Draxler Link “Made Up” While Arsenal Target Kallstrom

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Arsene Wenger has come out and said the following about Julian Draxler:

“The Draxler situation has been created by the newspapers, not by me. He will stay at Schalke.”

Yesterday I posted how Julian Draxler would never join Arsenal, and how there are so many reasons why the transfer itself makes no sense.

But someone we have been linked with is 31 year old Sweden International Kim Kallstrom, who currently plays for Spartak Moscow.

The theory is that he would provide midfield cover for the injured Aaron Ramsey, Tomas Rosicky and Jack Wilshere. Also, we have Mathieu Flamini out suspended as well so in terms of proper midfielders, we are a little short.

What do you think of this signing if it comes off?

Is it the signing we need? I suppose it’s a sensible move and it would a loan deal until the end of the season.

I haven’t seen a huge amount of him to make a judgement, but he seems to perform well when playing for Sweden.

Will it happen? I guess only time will tell.

Why Julian Draxler Won’t Be Joining Arsenal

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There has been a lot of speculation recently over German star Julian Draxler. We’ve all seen the YouTube videos of him, and he is undoubtedly talented, but there’s no way he’s coming to Arsenal. In fact, I stated this on Twitter yesterday:

I’d love for him to come, but nothing about this transfer makes sense.

First of all, the “inside expert” who came up with this story (I won’t mention his name) also said we were “guaranteed” to sign Gonzalo Higuain in the summer.

And I don’t need to tell you how that turned out.

Also, he’s apparently injured, and that’s not exactly going to help us when Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott, Tomas Rosicky and a few others are unavailable.

Another problem is with the price. Just because we spent £42.3 million on Mesut Özil, suddenly every journalist is linking us with big money buys to sell newspapers.

Be clear on this, a signing like Mesut Özil is a rarity – Arsene still likes to sniff out a bargain and get value for money. The club and managers whole ethos and vision hasn’t changed over night.

£37 million is a hell of a lot of money for a 20 year old who has yet to fulfil their potential. Juan Mata for me was over-priced at £37 million and he’s an established and successful Premier League and Spanish International.

Jose Mourinho’s Criticism of West Ham is Laughable

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After the disappointing result against Southampton on Tuesday, Manchester City and Chelsea had the chance to make up ground on us last night. Manchester City absolutely obliterated Tottenham Hotspur (not for the first time this season) to go top but surprisingly, Chelsea couldn’t over come West Ham United at home.

The Chelsea manager said:

“This is not the best league in the world, this is football from the 19th Century.

“The only [other] thing I could bring was a Black and Decker [tool] to destroy the wall.”

“It’s very difficult to play a football match where only one team wants to play. It’s very difficult.

“A football match is about two teams playing and this match was only one team playing and another team not playing.”

Remember, this is the man who “parked the bus” at Old Trafford against Manchester United and “parked the bus” against us at The Emirates earlier on in the season.

Hypocritical doesn’t even begin to describe the idiocy of Mourinho.

But as ridiculous as Mourinho’s criticism of West Ham was, Big Sam managed to make the situation even more hilarious with his post game comments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH53mTdjvbc

I’m not his biggest fan, but fair play to Sam Allardyce on this occasion!

This Is Make Or Break Time Now For Arsenal

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The draw at Southampton left Arsenal fans divided; some saying it was a good point while others argued that it was the start of a “downward spiral” of results, especially with the challenging fixture pile up we have over the next month or so. Our fixtures over the next 2 months, as you will probably already know, consist of the following matches:

February:

Crystal Palace (H) Sunday 2nd
Liverpool (A) Saturday 8th
Manchester United (H) Wednesday 12th
Liverpool (H) Sunday 16th
Bayern Munich (H) Wednesday 19th
Sunderland (H) Saturday 22nd

March:

Stoke City (A) Saturday 1st
Swansea City (H) Saturday 8th
Bayern Munich (A) Tuesday 11th
Tottenham Hotspur (A) Sunday 16th
Chelsea (A) Saturday 22nd
Manchester City (H) Saturday 29th

Out of the 12 matches games we have over the “crunch” period in our season, you would say that 8 of those were “blockbuster” games. Most teams are lucky to get that many massive games over an entire season, nevermind over the course of 8 weeks.

There’s no doubt that February and March is a huge period in Arsenal’s season and you can see why a lot of Arsenal fans are wary of how we’re going to do over the next 2 months.

Let’s start off with the negatives.

The first one is injuries. We have Theo Walcott out for the season, and there’s no doubt that we will miss his impact in the title run in. Aaron Ramsey is out for longer than we all thought, and Rosicky and Jack are still out with an ankle and nose problem respectively.

Mathieu Flamini is also out for 4 games now, after his stupid two-footed challenge against Southampton. Mikel Arteta is the only recognised “defensive midfielder” remaining and he’ll have to put in some exceptional performances against Liverpool, Manchester United and Bayern Munich.

Another problem is the striker position. Olivier Giroud is our only real good option up front – and Nicklas Bendtner the only backup. I know a lot of us have made fun of Bendtner but to be fair to him whenever he’s been called upon he’s done okay. But I just don’t think that’s enough firepower to lead Arsenal to the Premier League title.

Defensively we don’t look as solid as we used to. The back line of Sagna, Mertesacker, Koscielny and Gibbs looks excellent and really strong, but as Monreal showed against Southampton, he’s not good enough to fill in for Gibbs. Hopefully Arsene will have a slight re-shuffle and put Thomas Vermaelen at left back, as he’s a player who is desperate to play games and you know he’ll give 110%.

So now to the positives.

Our squad isn’t as strong as Manchester City’s or Chelsea’s but one area where we are well-catered for is in midfield. Even with the players mentioned out of action, we still have Mikel Arteta, Santi Cazorla, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Serge Gnabry. We also have Lukas Podolski and Mesut Ozil, who can be used in slightly deeper positions.

With those players in the side (and others to come back), we still have a lot of guile and creativity in the team.

And another big positive is the form of Szczesny. This season he has been outstanding. Apart from a couple of terrible “clearances” from the back which almost cost us goals, he has been sensational. By far the best goalkeeper in the league this season, he has kept us in numerous games this year with some stunning saves. As the teams form has dipped in certain games, Szczesny has been consistent and excellent between the sticks.

And he’s going to have to be on top form going into our killer run in.

Why The Draw Against Southampton Was A Good Result

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I didn’t get to see the game live but caught the extended highlights of the game on Sky Spors last night. From what I saw, Arsenal were poor in the first half, stepped it up in the second and almost snatched all 3 points. Southampton bossed the first 45 minutes, let Arsenal back into it and then finished strongly.

When Mathieu Flamini got sent off in the 79th minute the score was carefully poised at 2-2 and once we went down to 10 men the most important thing was not to go home with nothing.

The fact is Arsenal were sloppy in the first half. Players were giving the ball away, passes were going straight to Southampton players and nothing was coming off. We weren’t making decisive runs, players weren’t moving for each other and Southampton completely deserved their lead. And if it wasn’t for Szczesny it could have been worse.

The response after the break though was perfect.

Olivier Giroud scored a beautiful back flick from a Bacary Sagna cross 3 minutes after the interval and only 4 minutes later Santi Cazorla scored a well-placed shot into the corner to give us the lead.

Deserved? On the balance of play up to that point probably not, but to come out in the second half all guns blazing and claim the lead was a sign of the mentality potential champions possess.

It’s a cliche but they say you’re the most vulnerable after you’ve scored and less than 2 minutes after taking the lead, Southampton equalised. You would think that if we just managed to calm things down after Santi’s goal and keep the ball for the next 10 minutes afterwards, we could have killed the game off.

But is it a disaster? Certainly not.

We sit 2 points ahead of Manchester City and 3 above Chelsea – two sides who have had massive financial backing and spent about 20 times as much as we have on player transfers over the last few seasons.

Yes, they can go above us tonight with favourable results but they also play each other on Monday and at least one team has to drop points. We can also reclaim top spot on Sunday with a good result and performance against Crystal Palace the day before.

The fact is our performance levels may have dropped recently but we’ve been playing badly and still getting results. The draw against Southampton isn’t the start of a “downward spiral” as everyone suggests. We have some killer fixtures coming up against Liverpool (twice), Manchester United, Bayern Munich and so on but we haven’t turned into a terrible side over night.

The only concerns I have at the moment are the left-back position, and in midfield. Monreal had a shocker last night and you could tell it affected Mertesacker, Koscielny and Sagna’s confidence. And of course in midfield Wilshere is injured, Ramsey is out for 6/7 more weeks and Flamini got sent off meaning he’ll miss a few games. I’m not sure when Rosicky is back, so Arsene is going to have to find a system that includes Arteta, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Podolski and Santi Cazorla.

With characters like Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny and Mikel Arteta in the side, you know that they will busting a gut to make sure the team bounces back from this draw and get a positive result in the next game. And when you have a setback like this, that’s all you can ask for.

We might have some tough fixtures coming up, but these are the games we live for and we have to have faith in the team and Arsene’s philosophy.