Arsenal 2 – 1 Man Utd Highlights: Update, and the 5 man midfield

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Video

The highlights from the Man Utd game can be found here! Enjoy watching, I did! Click here for the first article.

Wenger has also been talking about the 5 man midfield and its benefits for our poor defensive record:

“I will use it again because going forward we have scored many goals but defensively we have conceded too many from outside the box,”

“I don’t know [about what will happen when all the strikers are back]. I took this decision because I tried to balance the team with the players that were available.”

This is absolutely true, we need more support for the defence at the moment as they seem to be struggling with just Fabregas and Denilson in front of them.

The 5 man midfield has been very successful us, and although I wouldn’t recommend it for every game of the season, a strategic deployment when needed is very wise.

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Arsenal 2-1 Man Utd highlights, super Sam!

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal8 Comments

We did it! I still can’t quite believe it, but we beat Man Utd 2-1 at home. Nasri’s two fantastic goals gave us 3 points! We played with a weakened side, and we had just come off the back of some awful results and we still did it! The lift this will give the team will be amazing. The game started tentatively, but we got into our game as it went on. We defended hard throughout the match, and we did close the game, bringing on the likes of Toure and Alex Song. We still conceded in the 90th minute, to a goal which we couldn’t have saved, and that put us in for 6 horrible minutes of injury time. But a great win and special mentions to Nasri, Gallas, Fabregas and Diaby who all played fantastically!

Arsenal vs. Man Utd, make or break time, plus competition ends

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

We’ve got Man Utd today, I’m off to the game in a few hours. Bendtner has been making comments about how we can still win the title.

I think we can win the title but today is a real test, we will be written off if we don’t get a result, and the team spirit will be very low, but if we do win we are still in.

In the end we aren’t much through the season and it’s a long season, so we will see what Wenger can pull off.

Also the competition to win the shirt is now closed, the winner will be announced on Monday! You can still sign up to our news feed though, here!

Toure stays positive as Arsenal look to get back to winning ways

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

This is a guest post by sports writer Thomas Rooney

To say that tomorrow’s game against Manchester United is crucial would probably rank as the biggest understatement of the season. After three games in all competitions without a win, it is vital that Arsenal at least avoid defeat against the Premier League champions.

If this fails to be achieved, then the confidence will be at an all-time low and the chance of Arsene Wenger’s side launching a title challenge would seem all the more unlikely. A nine point gap, even at this stage of the season, would probably be too much.

Speaking ahead of the game, Arsenal defender Kolo Toure has revealed that he and his team-mates are viewing the Manchester United game as a potential turning point for their season. The 27-year-old has said that a win would be ‘really fantastic’ and would prove to the critics that Arsenal ‘would be there for the title’.

Sometimes these type of comments have to be taken with a pinch of salt – what else is Toure going to say other than a win is important? However, this time around, the Arsenal man is bang on the money. A victory tomorrow would do wonders for the belief in the dressing room could be the start of a long unbeaten run for the team.

As Toure rightly points out, the season is ‘not in the second half yet’ and therefore it is important not to panic. However, I think he knows as much as anyone that defeat at the Emirates tomorrow really could have a detrimental effect.  Arsenal will continue to ‘fight for the title’ regardless of the result, but this fight would be made a hell of a lot easier should they pick up the three points.

In terms of the team news for tomorrow’s clash, Arsenal have been hit with a number of injury problems. Theo Walcott, Bacary Sagna and William Gallas are doubtful, while Emmanuel Adebayor, Robin van Persie and Emmanuel Eboue are definitely out of the game.

These injuries mean that Nicklas Bendtner and Carlos Vela are going to be charged with the responsibility of breaking down Manchester United’s defence and getting the goals that win Arsenal the game. Neither of these youngsters will hold any fear going into this match, so perhaps their raw talent can prosper.

Overall, it is going to be a game where Arsenal fans arrive in hope rather than expectation. However, should the team pull together and produce a winning performance; it really could be the start of the turnaround.

Arsenal 0 – 0 Fenerbahce highlights, dull draw..

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Champions League

Its not often that Arsenal don’t score in a game, especially at home, and tonight was one of those days. Missing Theo, Ade and others through injury, we seemed to lack incisiveness.

Fenerbahce came to play defensive football. After the humiliation in Istanbul they wanted a point at least, and to regain their pride. I think they did that. The game was almost all Arsenal pressure, but it didn’t really come to anything.

Ramsey looked alright, Djourou and Silvestre had a great game together in my opinion. Bendtner’s passing wasn’t great though, and we just lacked speed and cutting edge in front of goal. Nasri wasn’t on great form either.

Highlights here.

Lee Dixon defeats Delap’s long throw? Arsenal’s defence and Keown

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Video1 Comment

I’ve been reading about how Lee Dixon proposes to beat Stoke’s long throw tactic which was our downfall on Saturday. We all saw how effective Delap was at putting in low, fast throws right into the box (Stoke highlights here). However, Lee has come up with a tactic based on what the team under George Graham might hve done, in the old days when Arsenal had the tightest defence.

Dixon's proposal
Dixon's proposal (Courtesy of the BBC)

He proposes putting 4 men on the goal line, and telling them to attack the ball, that way they won’t be jumping from a standing position. They also will be able to watch the trajectory of the ball rather than the man they are marking.

This seems very clever and it would work, but we have already played Stoke and already lost. I was shocked that Wenger hadn’t put some more work into defence before this game, because against Stoke’s muscle and long throws we didn’t look too strong.

I don’t think Wenger would ever go for such a radical tactic though, he is pretty conservative about tactics, and generally goes for the idea that if we can out pass the opposition we will win. This is great but in deadball situations this doesn’t work.

I think Wenger should rethink our defensive tactics because at the moment we are struggling to keep a clean sheet, and we have conceded a lot of goals during the past 3 seasons.

Hopefully rumours that we are bringing in Keown as a coach are true, because he might be able to bring back some old style Arsenal defending.

Read more tactics and fascinating individual player analysis in our Players Section.

Wenger defends Arsenal style as Gallas is upset

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Champions League, Transfers

Wenger has been defending our style of football in the papers after critcism of the draw against Spurs and loss at Stoke. He feels that our attacking, fluid game is the best way to win trophies.

“We have to be strong enough to keep on with the way we play and we can win the Premier League and the Champions League.

I would agree with him, we have won plenty of silverware in the past under Wenger, playing his brand of football. I think Wenger has the style right, what we are not doing is finishing games properly. This may be due to a lack of experience in the squad, and Gallas has also been saying that he doesn’t fell we always have the right focus.

Gallas is one of the players who I would pick out as sometimes losing his concentration, but others are guilty too.

The fact is, we are going through a bad patch of form, but things can be righted. Wenger pointed out that we went to Fenerbahce with a midfield of under-21s and won, and they’ve never been beaten at home in Europe. (Click here for the Fenerbahce highlights).

This is true, but our goal glut that night covered up the weak defence which Fenerbahce easily penetrated. If Almunia hadn’t played so well it could have been 5-5, not 5-2. Tottenham were lucky that they managed to score all their chances. (Click here for the Tottenham highlights).

Again, against Stoke we saw the defence struggling to cope with the long throws and strength of the oppostion. (Click here for the Stoke game highlights).

I’m not calling for Wenger’s head, I think we just need some hard work put in on the defence, and some refocusing. A new defensive player in January wouldn’t hurt either.

Stoke City 2 – 1 Arsenal highlights, Delap, defence and attack

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal1 Comment

I don’t want to be too negative but today Arsenal played pretty poorly. Two long throws from Rory Delap allowed Stoke two relatively easy goals(Fuller ’11, Olofinjana ’73). Those throws are not easy to defend against, especially if you are Arsenal, weak in defence and hate balls into the box.

When playing against a team who have scored over half their goals from Delap’s long throws you would think that Arsenal might have been more prepared than they seemed for these. Maybe they are undefendable?

Stoke worked incredibly hard all match to give us no space and we really had very limited chances, our goal came in extra time – Clichy’s shot took two deflections and went in, his first goal for Arsenal, it started a small revival, but the 93rd minute is way, way, way too late.

We couldn’t get anywhere, and the exclusion of Nasri, RVP and Walcott, in exchange for height and power with Diaby, Song and Bendtner didn’t really pay off.

The game was worsened by the sending off of Van Persie for barging Sorenson after he teased RVP with the ball, and injuries to Adebayor – who looked in a lot of pain, Walcott – who has probably dislocated his shoulder again, and Sagna.

This means we may be without our main strikers for the games aganst Fenerbahce and Man Utd at home.

Our title bid may be over, Wenger even seemed depressed, when asked if it was the end of our title bid after the game he said “lets win the next one, and see after..”

Adebayor has his say on Tottenham game as Arsenal prepare to face Stoke City

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

This a guest post by sports writer Thomas Rooney

Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor has revealed that the game against Tottenham on Wednesday night was one of the ‘most difficult games’ of his entire life. As we all know, Arsenal led 3-1 and then 4-2 in the game, but proceeded to concede two late goals for Tottenham to force a 4-4 draw.

Adebayor is under no illusions about the significance of this result, saying that if Arsenal have aspirations to be Premier League champions, they can’t let leads like this slip. He says that Arsenal will ‘never be a champion’ if they continue to behave in this way and that he ‘doesn’t know how’ the game ended up being a draw.

Something Adebayor touches upon is the notion that he and his team-mates believed the game was won at 4-2. He says that in the players’ heads the ‘game was over’. In all fairness, as far as everyone else was concerned – this was also the case. Having brought the game back to 3-2, there were some that could see Spurs getting an equaliser. However, when Robin van Persie made it 4-2, everyone believed that was that. How wrong can you be?!

The Arsenal celebrations after this goal perhaps told their own story. Every player dived on top of each other, Adebayor and van Persie performed some sort of prepared celebration and it looked as if they were celebrating victory. As much as I wouldn’t want to take celebrating out of the equation, perhaps on this occasion – a crucial game against your biggest rivals – the Arsenal players should have simply gone back to their positions and focused on shutting out Spurs for the remaining few minutes.

As Adebayor says, everyone is very ‘disappointed’ with the way the team dropped two points. However, it must now be put to bed. It’s gone. All things considered, a point was still gained and Arsene Wenger’s team must move onwards and upwards.

Speaking of Wenger, there is no doubt that he will be demanding a positive response in the game against Stoke City. Arsenal travel to the Britannia Stadium to face the newly promoted side and it is essential that three points are picked up. If Arsenal drop points yet again, then 1st place would start to look a long way away. They can’t afford to be playing too much catch-up.

The game at Stoke won’t be easy – that’s for sure. They are a well organised outfit and in Rory Delap they have someone who can cause more threat than a corner with his long throws. Arsenal will have to watch out for this. Up front, Stoke have power, power and more power. Fuller and Sidibe won’t give Arsenal’s shaky defence an easy afternoon. Of that I can be certain.

As far as the team Arsenal will put out is concerned, William Gallas and Emmanuel Eboue are very doubtful. Other than that, it should be the same team that played against Spurs. Let’s just hope Arsenal can produce the same threat going forward, but this time manages to hold onto a lead.

By Thomas Rooney – A sports writer who blogs about football betting

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Arsenal shirt competition! Only 1 week left to sign up!

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal1 Comment

UPDATE: COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

We’re giving a free Arsenal shirt away in our competition, but there’s only 1 week left to sign up! All we are asking is that you subscribe to our e-mail service, and you’ll get the latest Arsenal news sent to you via email.

The competition closes on Thursday October 6th 2008, and the winner’s e-mail address will be drawn at random from our subscriber list, so make sure there aren’t any typos!

This is worth £40 (about $70) so it’s a pretty good deal if you get it free.

Anyway just putting it out there, to sign up just click here!