Overall, Not A Bad Weekend For Arsenal

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As we enter Monday, we sit in 3rd position in the Premier League, with Chelsea 1 point behind us and Tottenham 2 points behind, although they both have a game in hand. And they still have to play each other, so Champions League football next season is firmly in our hands.

I think the best way to put Saturday’s performance was that “we battled” for the 3 points, and at this stage of the season that is the most important thing. Although Fulham went down to 10 men early on, we found it difficult to break them down and it took a set-piece for us to open the scoring. Even then, we found it hard to add to that slender lead and Fulhm, to their credit, probably deserved something from the game.

But we left with 3 points, a clean sheet and put pressure on Chelsea and Tottenham going into their Sunday games.

Unfortunately, Manchester City showed why they are well adrift of Manchester United in the race for the title in a 90 minutes that summed up their season. They were good for the majority of the first half, playing some really excellent attacking football (most of it through Carlos Tevez) but in the second half it was clear they weren’t bothered and allowed Tottenham back into the game. The frustrating thing was that if they were more clinical they could have been out of sight in the first half an hour but the comeback probably means Tottenham now have the “mental strength” and “confidence” to kick on for the remainder of the season.

And at Anfield, Luis Suarez gave us a life line. Wanting to live up to his reputation as a biter and hand ball expert, we duly did both, attacking Ivanovic and conceding a needless penalty. However, despite being possibly the most annoying footballer since Ruud van Nistelrooy, he still managed to score a dramatic goal with the last touch of the game. Whatever you say about him, this guy is never boring.

So that leaves us with Champions League qualification in our own hands.

And even though we would have loved for Tottenham to have lost yesterday, the flipside of their win is that Manchester United, barring a miracle from Villa, will win the Premier League title tonight. Going into our game with them on Sunday, that isn’t the worst thing. Of course, they are a professional club but you would think that they won’t be playing with the same intensity as they would be if they needed to win at The Emirates to seal the title.

Hopefully, they’ll still be celebrating and have their eye off the ball, so to speak.

Just a final word on Arsenal – Giroud got sent off for a needless challenge in the final minutes, meaning he will miss some vital games for us going into the run in. For me however, that isn’t a bad thing. With Giroud as the main attacker he has been isolated and found it hard to score goals. Playing a game or two with him out of the side, and trying find other players to fill that void will help us in my opinion. We over-rely on him sometimes and forget to try and find other solutions. If we had Giroud available for United, I feel it would be playing into their hands.

Anyway, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Would You Welcome Back Alex Song?

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Apparently, according to The Metro, Alex Song wants a return back to Arsenal.

Whether it’s a made up story, or whether there’s some truth behind it, it does raise a good question:

Would you want Alex Song back?

In days gone by, a return back to Arsenal after leaving would have been impossible, but we’ve seen Jens Lehmann, Sol Campbell and Thierry Henry all come back after stints away from the club. Obviously they were free stop gaps but still, Song coming back isn’t impossible.

The more likely option of course is that he leaves Barcelona after “his dream” doesn’t become reality and it dawns on him that he’s not Barcelona’s most important player, and moves to Tottenham or another club that wasn’t as good as Arsenal.

But would we take him back?

Although we’re still in the running for a Champions League spot after losing Song and Van Persie, I do feel we’ve missed Song’s presence.

I feel Arteta is more effective higher up the pitch and a midfield of Song, Arteta and Wilshere would be formidable. Aside from his tackling and covering the back four, his assist rate was excellent as well.

But what do you think?

Would you welcome him back with open arms?

Goal-line Technology? My Solution Is Better!

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Goal-line Technology has now been confirmed to be introduced to the Premier League from next season, with British-based firm Hawk Eye has been comissioned to install the systems into stadiums around the country.

The system will use 7 cameras per goal around the stadium where it is installed, and Hawk Eye is confident that there has never been a goal-line incident where none of the cameras would have seen whether the ball has crossed the line or not. So this would be the final word on whether a team has or hasn’t scored.

Fifa President Sepp Blatter, stated that Frank Lampard’s “ghost goal” in the 2012 World Cup was decisive in making the decision to approve goal-line technology systems to use in football.

Strangely though, only last month Uefa President Michel Platini stated:

“I prefer to put more money into youth football and infrastructure than spend it on technology when there’s a goal in a blue moon that hasn’t been seen by a referee.

“It would cost around 54 million euros (£46m) over five years for this technology, so it’s quite expensive for the sort of mistake which happens once every 40 years.

“In the Champions League, I’m very happy with the results (of a five-man team). Practically no mistakes have been made and the referees see practically everything that happens on the pitch.”

Which clearly shows Platini is a complete idiot.

Firstly, these incidents are quite rare, but hardly once in a blue moon. Secondly, claiming that the five-man refereeing team “practically makes no mistakes” is ludicrous. It is commonly accepted that the two extra assistant referees behind the goal line are completly useless and only serve as decoration. The two goals in the recent Borussia Dortmund versus Malaga game show that they serve no purpose whatsoever. They’re a joke and completely pointless.

So goal-line technology would bring some justice to decisions where a goal has been unjustly given or not given, which can have a massive bearing in a football match.

But while this is a welcome step forward, is it the right move?

One of the problems I have with football, is that there are incorrect decisions which make a massive difference. Of course, every football club has been a victim of poor and sometimes disgraceful decisions and by the same token they would have also benefited from some as well.

But football is the most popular sport in the world, and they should be pioneers in terms of advances in technology and ideas when it comes to sport. Rugby, Cricket and Tennis are miles ahead of us, and have less money invested in the sport.

One of the arguments against using technology was that it underminded the influence of the referee. But that is flawed because it can clearly be used to help get decisions right. Another argument is that in grass roots football, you wouldn’t have technology so you would have to rely on the decision of the referee anyway.

So why use goal-line technology? Why not do something much easier.

My idea (which I’m sure others have had) would be to use a panel of 3 “assistant referees” (or whatever you want to call them) looking at a TV monitor on the sidelines. Each football team would have “3 appeals” during the match – it could be to dispute a goal given due to offside, a tackle in the box where a penalty has been awarded, a player diving to gain a freekick or penalty, a nasty tackle or an off the ball incident.

Once a team lodges one of their appeals (they only have 3 to use in the 90 minutes) then it would go to the 3 assistant referees. They would then vote on which way the decision should go (after only taking 15/20 seconds to make that decision) and then the majority rules. No ifs or buts, a secondary decision has been made and is final. It doesn’t matter if the incident isn’t clear cut, the opinion is final. It is not 100% but it wouldn’t be far off, and would elimate a lot of clearly dodgy decisions that are made by referees.

And this would hardly disrupt a football match, as each side only has 3 appeals and it would clean up the game.

The players would only appeal unless they really thought a decision was wrong as they would be using up one of their appeals. It would cut out cheating and all of the negative parts of the game, and promote fair play. You would have players like Suarez and Ronaldo thinking twice about diving to get an unfair advantage.

Which player would want to look stupid to the world by “appealing” against a blatantly obvious decision, or wasting one of the three they have?

And it would also mean that it wouldn’t affect grass roots football, as the decisions are still ultimately made by people, not machines. In lower leagues you would still have officials making the decisions. All they are doing is using television pictures (if they are available) to help aid their judgement on key incidents.

Apart from the injustices you see on the football pitch, it would also help to address the stupid situation where footballers can commit atrocious and career-threatening tackles, and get away with it because of this ridiculous retrospective ruling. It would take the power away from the FA Panel and allow referees to issue appropriate punishments at the time. For example, in the recent Wigan v Newcastle match, where Callum McManaman almost took off Massaido Haidara’s leg, he would have got a red card and been sent off which would have been the correct decision.

People talk about this crap about having “nothing to talk about in the pub” and losing banter when watching a match but that is not something I’m bothered about. We currently live in a world where there’s so much media around football it’s suffocating. So not having certain things to talk about would be welcomed by me. I know the football media would be upset about that because they would struggle to have rubbish to talk about, but that’s not a bad thing.

Football is entertaining enough when two teams try and win a football match and there’s always more important things to analyse, such as tactics and performances of the players. And you still get mental players like Joey Baron and Mario Balotelli if you need your fix of “controversy”.

I would rather have a game where the sports was a fair as it could be, and there was less controversy. Maybe teams like Manchester United, who as we know get a lot of decisions, wouldn’t necessarily agree, but for me it would be for the good of the game.

Only Arsenal Wanted To Win That Game

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It was an open game, end to end and Arsenal had 60% possession.

People always say it’s not the amount of possession you have but what you do with it (well, teams that play negatively anyway) and Arsenal were punished for playing an attacking game.

Sp*rs, at home, played like the away team.

They have a small club mentality, which was summed up when Gareth Bale tried to waste time by the corner flag with 10 minutes to go.

The frustrating thing for me is the better team lost. Our play was more ambitious, but we didn’t have the cutting edge. We had the majority of possession, had the same amount of shots (as the away team), more blocked shots, more shots inside the area, won more tackles, won more balls in the air and had more corners. We made almost 200 more passes than they did and almost has twice as many crosses.

What lost it for us was some shambolic defending and no cutting edge.

When Ramsey was played in by Rosicky, he had so much time to pick his spot and score what would have been a well-deserved equaliser. But clinical finishing was never Ramsey’s game.

I thought Arsenal were excellent for most of the game, and showed a hell of a lot more ambition than the “home” team.

But Arsene made big mistakes with the important decisions. Jenkinson was excellent today and why he was taken off is anyone’s guess. His defending was top class and his attacking play was fantastic too – his delivery from the wide-right position is top drawer and he should have stayed on. Jenkinson would have had a better chance of converting the opportunity Ramsey squandered.

And Podolski should have started wide on the left with Giroud up top and Walcott on the right. Podolski is no good when chasing a game and he is more effective when there’s a chance of playing on the break (which was not that often in the first half and then impossible when we went behind).

I think the best way to describe today’s game is that form is temporary, but class is permanent. The way they acted on the touchline and after the game was of a side which won a cup final and you could even see William Gallas was a bit embarrassed when he was coming on and Steffen Freund was giving “encouragement” as if they were about to win the world cup.

Gareth Bale was nowhere near this ridiculous “third best player in the world” tag every man and his dog have been harping on about for the last few months. He was hugely ineffective apart from the goal and didn’t contribute anything else. He didn’t give the Arsenal defence any problems and Wilshere was a far bigger influence than him. Before the game Bale had only scored 4 goals at home and 11 away, typifying the fact that Sp*rs play a negative football most effective on the break.

In the end, our defending was the reason we lost. Not our desire, effort or possession play. We gave it our best shot but gave ourselves a mountain to climb with a crazy 3 minutes where we lost our heads. But for the rest of the game we were the better side.

Video: Do You Believe In Arsene Wenger?

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I believe in Arsene, just not the board.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUcvPZyDphY[/youtube]

They need to get their act together and stop using Arsene has the fall guy. Yes, he has his faults but he is not considered one of the best managers in the league for no reason. Everyone knows he doesn’t have the money to spend and the board need to signal their intentions.

We must be the only club where the owners don’t try and please the fans by investing big in the team. I’m not asking for a £50 million player every summer, just a big buy every now and then so Arsene has a team that can compete.