Fastidium

After our performance against Porto, it seems like having Fabregas out won’t be as big of a deal as previously thought. Everyone on the team is stepping it up.

There were segments in the first half and a long period of the second half – the first 15 minutes – where it looked questionable whether Arsenal could pull out this win and advance to the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League. But, after going two goals down, Porto would succumb to the magic of Samir Nasri. And, at the end of the day, Arsenal stood victorious with a 5-nil victory.

ESPN: Gunners shoot down Porto
Guardian: Samir Nasri and Nicklas Bendtner fire Arsenal into quarter-finals
BBC Football

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Landon says he doesn’t want to return. Bruce Arena says he wants him back right away. Everton want him to stay as long as they can have him.

What will be a complete waste is if Landon returns only to find the MLS player’s union deciding to strike.

Donovan took a chance on making everyone happy – he signed a new contract with MLS and went on loan to Everton. The loan spell turned out better than he thought it would be but now Everton can’t meet the price that MLS has asked for him. It would have been a different matter if Landon had not resigned and MLS wouldn’t have the leverage they do.

We’re playing the rest of the season for Aaron Ramsey. Its such a stroke of bad luck to lose the young Welshman at this point in the season, but this tragedy-turned-motivation may just be the extra push to get us some hardware. Its all about character and how much you want it at this stage. It was enduring to see all the players wearing “Get Well Soon Aaron” t-shirts prior to kickoff.

Coming into this match against Burnley tonight, we needed to win by 4 goals in order to go level with Chelsea on points but beat them in goal differential. Chelsea were going to have a game in hand after this weekend because they were playing an FA Cup match. Man United were playing Wolves later in the day.

This match would be a coming-out party of sorts for Theo Walcott. He has these games every now and again. He was fantastic. I’m sure I join all Arsenal supporters in wanting these performances to become expected behavior from Walcott. Too often this season, his sprints down the right-hand side fizzle out and result in nothing.

If Nicholas Bendtner had been on his game, the scoreline would have been a lot more. I’m not sure what happened to the Dane. He and Walcott linked up numerous times, only to see his shots go over the crossbar or just wide of the post. You could see the frustration in everyone’s faces by the fourth or fifth attempt.

But, Bendtner’s flubs aside, Arsenal pulled out the 3-1 win. The first goal (34th minute) will probably win goal of the week honors. Samir Nasri floated the perfect ball over the defensive line and Cesc Fabregas ran onto the ball just in time to nutmeg the keeper.

Burnley would pull one back just after half-time.

The second Arsenal goal (60th minute) was Walcott – man of the match himself – finally pulling inside from a run down the right-hand side, and placing the ball ever so nicely in the far corner of the goal. Theo has a tendency to stay outside even though he may outrun a defender and try to cross the ball to another player. It was nice to see him change his normal routine.

The final Arsenal goal, by Andrei Arshavin, was in extra time and an end to frustrations, I’m sure, for the Russian striker. He had numerous chances prior to this. From a short corner kick, he intercepted a loose ball from Eduardo and cut inside. With only a small fraction of the goal open, Arshavin was able to slot the ball just inside the near post.

There was concern with Cesc coming off just before half. Turns out he’s got a hamstring problem and will hopefully be back soon.

Moving on, we’ve got a tough game against Porto in the Champions League on Tuesday. Its at the Emirates but we’ve got a 2-1 deficit to overcome. Then, next Saturday, we’ve got an away match at Hull City, who got blitzed by Everton today.

Chelsea Defender Ashley Cole is sidelined for 3 months, thanks to a tackle by none other than our very own Landon Donovan. I’m almost giddy about it. Remember the nickname that Steven Cohen, Chelsea supporter extraordinaire, came up with for Donovan. It was “Landycakes” and it was supposed to show how soft Landon was.

Who’s soft now? Ha-ha!

Its been way too long since I last posted. The main reason is that I wanted to have time to think about the loss to Manchester United, but now I find myself writing this on the eve of the clash with Chelsea. Its probably best to reflect now and look for possible ways that Arsenal could possibly beat Carlo Ancelotti’s side tomorrow.

Many writers have summed up the reasons why we lost. Arseblog said it best the day after, Slack Arsenal taught a footballing lesson. The plain truth is that Man United wanted it more. Online Gooner had the best technical rundown of why Man United’s use of a winger put Clichy on his heels and why a winger is different from playing someone out wide.

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Well, now I dislike Sampson less …

Breaking more than a decade of silence, former U.S. soccer coach Steve Sampson said Tuesday he dropped John Harkes from the national team roster two months before the 1998 World Cup because the American captain was having an affair with the wife of teammate Eric Wynalda.

Its honorable of Sampson to keep quiet after so long, especially after taking the blame for the WC 98 debacle.

Travel to South Africa, as exotic as it may sound, has turned out to be prohibitively expensive. Flights from New York to Johannesburg — where most games, including the final, will be played — would normally cost about $1,000, but they will set you back at least $2,500 if travelling during the World Cup.

Arsenal.com published an interesting article (by Richard Clarke) this morning on Why Wenger won’t rely on strikers for goals. Due to injuries to Robin Van Persie and Nicklas Bendtner, our goals have had to come from elsewhere. The stats are given that over half are coming from midfield and the centre backs (Cesc Fabregas 10, Abou Diaby 5, Aaron Ramsey 3, Denilson 3, Alex Song 1, Thomas Vermaelen 4, William Gallas 3).

Wenger notes the changing formation of the game in general. Instead of relying on your strikers for goals where “the midfielders are the guys who bring the strikers alive”, the strikers are the ones who are bringing the midfielders into the action.

“[For example] Robin Van Persie, when he played we always scored three or four goals. He didn’t score too many [himself] but he made a lot. Not only with passing, but with movement and the quality of that movement. Strikers open walls for the deeper players. That is a big part in the modern game.”

Many others, of course, have made the same observation about strikers in football today. I think it was Jonathan Wilson, at the Guardian, who first criticized teams like Barcelona and Man United for becoming less active when they added strong, holding forwards (Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Dimitar Berbatov, respectively). When these teams relied on their mids and wings, they were a more mobile, dynamic attack, but with the addition of “targets” up front, their scoring options actually diminished.

The counter-example to this argument is Chelsea with Drogba and Anelka up front. Both are target forwards, and produce more goals and assists themselves than most teams.

The point is that modern forwards, like van Persie, act more like parts of the midfield. Its just a shame that we’re without him for the season. I wonder what it would have been like with him at this point in the campaign? …

Good news from Fulham FC, “… early indications are positive in that no operation is required. At this stage it is thought that the injury will not prevent him from featuring for Fulham, prior to the end of the season.”