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

On October 31, 2008April 8, 2010 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

Arsenal 4 – 4 Tottenham Highlights. How did we draw?

On October 30, 2008February 15, 2011 By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Video1 Comment

Click here to comment on the game..

I returned from watching the North London derby feeling a little deflated, although I have to say it was one of the most exciting Arsenal games I have seen.

There was an electric atmosphere at the Grove, Bentley was abused as you might expect, and there were plenty of goals.

Tottenham scored first, Bentley (who else?) lobbed Almunia from about 40 yards. We couldn’t get the ball down in midfield and we were all over the shop.

The goal provided the usual wake up call, and we pressed back, getting a few good opportunites, with lovely passing moves, Theo and RVP linked up well. Then came our reply on ’37 – Silvestre got a goal from a corner – Gomes got nowhere near the ball, he looked very weak at corners.

We were hoping for a quick start after half time and we got it, RVP was felled and the freekick was swung into the box for Gallas to head in, 2-1 on ’46.

Things were looking up, and we went into cruise control as Ade put Nasri’s stunning chip over the line and made it 3-1.

THIS IS WHERE WE SHOULD HAVE CLOSED THE GAME.

Spurs then went on to get a lucky goal within 3 minutes, Almunia spilled a strong shot from Huddlestone, and Bent picked it up, 3-2 on ’67.

We went back up the other end and scored straight away, Hutton gifted Ade the ball, and he set up RVP for a beautiful goal, everyone went wild, 4-2..

Eboue, Diaby and Song all came on as Theo, RVP and Nasri got a rest. We seemed to relax a little – in the 89th minute Clichy (who was fantastic all night) slipped on the ball, presenting Jenas with an open run on goal, his shot went past Almunia – 4-3.

Now panic set in, and Arsenal looked in disarray, the feeling in the crowd was that we couldn’t hold on, and it was only to true, in stoppage time Modric shot took a deflection off Silvestre, which put it onto the post, it bounced back out perfectly for the onrushing Lennon who easily put it away. The few remaining Spurs fans went mental.

Tonight was very disappointing, there were positives, Denilson had a fantastic second half, and RVP played amazingly, but our defensive mistakes cost us yet again. We were unluck, but all of their goals could have been prevented by more astute defensive work.

Interestingly, two of our goals came from centre backs today – maybe representing how much more of an attacking team we are!

In all, it was an amazing Arsenal performance, but the last 4 minutes where we lost focus cost us 3 points which we thoroughly deserved.

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Robin Van Persie, Djourou and Gallas injury update

On October 13, 2008April 8, 2010 By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Injuries

Robin Van Persie is hopefully now off our injury list. He injured himself during training for Holland ahead of Saturday’s 2-0 win over Iceland, apparently it was his hamstring again.

Now RVP has declared himself fit for the game on Wednesday against Norway. This is good news, it was the same international break last year where he got injured and was out for most of the season.

He has been on form this season, I hope he doesn’t play against Norway though, it will only tire him out and give him more chance of another injury, ideally as a Gooner I’d like to see him only play for Arsenal!

Anyway that’s some good news. Gallas is probably out for Saturday’s game against Everton, as is Djourou, so SIlvestre is highly likely to play, which is great. The press are trying to cast doom and gloom over the matter, but the defence, especially Gallas, haven’t been performing brilliantly so a change could work wonders. It would be nice to see how Silvestre does.

What do you think? Should Silvestre start?

Gallas’ self-criticism – will he ever be the same?

On October 8, 2008September 4, 2010 By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

WIlly Gallas has been talking recently about his inconsistencies this season. He has been under-par this year and his mistakes against teams like Fulham (click to watch highlights) have cost us points in the first 7 games of the season.

Gallas told L’Equipe:

“I can say we have not seen the Gallas from 2006 this term so far. In a few matches, I have not been so good. With the French team in Sweden and Austria, I was not very good at some moments.

“I would close my eyes if I would say I am strong. That would mean I don’t recognise I did have a few bad performances, as recently with my club against Hull City. Maybe I feel a little tired.”

“Do I experience the most difficult period since I joined Arsenal? We could say yes. Above all I miss consistency. One match is good, the other one is not so good. However, I am doing everything to get to my best again because I can’t accept not being in good form. I’m still young and have plenty of things to achieve.

He is a defender with good qualities, but Arsenal fans have been divided over him since he came to the club. He can play the ball fantastically and he has attacking qualities, but maybe he is best paired with a strong centre back.

There are quetions over whether Toure is the right man to partner him, and also over whether he is the right choice for captaincy.

ArsenalAddict suggests moving Djourou to CB and putting Toure as DM, this might work – Djourou is a tall, strong centre back, and Toure has the pace and style to play in midfield, but Wenger has already said he will not use Toure there.

I think Gallas will come good when he finds consistency, but we should be looking to replace him, not Toure, in the future.

I have a feeling Wenger will stick with them, he backed Gallas to be captain this season, but don’t be suprised if Silvestre gets a chance in defence as well as Djourou.

Related post: Vieira Backs Gallas

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Wenger – changes and ‘Champions League focus’ – pre-Porto

On September 29, 2008April 8, 2010 By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Champions League, Injuries

Arsene Wenger spoke on a large range of issues in the press conference ahead of the Champions League game against Porto.

It has been widely expected that there will be changes in the line-up that lost to Hull City, but a knee-jerk reaction will not be the correct one.

The BBC has the video of Arsene Wenger’s pre-match press conference.

Wenger said there would be changes:

“There will be changes, certainly,” the Arsenal manager said. “I will see how many, but there will be changes.

“There were enough ingredients (in the Hull game) to make me physically sick.

“What we delivered was not good enough and we know that. I believe that is more down to the mental side than anything technical.”

“What is important now is to recover and prepare for the next game,”

He then calmed speculation that the changes were being made as punishment through demotion to the bench:

“Punishment? No, you know sometimes you make changes because you consider the other team, you consider the balance of your team, sometimes because one player is not at his best,”

“If a player or two do not play tomorrow it is not a punishment, it is just because of a rotation in the side. You cannot play every single game with the same 11 players.”

“I believe the goal we conceded where we are less guilty is the corner against Hull because it was a well-taken chance,” he said. “[Hull’s Daniel] Cousin is very tall and very good in the air. It was a perfect header and that can happen to anybody.

“You gain experience through the games. At the back is where we have experience because you cannot say with Clichy and Sagna and Kolo and Gallas that we lack experience. Will Kolo play in midfield? No, not at all.

“As for Vela, it’s difficult to go into any individual case. I believe Carlos Vela is a player of the squad and the whole squad will be used over the season. You cannot go from one team to the other and change 11 players because we just lost one game.

“I believe what is happening is that players have shown quality behind the first team and that is very interesting for the future of the Club.”

On the last CL game against Dynamo Kiev he defended the team:

“The side we played against Dynamo Kiev was very young. Theo Walcott is 19, Alexandre Song is 21, Denilson is 20 and even Cesc Fabregas is only 21,”

“It is not easy to win away in the Champions League with such a lack of experience.”

“This group is tougher than in previous years. It is definitely the most even group we have had because there are no easy games.

“That makes the match with Porto more important. We know in the Champions League you qualify with 10 points, so if we win our home games we are through.

“If we can do well, then the other teams will take all the points off each other and that is why I think even draws from our away games could prove good results because all the teams will drop points.

“There is no obvious weakest team, so every game will be very important and we will have to be at a high level for every game.”

He believes that we need to regain a ‘Champions League focus’ for every game:

“I believe the Champions League is a different game,”

“We have learned from the Hull match that you need a Champions League focus in every game.

“If we are guilty of something it is that we couldn’t get our focus to the right level to take our chances.

“The analysis of the game shows that we had enough opportunities to win. On the other hand, they made 100 per cent of the few chances they had. So credit to them and damage to us.

“You have not to make too much of it. We lost a game we did not want to lose but we have enough strength inside the Club and inside the team to deal with that. It can happen but it cannot be repeated.

“I don’t think we needed to be woken up but it was a big disappointment because we felt that we had enough quality to win the game.”

On injuries the main news is that Nasri is back:

“Song has still not recovered, I had him on the bench on Saturday but he did not feel comfortable and he had a little setback.

“Nasri is fit and is in the squad.”

Gallas echoed Wenger’s comments talking about how he wants to prepare:

“What we delivered against Hull was not good enough, we know that, so the important thing now is not how many games we can lose this season, but preparing well for Tuesday night.”

All in all you can tell that the team are very dissappointed about the Hull result. Losing at home is never pleasant, and especially not against teams like Hull.

It is very, very worrying that we have lost for a second time this season to ‘smaller teams’, and that we conceded from a corner yet again – we look extremely weak when defending set pieces.

All I can hope is that the team can recover and be back to their best for the Porto match, or we will be in trouble in the CL, and pressure will build from the media and fans.

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Arsenal salvage a draw with Dynamo Kiev – Watch the highlights here!

On September 17, 2008September 4, 2010 By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Champions League, Video

Arsenal were lucky to come away with a point tonight after a 1-1 draw with Dynamo Kiev in front of 20 000 in the Ukraine. Dynamo went ahead after a penalty was harshly awarded against Bacary Sagna, and they defended hard afterwards.

Arsenal left it late to equalise, with a low Walcott cross bouncing its way to Gallas at the far post who bundled it home.

Click on the links below to watch the goals.

Dynamo Kiev 1 – Bangoura 64′ (pen)

Arsenal 1 – Gallas 88′

We looked good early on, and there were great chances for Adebayor and Fabregas. But after half time Dynamo seemed to improve. They piled on the pressure, and eventually the penalty was conceded.

Walcott impressed yet again tonight, his confidence seems sky high at the moment, and he is fulfilling his potential right now.

Interestingly Sagna came off for Eboue in the second half, suggesting he may have picked up a slight knock.

I think we were lucky to salvage the point, but I’ll take it.

The stats tell the tale – a game where Dynamo defended and tackled well, although Arsenal had the most attacking pressure, and eventually managed to break down the Ukrainians.

Dinamo Kiev	Team Statistics	Arsenal
1	Goals	1
0	1st Half Goals	0
2	Shots on Target	5
8	Shots off Target	4
7	Blocked Shots	3
3	Corners	8
17	Fouls	14
2	Offsides	4
4	Yellow Cards	1
0	Red Cards	0
84.9	Passing Success	86.1
14	Tackles	21
85.7	Tackles Success	66.7
46.6	Possession	53.4
44.3	Territorial Advantage	55.7

Teams

Dynamo Kiev: Bogush, Betao, Diakhate, Mykhalyk, Nesmachniy, Vukojevic, Yussuf (Asatiani 90), Yeremenko, Aliev, Ninkovic, Bangoura (Kravets 90).
Subs Not Used: Shovkovskiy, Ghioane, Morozyuk, Shatskikh, Olexander Romanchuk.

Booked: Nesmachniy, Bangoura, Vukojevic, Diakhate.

Arsenal: Almunia, Sagna (Eboue 78), Toure, Gallas, Clichy, Walcott, Fabregas, Song Billong (Bendtner 70), Denilson, Van Persie (Vela 83), Adebayor.
Subs Not Used: Fabianski, Ramsey, Wilshere, Djourou.

Booked: Sagna.

Ref: Luis Medina Cantalejo (Spain).

Toothless Arsenal cause doubts at the Cottage (plus video highlights)

On August 24, 2008September 4, 2010 By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Video6 Comments

Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat at Craven Cottage yesterday was one of the poorest Arsenal games I have seen in a long time.

The line up didn’t really suprise me due to lack of midfield options, but I knew life would be hard for us when I saw Denilson and Eboue lining up in central midfield.

Nasri Eboue Denilson Walcott, it isn’t a title winning line up. I know Fabregas is out, and Diaby too, but even then the squad looks worryingly thin, all we had on the bench as cover was Ramsey and Wilshere. Eboue isn’t a central midfielder, and Denilson was out of his depth, he made a lot of bad mistakes.

We lacked the quality in the squad to replace injured players, and we desparately need a new centre mid. We ended up with RVP playing there and Bendtner and Adebayor up front.

The defence and attck however was the first choice team, and we looked worryingly toothless, we couldn’t string passes together, we weren’t tackling, crosses were misplaced, runs were mistimed. Schwarzer had 1 easy save to make all afternoon.

To make matters worse, Gallas’ awful marking at a corner allowed that new Fulham guy to get a leg in and score.

I know when Cesc is back in the squad things will be different, but we can’t rely on one guy, we seem to have lost a lot of defensive qualities in midfield (Diarra, Flamini, GIlberto) and creative qualities (Hleb). We need a new signing now, and the Boss needs to have a think about how the team will shape up for the season.

Arsene told the press:

“We were not sharp enough in the first half, and our passing was certainly not as good as we expect it to be. I don’t know why,

“Of course it is a setback. But the result is there, and we have to make up for it by winning the next match. We have a big game on Wednesday in the Champions League and need to improve.

“We paid a big price for the mistake on their goal. We should be able to cope with a corner when it comes in at low level like that.”

It’s only one loss, and we aren’t out of anything, but last year we finished 4 points off the top, we dropped 3 today and I hope we don’t regret it.

Click here for the highlights.

Gallas is Captain + Theo + Amsterdam Tournament

On August 8, 2008September 4, 2010 By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

Afternoon all,

First up, Walcott has been telling us about how his first choice number was 8 this season, but his good mate Vic the kit man told him that was Nasri’s so he had to go for 14. It’s just a number to him though!

“Thierry was my idol. He looked after me when I was first here. It was brilliant to train with him every day and watch what he did. He was the best striker I have ever seen. So I suppose it’s like Ade having No 25 because Kanu had that.

“But as I say for me it is just a number.”

Also Wenger backed Gallas to be captain again this season at the Amsterdam Tournament press conference.

See what you think of the comments, it sounds as though Gallas is a bit of a stop gap captain really, Wenger is just giving him another season, and is going to see how it turns out. I think he’s waiting for Cesc to mature a little.

“William will be captain again”, “Kolo Toure will be his assistant.”

“He got a lot of criticism after what happened at Birmingham last season but until then everybody said he was a fantastic captain.

“He acknowledges that he made some mistakes and he has learned from it. Remember William was not the most gifted player when he was a young boy. He is where he is because he has a good evaluation of his own performance. That is what makes the big players. If you speak to a big player after a game they can always assess what they have done right and wrong. Therefore he has analysed himself what happened last season.

“But William is an important player in the team, plays in a position where it is easier to be captain and as well some players who could be captain are still young.

“He deserves another go to show his commitment and then we will see where we stand at the end of the season.”

It sounds like Wenger thinks he’s not the best player for the job. Interesting that he says he wasn’t the best player when he was younger.

But I think it’s fair that Gallas has this season to prove himself. He did alright last season, just a few problems, like the Birmingham game. As always – if the team are doing well everyone is happy, but Gallas becomes a scapegoat when we fail.

I think that he is a decent choice for captain, but he isn’t the long term option, and Wenger’s comments highlight that.

In the tournament we’ve got Ajax and Sevilla, both teams we have faced in the Champions League. We kick off against Ajax at 8.15pm tonight, and Sevilla tomorrow at 6.

Enjoy the game Gooners!

Wenger won’t sign defenders – What does this mean for Arsenal?

On June 13, 2008September 4, 2010 By jamesgillespIn Transfers4 Comments

Wenger’s recent comments about not needing a defender suggest that he will stick with what we’ve got there. He was talking about Vincent Kompany, the Belgian centre back, he played down the speculation saying:

“I have decided that defenders are no longer necessarily needed for next season.”

So it seems very possible that there will be no signings to bolster our defence.

On the flanks we have the best in the Premiership, Sagna and Clichy, I love them both and they are both world class players who are young, no need to strengthen there.

The main weakness is cover rather than replacement. Senderos and Song were the players who started when Gallas and Toure weren’t availiable last season, and Eboue, Toure, Traore and Hoyte sometimes covered on the flanks. This didn’t work brilliantly last season, and was one of our main problems. I am a big fan of Senderos he can be error prone.

There have also been questions over whether Toure and Gallas are a strong enough partnership.

I think we should strengthen the defence, but Wenger seems to be trusting in what we’ve got. The fact that Song got a new deal, and started so many games at the end of last season, suggests to me that he has put himself above Senderos in the pecking order, and Wenger has hinted that he won’t play Song in midfield.

So we will probably see the same defence lining up in the current season, but expect to see more of Song, and maybe players like Norveidt gettign a few games this season.

I hope that Gallas proves himself as an Arsenal player and captain this season, and that Toure gets his form back. If that happens then Wenger will be proved right, and we will have a top quality back four, with decent coverage.

So in the end I think Wenger’s decision may pay off, but it is a gamble, ideally we need a quality centre back to challenge for a place, many would argue that neither Song or Senderos are good enough.

What do you think?

Gallas, Fabregas, Walcott and Almunia show off new Arsenal kit in leaked picture

On June 4, 2008June 5, 2008 By jamesgillespIn Arsenal14 Comments

Arsenal players Gallas, Cesc, Theo and Almunia are modelling the new home kit in this leaked picture from The Other Football, a Florida-based blog.

The picture was sent in by a reader, it seems to confirm rumours of the 08/09 kit designs which were leaked earlier this year.

I like it, but it does seems a bit similar to the 00/01 and 01/02 home kit. I would have preferred all white sleeves, but Nike probably wanted to vary the design a little.

The goalkeeper kit looks a bit odd!

What do you think now we have actually seen it on the players?

Update:

I think Arsenal.com are about to announce the kit lanch, check this link, at the time of writing only the headline has been written, possibly a publishing error!