fastidium

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.

To diagnose the problems and move towards fixing them in time will take Arsene Wenger much time and thought. Plus, he probably won’t agree that these are the problems and chock up our defeat to simply poor playing. To be exact, he now claims that it was a case of still feeling the effects of our Champions League defeat last May. Whatever. Do these players even remember that game? Probably not.

But, in hopes to summarize our shortcomings as I see them, I’ve summed up the following three in sucessive importance (worse to worst).

Left-hand side. Man United were not the first side to figure this out. Last Sunday, Nani was being hailed as the return of Cristinao Ronaldo. As gifted as he may be, the comparison falls very short when you look at how he’s played in other games. The truth is, left-back Gael Clichy and left-mid Samir Nasri made it look easy for Nani. Their attempts at double teaming him, combined with the jeering crowd at the Emirates, made Nani’s determination more effective and troublesome. Several times Clichy was simply outrun and Nasri watched.

Clichy is just coming back from a long injury and may get better as time goes on, given that he hasn’t shown himself to be that much better than the youngster, Armand Traore, he replaced. The most promising left-sided combination so far has been in our first encounter with Bolton where Traore stayed as left-back and Clichy came on for Rosicky (72nd minute) and played in front of Traore at left-mid/forward. My confidence in Nasri is beginning to wane as its never clear if he’s going to give as much as he should nor whether he’s going to help in defense.

Denilson. Its been a week since our defeat and hopefully its been a good recovery period for Alex Song, coming back from the African Cup of Nations, because we sure do need him on the top of his game to run the midfield. Its clear that Song and Aaron Ramsey should be the midfield duo because Denilson isn’t making the transition from young starlet to seasoned veteran that he should be making. He either needs to have some soul-searching on the bench or look to be positioned in another role besides provider on this team. The second goal for Man United came down to his give-away that resulted in a transition the other way, and that was just the most glaring example of his lack of determination.

Goal Keeper. I don’t remember a time in my 13 year history as an Arsenal supporter of there being more clammering by fans for a player to be benched (well, maybe Eboue last season). Its just atrocious that Wenger has allowed Manuel Almunia to be in goal for the time he has been. Of course, there should be trepidation about putting someone as young as Fabianski between the pipes for a match like Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, but Almunia’s confidence has got to be shot and he shouldn’t be risked. Not only does he score own-goals for Man United (more than 1 this season) but it seems like Vermaelen and Gallas don’t have any confidence in him either. I wonder how many points dropped are due to his own-goals and allowing for things to happen that shouldn’t. We need to have someone else back there immediately. This is the most pressing issue for this team.

While these are the three most important deficiencies that need to be addressed and fixed for the Chelsea match tomorrow, there are other minor issues.

Cesc Fabregas must have a good game against Chelsea and while he had glimmers against Man United, their defensive mids did a good job of shutting him down.

Andrei Arshavin must put the ball on frame. In the first 30 minutes against United, he was turning their defenders one way or another but couldn’t even put the ball on goal. If he gets the time and space against Chelsea, he needs to get it there.

Wenger thinks we’re still in a good position and if we can do some damage at Stamford Bridge tomorrow, we’ll be back in the race. I’m sure every Man United fan will be cheering for our side. I don’t know if we’ve got the spirit or the heart to pull together. We’ve got the talent, now its up the players to put my scepticism where it belongs – the trash heap.

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