks. Arsenal's failure to shoot means that we have to conjure the most ridiculous series of one-touch passing moves to engineer a situation which is now deemed by Arsenal as a "good chance" - usually an open net tap in. Otherwise, we seek to recycle possession and start again.

And its mind bendingly infuriating. Especially when you see Denilson score from nothing from 30 yards against Standard Liege. Especially when you see Manure and Liverpool score from nothing rebounds time and again simply becuase one of their midfielders chanced their arm from 25 yards.

The fear in a defenders' mind as soon as someone like Gerrard or Lampard is 25 yards out, in front of goall, with the ball at his feet, means that every single defender looks to rush in. Which is exactly what Gerrard wants - the defender has just left someone else free, so maybe an easy pass is now on. Its almost an apology if an Arsenal player shoots from distance. A failing of the system. And that is a nonsense.

The second massive difference is that Arsenal leak goals like a sieve. The replays of Chelsea's first two goals on Sunday make me despair at our defending. Yes - Drogba's first was a great finish. But it came from a series of bloody awful bits of defensive play from Arshavin, Sagna and Gallas. The fact that the same trick worked twice in 5 minutes, the second involving Nasri rather than Arshavin, is a complete and utter joke.

William Gallas is a great player on the deck, top class in fact. But not much else. The fact that he is almost useless in the air meant that Drogba knew he was in for an easy afternoon. But make no mistake - the fact that Gallas did not make any contact with either cross from Ashley Cole is the reason why Chelsea scored both times. I would forgive Gallas if he accidently smashed the ball into his own net trying to block the cross - that is bad luck. But to not play either ball with Drogba lurking on your shoulder is a recipe for disaster. The fact that the second went in off Vermaelen is bad luck, but that cross should have been cut out by Gallas or Sagna.

What is worse, is that judging from the replays, Gallas actually backs out of playing the crosses. And these were not the most viscious in-swingers the world has ever seen. He doesn't even miss the first one - he just does nothing. So Chelsea just had to put two decent balls into the mixer on our six yard box. Twice. And yet again, after a decent first spell, its 2-0 down at home to Chelsea.

When we tried the same tactic against Spurs, it worked and RVP scored. But that goal infuriated Harry Rednapp because he knew that the ball should have been dealt with. When we did it against Chelsea in the second half, any one of Ivanovic, Carvalho or Terry made sure they got in the way. On the odd occassion when Arsenal did threaten to shoot, two or three of them made desperate blocking tackles from all angles, not trying to play the ball or man, but just trying to get in the way of the shot. Arsenal just don't defend like that.

Arsene Wenger is basically right that Drogba did not have to do much in the game. We made it so bloody easy for him.

Chelsea's moneymen too strong

As I arrive home tired and slightly bedraggled I have had a fair amount of time to cogitate over today's defeat to our rather unsophisticated brothers from West London. Firstly Chelsea's side was full of experienced multimillion pound players who have played together for several years. Secondly I don't like them but they are probably the hardest side to beat in the world at the moment, there simply isn't a club side around that is so packed with talent that can also defend so solidly.

Drogba is almost their club emblem and epitomised just what a shallow bunch of hypocrites they are as a collective, on one hand he is one of the greatest strikers of his generation, but on the other he is also one of the worst sportsmen of his generation and behaves like a small child with an ASBO on regular occasions. That is Chelsea, they are not a pleasant group of human beings and their success has been purchased by a Russian criminal with blood on his hands, but they are a bloody good football team.

There were many reasons for our defeat today. The main one in my eyes was that Chelsea were better in the two keys areas of the pitch, they were more potent in attack and more resolute in defence. It does not help that two of our best strikers were out injured and that as a result we lacked a focal point, Eduardo looks low on confidence and really could do with a goal at the moment. Drogba is a physical beast and scores some simply incredible goals, his first was a fantastic finish and the second an unstoppable free kick.

The big concern for me was that he seemed to know that Gallas was the weak link, he kept away from Vermaelen and targetted Gallas from early on, this battle he comprehensively won and this turned the game in Chelsea's favour. Anelka is also a very dangerous player, his pace and instinct were always a threat on the counter. I thought Traore and Vermaelen did well today, but Gallas and Sagna did not. Sagna was at fault for both of the first two goals, he left Cole in far too much space on both occasions, sloppy defending, while Gallas was poorly positioned for both. In stark contrast to our defense Chelsea mopped up numerous shots and crosses by just playing with discipline and staying tight.

Overall it was not a 3-0 game to watch, we controlled the game for long periods, we had some decent chances in both halves which we failed to take, our midfield looked neat and tidy for the first seventy minutes. The problem was that we didn't take our half chances, Eduardo demonstrated this best by taking an extra touch when in a great position through on goal in the early second half. We didn't test Cech enough, there were too many slightly heavy passes and touches in the crucial areas. And when we did score at a time when Chelsea looked nervy, the referee bizarrely ruled it out for 'dangerous play' when Eduardo did nothing of the sort. Then when we had a good penalty shout that the referee ignored Vela being barged to the ground. It was not to be our day.

The performance of Andre Marriner does deserve a mention, and if he was not bribed the it was truly one of the poorest refereeing performances I have seen for a while. He let numerous fouls from Chelsea go unpunished, particularly from Mikel and especially in the second half. Mikel had committed at least two, maybe three, yellow card tackles before the ref bothered booking him. Having been booked he then committed a blatant act of dissent by picking up the ball and walking away with it when we tried to take the free kick, the limp and inconsistent Marriner did nothing and undermined his won authority once more. There was zero consistency with his decision making, he allowed Ivanovic to play rugby on several occasions, while every time an Arsenal player was hauled down it was invariably just a little chat and a license to foul from the impotent ref.

Overall our weaknesses were exposed once again, despite being the better side for long periods we failed to make it count and were left cursing some slack defending. It is no surprise that we came up slightly short because Chelsea are a very good side full of experienced 30 million pound players. Chelsea are side that have been built with money in an unsustainable manner, it is a miracle that Arsene even has us competing with them, I would rather see us win nothing but do things the right way than become the amoral money machine that Chelsea have become.

Listening to Arsene's comments in the press conference I cannot disagree with much he says, the decision to disallow our goal certainly made a big difference and the scoreline certainly flattered Chelsea. However we have conceded 18 goals this season, that is more than either Villa, Man City, Stoke or Birmingham, and that is not good enough. The balance is not right in attack either, without RVP and Bendtner we lack the players to suit a three man forward line. Above all we must remember that we have a fantastic bunch of talented players and that we are not far off having what it takes, the understanding and solidity that Chelsea have cannot be created overnight, it takes patience and time to build a successful team.

Injuries - oh f*ck and dodgy foreign surgeons

That's exactly what I thought when I heard the news about RVP needing surgery on his ankle injury which will keep him out for possibly the rest of the season. Watching the above video also makes me angry, to me Chiellini has gone in dangerously on RVP, this was a 'friendly match', he slides in with studs up and with a straight leg and nails RVP's standing leg, it was a bad tackle and it has cost us big time.

The same was true for Kieran Gibbs' fractured metatarsal, the game was over, we were cruising two nil and the Liege player slid in out of control with his studs up, clobbering Gibbs after the ball had gone. Both tackles were reckless, it matters not whether the ball was won or not, sliding in with your studs up should not be tolerated in the modern game, the problem is that refs are too stupid to pick up this kind of malignant play, they prefer to send people off for pushing someone in the chest or other kinds of harmless handbags. Until dangerous play is punished consistently in proportion with the threat it poses these kind of needless injuries will continue to happen far too frequently.

RVP has been advised to have surgery by a Dutch foot and ankle surgeon. Obviously it is hard to speculate as to whether RVP needs an operation, but it is rather obvious that there are a lot of rather cunning surgeons out there who are only too happy to milk the footballing gravy train for their own wallets. If RVP has a lateral ligament rupture which I suspect he does, then our Dutch man has produced evidence to say that reconstruction gives better long term results.

Nothing is sure in science and medicine, no matter what some people would have you believe, one can always find evidence to back up one's opinion, it is invariably the interpretation of the evidence that is key. If RVP has a lateral ligament rupture that to me is seems that having early surgery is not the sensible option. There is a lot of evidence to back this view up (1, 2).

"There are other reasons to consider functional treatment as a method of choice. First, as has been reported by many authors , secondary operative reconstruction or delayed repair of the ruptured ligaments of the ankle can be performed years after the injury if necessary, with good results that are fully comparable with those of primary repair. Therefore, even competitive athletes may be treated functionally at first, with the realization that 10 to 20 per cent may need elective secondary repair. Second, functional treatment saves the patient from additional trauma to the tissues and complications that are caused by operation."

The above quote comes from one of the most authoritative texts in the scientific literature on managing lateral ligament ruptures. If one assumes that RVP has a lateral ligament rupture then not only if he was managed without surgery would he only have around a 10% chance of needing surgical repair later, he would avoid all the potential complications of surgery and be back playing quicker than following surgery. With surgery he is practically certain to miss the rest of the season.

Obviously this is all speculation, but it would not be the first time that an 'eminent' surgeon has advised early surgery against the best interests of the patient. Privatised surgery means that surgeons will be much keener to operate on patients when the benefits of surgery are minimal at best, this is the way of the world.

There is a well known German surgeon who performs 'hernia repairs' on lots of footballers with a remarkable technique that has them back playing within two weeks. Some surgical experts would say that this surgeons' technique is nothing but complete bullsh*t quackery and that the surgery involves around just making a cut, then doing bugger all to repair the hernia because most footballers have groin strains, not hernias in the first place. Michael Owen had his hernia 'repaired' in Germany by this quack, I suspect Nicky Bendtner may have also gone for the same expensive placebo treatment. Interestingly this strange hernia repair technique has absolutely no evidence behind it, there is nothing written on it in the scientific literature, I am just surprised that more people have not smelt the rat.

I am indeed a cynical bastard but we do live in a rather cynical world, the moral of the story is that it is always worth considering what people have to gain from the particular advice that they give.

Ten, metatarsals and dodgy refs at all levels

So it's ten years in a row in the CL, a comprehensive enough win over Liege means qualification is now guaranteed. The big negative for me was the injury to Kieran Gibbs. Not only does it mean we are short of our best two left backs for several weeks, but it was a great opportunity for the young Englishman to cement himself in the side as our first choice left back, it is really bad luck for him. Gallas and Andrei Arshavin should both recover for the chavs' visit on Sunday, but the gap at left back is a big problem, hopefully Traore can step in and do a job, big question marks remain over his defensive positioning though.

Am in the middle of watching the reserves tonight, they are playing against a strong Villa side that includes the injury prone Stuart Downing. The game started off in a pretty competitive manner, one very poor tackle on Wilshere went unpunished while several other cynical Villa lunges were also ignored by the bald cretinous ref. The bald tosser than proceeded to book Bartley for a tackle that was rather innocuous, he then sent off Merida who looked to have been kicked off the ball by Fabian Delph, somehow Delph got just a yellow. The ref and his assistant looked to be well away from the action before deciding upon this rather harsh red card that ultimately looks to hand the game to the Villa reserves.

Wilshere then got a yellow for bugger all. In between this frenzy of crap refereeing Watt had given us the lead with a handy glancing header from a Merida set piece, then after the ref card Villa made the extra man count with a couple of rather average goals. Bloody frustrating stuff, it goes to show that at least the lads can get used to being on the end of poor refereeing decisions from a young age, preparing them well for the equally useless officiating in the Premiership. The ref lost control of the game early on, failing to punish some awful early tackles, he then compounded this by throwing the cards around like candy and wrecked the game with an out of place red card, promote him the the Premiership I say, muppet. The Arsenal reserves ended up fighting hard in the second half but unfortunately failed to get a second goal.

Back down to earth

There were many contributory factors to this defeat. The fact that virtually our entire squad had played quite a few international minutes over the previous week combined with a lot of air miles would undoubtedly had an effect. The number of injuries we have been subjected to of late also made a difference, the recent injuries include RVP, Diaby, Clichy, Gibbs and Bendtner. Sunderland are no mugs and have a very decent home record. All this combined with a bit of bad luck meant that we lost a game one nil which we really need to be winning if we are to challenge for the title.

The injuries and fatigue will have meant that Arsene didn't have a great deal of choice when it came to the starting eleven. I suspect Arshavin was not fresh enough to be starting, Theo was also only just back from injury and not ready for a full ninety. I think that this meant that our starting eleven didn't quite have the pace and directness in the front three that you need to break down a well organised opposition defence. Having said that we controlled the game, overall a stunning 65% possession was ours over the ninety, we just couldn't turn this domination into piercing the onion bag.

We weren't far off though. The first half saw some very decent chances come and go. Rosicky tested Fuller early on with a stinging low drive that was expertly kept out by the Sunderland keeper. The best chance of the half fell to Eduardo who, after some great build up work with Alex Song, got the ball stuck between his feet, his mis-hit effort went agonisingly wide as Song followed up and was only inches away from sticking it into the empty net.

The Sunderland goal was an utter fluke and anyone pretending otherwise is being a tad dishonest. Bent won the initial header but it wasn't threatening the Arsenal goal until a remarkable Sunderland miscontrol at the back stick saw the ball fall perfectly for Darren Bent to slot home, if the ball had fallen anywhere else it would have been safe enough, it really was a piece of great fortune for the average Bent. It must be admitted that we did freeze somewhat after the first ball was won, Rosicky could have reacted a tad quicker, but then again we would not be saying that if the miscontrol had gone straight at him for an easy Arsenal clearance, it really was a massive slice of luck for a Sunderland side that didn't look like scoring.

Despite going close through Arshavin late on and being denied a good penalty shout after what looked a clear foul in Vela in the box, we didn't create as much as we should have given our domination of the possession. You have to put the ball in the net if you are going to win games like this and we didn't do that. Even the nil-nil that we deserved would have been a bit of a frustrating result, less frustrating that losing to that scabby Bent goal though. The directness and pace of Walcott and Vela seemed to make a bit of a difference, arguably Rosicky and Nasri are a bit too similar to each other and we needed a bit more pace and directness to support Eduardo up front. The media's version of events are fantastical to say the least though, Sunderland did not win the midfield battle, they had 35% of the ball and rarely threatened, in reality this was more of a self inflicted result, we had the opportunity to win this game and we simply didn't take it.

Injuries and tabloid misinformation

So the meaningless international week has left us with at least one significant problem, if not two. Firstly RVP has sprained his ankle and will be out for a few weeks, despite hacks at the Sun speculating wildly when they didn't even know the true nature of the injury, he will NOT be out for the season, and it is not possible to predict exactly how long it will take him to recover.

I am amazed that tabloid hacks with no medical knowledge feel capable of speculating on injuries and try to predict exactly how long players will be out for, they are idiots. Recovery from injury is an unpredictable process and even the experts can only give rough estimates, sometimes even these are wrong. RVP will be out for a few weeks, it's impossible to predict with much more accuracy than that really. Even with extremely detailed scans it is still impossible to predict accurately how long injuries will keep people out for, you just can't tell I'm afraid. Honesty doesn't sell papers though.

Kieran Gibbs has also picked up an injury playing a very 'meaningful' game for the U-21s, despite the tabloids claiming it is a fractured metatarsal, the club have not yet released the details of his injury but I am sure they will let us know shortly. This could leave us in trouble at left back, Traore may be the man to come in, hopefully it will not be Silvestre.

This weekend's trip to Sunderland will be tricky. Steve Bruce has recruited some handy players and has organised them into a fairly solid unit. Lee Cattermole is a long term victim to injury but Cana is expected to be fit for the weekend, would this be a good game to try the Ramsey-Song-Cesc midfield trio? I think it would. Certainly Emmanuel Eboue will be on the mic, apparently he wants to be the new Eddie Murphy, expect him to be cruising down a street near you looking for some loving, but seriously, I don't think Emmanuel quite has the intellect of the legendary Murphy despite his great intentions of making people happy.

ps Good news on Gibbsy, he has no fracture and will probably be back to face the chavs in just over a week, it shows that some tabloid hacks should save their breath until they have the full information