It’s not a good week for Arsenal fans.
As you would have heard by now, Italian defender Fabio Cannavaro pipped Thierry Henry to the European Player of the Year Award, and even stranger Buffon was ahead of him in second place!
It’s sad that Henry hasn’t really been recognised as the best player over the last few seasons, being behind Ronaldinho in the World Player awards – which Titi should have won easily 3 seasons ago.
With a bit of luck Thierry could have won both the World Cup and Champions League this year and surely would have won the Ballon d’Or in the process.
Henry is a truly unique player – who has a phenomenal scoring rate and an equally impressive assist record. No-one can touch him in those departments and with his skill and tricks he is a very special player.
But we all know that.
And to the game against Bolton on Saturday.
Arsenal AGAIN conceded the first goal – the 11th time this season. If you do that you can’t win the league or have success in Europe.
But why the hell is this happening?
You just expect Arsenal to go a goal down in the first 25 minutes and after that if Arsenal aren’t in top gear they won’t get anything from the game.
If Gallas was playing would it have made any difference?
Probably not.
We effectively have two wingers in the full back positions and while Clichy and Eboue are fantastic going forward, they just don’t seem to be experienced enough to defend well.
For Anelka’s first goal, Eboue let him get onto his right foot!
Surely you should try and force the player wide onto his weaker foot? I’m sure Anelka can’t slam the ball into the net from 30 yards on his left foot. And the worst thing was that forcing Anelka wide would have really reduced his options because he was up on his own – the best we probably would have got is a throw or a corner.
Constantly conceding the first goal is a big problem and I hate to say it but is it because we don’t have a leader at the back like Sol Campbell?
Sol might have been a bit mad but he could organise a defence, as could Keown and Adams before him. But who takes the responsibility now?
When Lauren returns from his long term injury that should hopefully help stop giving away stupid goals but that might be a couple of months away.
If you compare the defence of Dixon, Winterburn, Adams & Bould to Eboue, Clichy, Toure & Gallas it shows no matter how much power, skill and pace you have it can never substitute experience and defensive ability.