Aren't Spuds fans bitter?

In response to this rather low brow piece of writing from a Spud, I thought the obvious question should be asked. This is because in all my years as a Gooner I have never really noticed Arsenal fans being bitter towards Spurs, it has been far more the other way around.

In fact I would hold very little against Tottenham if their fans were modest and they had some vaguely realistic expectations at the beginning of every season. Over the last few close seasons we have never heard the end of endless Tottenham talk of the great season ahead, why not have a bit of modesty and keep your predictions in perspective? Is it any wonder that Arsenal fans are fed up to the back teeth of these tiring delusions of grandeur. Like the boy who cried wolf I am sure Spurs will finish above us eventually and then the Spuds will never shut up, forgetting the umpteen times they have got it wrong in seasons before.

Why should we congratulate Spuds as if they have won the league title when they have not? They have never congratulated us when we have achieved far more than 4th spot in the league, in fact why are they not congratulating us, we finished above them with a significantly cheaper squad?

This is the classic double standards of a foolish Spud. If you live by the sword then you shall die by it Sir Spud. If you never praise the others that you so love to criticise, why expect these people to praise you when you have done so little? If you always arrogantly boast of how well you will do and it never materialises, why expect respect and dignity to be shown to you when you show it to no one else?

I recently wrote to criticise the Premiership Manager of the season award going to Harry Redknapp, what a surprise that numerous Spuds replied ignoring the clear fact that Roy Hodgson deserved the award far more than Harry Redknapp. I was not criticising Redknapp or his achievement, I was just putting it in perspective as it should be, interestingly the Manager's Manager of the year was Hodgson, at least someone got it right. Pot calling the kettle black, Spuds calling Gooners bitter? I think so.

In summary I'm not trying to knock Spurs achievements last season, they have improved and deserve a lot of credit for this. However their fans would do well to realise that their bitter behaviour over recent decades has not gone ignored. Many other smaller clubs' fans have managed to act with much more decorum and grace in Arsenal's shadow in recent years, Spuds fans would have done well to have followed their example. Suddenly jumping on a high horse at the first opportune moment and trying to knock others is rather typical of them I feel.

End of season feel

The game never felt like a proper competitive match, with Fulham awaiting the UEFA cup final and our title hopes long gone, the only thing to play for was finishing above Harry Redknapp's incredibly over hyped and rated Spuds eleven, even they couldn't push it to the wire losing a two goal lead hilariously against Burnley.

Fulham were never really in the game, despite Fabianski's woeful efforts to help them into it, if Arsene persists with this Pole then I really do despair at his judgement, he is clearly not up to it. Eboue was magnificent in central midfield, Diaby solid, Nasri industrious, Arshavin and Walcott frustratingly erratic as ever. RVP gave us teeth up front and on another day would have had a hat full. A massive bonus was Johan Djourou's return, he looked fit and strong, if he can stay that way then he can be like a big new signing for us. Lansbury showed some potential with his late substitute appearance.

Like the season, there was good and bad, the stronger and the weak, some players were clearly up for the task, others still have significant question marks hanging over their heads. Obviously its great to finish above the Spuds, but in truth they were very very lucky to have pushed us so close, in reality we have been considerably better then them over the season, in a way that I would acknowledge Chelsea have been considerably better than us. If Harry Redknapp deserves manager of the season, then Lucasz Fabianski deserves Arsenal player of the season, the lame comments from various Spuds fans to try to justify the award were nothing but stupid and short sighted, several other managers have done far better then Redknapp this year, in fact Arsene Wenger has arguably done a lot more with a squad that cost considerably less than the Spuds' squad, something a lot of their cretinous fans would do well to appreciate.

Anyway enough said for this year, the spending starts with Chamakh, it then needs to continue with a goalkeeper and at least one centre back, I'd also love to Sol kept on for another year, I'd also like to see a bit of dead wood moved on elsewhere. Anyways here's to another season of great football and what might have been, we should appreciate what we have got rather than what we do not have because there are many many others who would kill to have even half of it.

Fulham points importance and Redknapp nonsense

As Arseblogger notes this morning, at last Arsene is acknowledging the problems we have defensively as a team, this has been the reason for us falling short this season. Certain players look like they are going, such as Gallas and Silvestre, others have a lot to prove and a lot of fans will feel they should also be moving on. On this list of players who should be worried I'd have Fabianski, Traore, Eduardo, Vela and Rosicky. Today is important and everyone knows why, there's no need to tempt fate by going on about it.

Now, one thing is certain and that is the fact that Harry Redknapp winning manager of the season is a complete and utter joke. The man has spent a lot of money, maybe not as much as City, and they have done what? Yes, that's it, they've qualified for the Champions League, and they have been miles away from the league title.

The media have shown their true baised pro-Spuds colours in the last few days in massively over reacting to this non event. The media have reacted as if the Spuds had won the league title. Redknapp has a very expensive sqaud and what he has achieved is nothing compared to what Roy Hodgson has done at Fulham. Even David Moyes has done a much better job relative to Redknapp with his modest resources. Yet despite this non event, we've been subjected to the endless rambling of various retarded Spuds luvvies about what a great side they are and what a great achievement it is for them.

Funny how Arsene does more than Redknapp without spending as much money and these luvvies never feel the need to show any love to Arsene. It is very strange that the Spuds' English spine is now the reason for their great success, funny that the fact they haven't won the league for many decades is never linked to this magnificent English spine. The Spuds' eleven is lined with multi-million pound players, what Redknapp has achieved is moderate at best. Hodgson should be manager of the year and that fact he is not is an utter disgrace. Several morons in the media have shown their rank bias by reacting in this way to this non event, the BBC and several other media outlets seem to have quite a few Spuds fans in their midst pretending to objectively cover things when nothing could be further from the truth.

Deflated and defeated by dishonest tactics

I think I'm feeling like a lot of Gooners today, I have just lost the energy to get angry about another disappointing defeat. The Holic sums things up nicely and I can't disagree with a word he says.

The game summed up just what we lack to the title this year, even Arsene admitted that we lacked the sharpness in the fight and that's a worrying admission. Atkinson was appalling, he completely failed to clamp down on the systematic violence and cheating from Blackburn.

Both Blackburn goals came after clear fouls on Fabianski. A stronger bigger keeper may well have done better to push the cheating Blackburn players out the way, but still Fabianski shouldn't have had to endure the systematic fouling off the ball that he did.

Blackburn are summed up well by Pedersen. On one hand they will dive and cheat at one end to win free kicks, while on the other they will try to break your legs quite deliberately and injure maliciously. Sam Allardyce is what is wrong with English football, this is England if you like, long ball hoofing, diving and cheating, combined with some disgraceful thuggery and violence. Blackburn are nothing but scum.

Having said that we were lacking in several departments. We need to be more physical and strong at the back to resist the assaults that the likes of Blackburn will launch upon us. We need to fight the battle better all over the pitch, not only in defence but in the midfield and up front, we need more commitment and more desire. Arseblogger summed up what we lacked nicely, it is particularly depressing that the likes of Vela and Traore do not show more hunger when they come into the side, if they cannot show hunger now, will they ever?

This season is in danger of completely falling apart, defeat to Fulham could result in the unthinkable. What remains clear is that some big changes are needed in the summer, and this may well be the last chance saloon.

Injuries, Blackburn and non commitment

Just looking at our injury list it does strike home just how many players we have been missing at times this year, it's quite incredible really. We've so rarely had a run of playing anything like our first team that it has made things tricky, I do hope that we are very careful to avoid buying any injury prone players in the future though, this would be suicidal.

Blackburn will not make life easy for us, in other words they are a typical bunch of Allardyce thugs, they will dive and cheat to win free kicks in the final third, they will try to injure us when they have the chance, they are very much a fat Sam sculpture like his old Bolton side, the longer he is there the more his team will come to resemble a group of cannibalistic convicts. Maybe that's a tad harsh, but I have never had much time for fat Sam, he sums up a lot that is wrong with English football with the way he sets his teams up.

Fabianski is running out of time, I think Arsene is being a tad optimistic by calling his performance against City a good reaction, he didn't have much to do, and invariably when he has had much to do this season, he has been found badly wanting. He'll get a proper testing at Blackburn today given that Mikel Silvestre is likely to be in front of him at centre back.

There has been a lot of gossip about Andrei Arshavin in recent days, I suspect a lot of it is utter nonsense, however if we do have any players who are anything less than 100% committed to the club then I want to see them shipped out in the summer. We cannot be doing with anymore slacking from uncommitted players who want to be elsewhere.

'Midfield has not been the problem'?

These are the Arsene's words and I feel that I am not alone in finding these quotes more than a little worrying:

"I believe the midfield was not a problem this year because we created so many chances from midfield and we dominated nearly all the games in midfield. I don’t think we had a big problem in there. I believe we had a problem of efficiency defensively."

One can't disagree that we have had a lot of possession and that we have dominated a lot of games if one sees possession in midfield as an end point. Unfortunately you do not win games as a result of possession, you need to score more goals with the ball that you do have and make sure that you stop the opponent from scoring at the other end.

Firstly I can't argue that our midfielders have developed well. Song has been a rock, Diaby has played much better on the whole despite still frustrating on occasions, Denilson has been good and terrible, Eastmond has shown early promise.

The problem with Arsene's words is that a big problem with our midfield is the fact that other than Song, they don't tend to help the defence out much. This means that when Song is out, our midfield is cut through a bit like a knife through butter.

Part of this problem with our defensively weak midfield is due to personnel, there is no experienced defensive cover for Song, Diaby is no defensive player and Denilson cannot defend. Part of it is related to our formation of 4-3-3 and if we have too many attacking players we are left rather exposed by our lack of defensive help from the midfield, we often play five attacking players in the starting eleven which can leave the balance of the side all wrong.

Part of it is due to our tactical naivety and the fact that we only have one way of playing. This is a bit of a double edged sword, I shall explain. We can only play pretty possession football, because of our defensive weakness we are unable to sit back, absorb pressure and play on the counter. This means that we are often stuffed by conceding a cheap early goal, then the opposition can sit back and kill us on the break, we have lost the ability to do precisely this to the opposition ourselves as our great double winning sides used to do so effectively and regularly.

Arsene's words worry me because midfield has been part of the problem, when we need to shut up shop and defend with men behind the ball, for example at two nil up against Wigan, we have been found wanting time and time again. We have only one way of playing and that is attacking with lots of possession. We need to be able to defend better, sometimes tactically it would be better to play a counter attacking game, sometimes when the passing is not going well you need to be able to grind out a clean sheet.

Fundamentally we need the whole team including the strikers to defend better as a unit when we need to grind out a result. The defensive weakness we have shown this season has been multi factorial, but there are clear weaknesses regarding the personnel in both the defense and the midfield. We clearly need new blood in at the back, this is obvious. However does anyone seriously believe that a squad with these midfielders has enough balance in terms of defensive grit: Diaby, Song, Denilson, Cesc, Nasri, Ramsey, Rosicky. For me the balance is wrong, it is not just about improving 'defensive efficiency', the squad as a whole needs reworking from a defensive point of view, if this is not done then we will simply be watching the same mistakes all over again next season.

We could do worse than Hangeland

Watching Roy Hodgson's magnificent Fulham side dispose of Hamburg on Thursday night, I took a brief peek at Brede Hangeland and he did not disappoint. In all honesty I have not seen enough of him to give a definitive judgement, but there is no doubt that he does possess some of the ingredients that we lack at the back.

He leads the team, he talks, he is commanding in the air and he dominates. Physically he is powerful and will not often be out muscled. He knows the Premier League and he has done well at a European level. He passes the ball very nicely for a big man. He may not have the speed of some but you can't have it all, very few 6 foot 5 centre backs have lightning pace, but he is certainly no slouch. Of course he'd occasionally be skinned by the trickiest players, but frankly which centre back isn't?

Hangeland and Vermaelen could be a very very decent combination. Hangeland is also in his prime, he is 28 and will improve into his early thirties, he is also experienced. The word on the street suggest that if Arsene were to move for Mr Hangeland, he would be keen to come to the Arsenal, I would suggest that this could be a very decent move for both parties.