What’s The Problem?

Well let’s start with the good. Arsenal easily beat Spurs yesterday with goals from Adebayor and two penalty kicks from stand-in captain Gilberto Silva. All the goals had slight contentious issues but it was about time we had a bit of luck go our way with some of the poor decisions we’ve had in recent weeks.

And the run or either 3-0 wins or 1-1 draws in the league at The Emirates continues!

I’m probably not the only one who thinks this, but with Henry obviously not fully fit this season Arsenal simply play better without him – with the fantastic win at Old Trafford and yesterdays game show.

Now don’t get me wrong, Henry is a phenomenal player – but playing without having a break is effecting his performances. And the guy is under a lot of stress being the captain and seemingly taking responsibility for the entire team – it’s no wonder Arsene wants to give him a few weeks rest.

Who else got to the final of the Champions League and the World Cup?

There are a lot of reports about the ‘Bust Up’ between Henry and Wenger but the official word from Henry is that he is just upset from not being able to play due to injury:

“It is true that yesterday I left the training ground upset.

“There wasn’t any bust-up, but I was simply upset because I am not playing today and I am going to be out for a little while.

“I have been saying since the beginning of the season that I am not fully fit and people didn’t have to know, but now people have to know.”

And with Henry supporting the club yesterday then you can see the media are making up another story to sell their papers.

The fact is Henry is a player who gives everything on the pitch and when he can’t then he’s going to be upset.

But Wenger is doing the right thing and waiting until Henry is ready to return – there’s no point in playing when he isn’t fully fit and the team suffers because of it. And without Henry, the team seem to play with more passion, knowing they don’t have the inspirational Henry to fall back on.

The Chelsea game is going to be very interesting and I have a sneaky feeling we can nick another win there.

After all, we can beat the top teams without any problems – it’s just the rubbish teams we can’t beat!

Theo Walcott’s Introduction Was Electric…

There was a sense of ‘Deja Vu’ when Hamburg’s Rafael van der Vaart scored the opening goal after only 4 minutes but a clever tactical change from Arsene in the second half over-turned the deficit and Arsenal came out 3-1 winners.

Even though they left it a bit late!

Arsenal were average in the first half, seemingly without any confidence after several poor results at the Emirates this season.

Flamini replaced Gilberto in the holding midfield role, Freddie started his first game after coming back from injury and Senderos replaced Gallas in the middle.

Great credit to Arsenal though after going a goal down – they attacked, attacked and attacked and they got what they deserved 5 minutes after the break.

Cesc played in Van Persie with the perfect pass and the Dutchman comfortably slotted the ball home into the near post with his weaker foot. Was this going to be yet another 1-1 draw at the Emirates?

With Van Persie switching to the right at half-time Arsenal had better of the play and created more opportunities, but it wasn’t until the introduction of the super-sub Theo Walcott with 15 minutes to go when Arsenal looked much more dangerous.

Walcott may have only played 15 minutes but his impact was fantastic.

His sheer pace was frightening and his willingness to run behind the Hamburg defence caused all kinds of problems. He started the first couple of minutes on the left-hand side for the substituted Freddie but once he switched to the right his partnership with Eboue was electric.

Theo’s first major contribution was to slide in Eboue just inside the penalty area. Then the right-back dropped his shoulder, gave a brilliant burst of pace and smashed the ball low under the Hamburg keeper.

Arsenal had finally come back!

It was a superb goal and for some reason reminded me of the winning goal Belletti scored for Barcelona against us in the Champions League Final last season – that goal also made the game 2-1.

Finally Hamburg had to commit men forward, and just before the 90 minutes were up Theo was released down the right wing and played a well-controlled cross to Julio Baptista in the centre to score a cool header and finish the game 3-1.

Is the Emirates curse broken?

Who knows, but Arsenal are scoring goals again!

Chance After Chance After Chance…

With Arsenal cruising against Liverpool last week and putting themselves right into the title race you would have thought we would have made light work of Newcastle United yesterday who before the game were in the relegation zone.

But when Kieron Dyer slotted in the opening goal on 30 minutes you just knew the curse of the Emirates was going to strike again. How many sloppy goals do Arsenal want to concede this season?

It’s no good saying we had most of the ball and had more chances – if we can’t put the ball into the net then we won’t win games.

The major problem we have is that teams know they can get a decent result against Arsenal at the Emirates if they just defend deep and are well organised.

The fact of the matter is while we have one of the lowest goals against figures in the entire league, because we give away the first goal and fail to overturn the deficit each goal we concede – on average – is costing us 2 points each time!

Only teams like Liverpool and Manchester United will come at us and that is where we have had the most success. But any other team in the league – including Chelski – will look to catch us on the break.

Now there are a few reasons why we didn’t get the win yesterday. Thierry had played 90 minutes midweek for France and was rested at the start of the match against Newcastle, and the fact we gave away another soft goal didn’t help.

Is there a problem with Arsenal’s finishing?

I know Shay Given had an ‘inspired’ game but this happens far too much with opposing goalkeepers who play against Arsenal – could it be our finishing is just not good enough?

Too many times this season we have failed to score when we should, especially against teams like Everton, CSKA, West Ham United, Boro, Villa – the list goes on!

I’m not sure what our problem is but I know our title hopes are left in tatters…