First things first, let’s get the site news out of the way. Regular readers of the blog will notice that it looks very different – I’ve been working on a redesign for some time now, and it finally went live today. So have a poke around, see what you think and if you spot anything out of place, please let me know.
The extra observant among you may have noticed the two new features. The first is a long overdue subscription service, so you can finally get Groan updates by email if you so wish. Just click here, enter your email address and you’re away.
The second is the Beautiful Groan Podcast, which is due for launch on May 5 (a fortnight away), and will run every Wednesday from then on. And yes, I am aware that the first episode comes out four days before the season ends. My timing is impeccable.
So back to Arsenal news, and no matter where you go, it feels as if the season has ended. Barring a few worriers who are spending their time looking over their shoulders at City and Spurs (to think either can get near us considering their run-ins and the already substantial gap is fanciful in the extreme), everyone is talking about next season. And I’m not just referring to us fans – the club are at it too.
Nasri has been defending the lack of a trophy, claiming that this season has set us up well for next year:
“I think we have more merit as a club than those who have built their teams with millions of pounds whereas Arsenal have brought in young footballers, who have come here to play a certain kind of football and who have developed.”
“I am hoping that our squad will stay unchanged because we are really good and with a year more experience, we can achieve some great things next season.”
He isn’t alone. Wenger claims this season to be a success, pointing to the sustained title challenge:
“I feel we have made huge steps forward this year compared to last year and the year before that. This year I feel we have appeased our fans a lot. We have always shown a great attitude, a great response when needed.”
Aside from the questionable timing of praising the attitude of the players, you can’t really argue with either quote. We have improved this year despite a deeper injury crisis, and those who believe us to be static forget how poor we were in the early stages of last season. Sorry defeats like the capitulation to Wigan were happening on a regular basis, but with an improved team ethic we have made great strides.
But am I alone in thinking these platitudes can wait a few weeks? We have three games to go, and whatever you think of our position, those games mean an awful lot. I don’t mean as a bearing on the title race, which we’re out of, or for securing Champions League football, which is assured with one good result, but as a way of finishing the season strongly, leaving the fans on a high throughout the summer, and giving us reason to look at the campaign with a smile, not the tainted memories of a late season collapse.
These three games could define how the entire season is viewed – close to the top pair, or fighting it out for third and fourth – and that alone gives them a huge importance. And when you take the opposition into account – Adebayor, Bellamy, Allardyce – you cannot say the season is done and dusted.
So while everything Nasri, Wenger and others says is true, those seasonal summaries can wait until the campaign is over. And it isn’t over until we’ve given ourselves a feel good ending.
It isn’t June. It isn’t May. It is only April, and that means there’s football to be played.
Let’s start with the disappointing yet ultimately unsurprising news that the FA have rejected Arsenal’s appeal over Tomas Vermaelen’s red card.
Everyone agrees that Vermaelen was harshly sent off, but it seems that ‘harsh’ is not enough for the FA. It hasn’t been for a long time – anything even remotely subjective gets thrown out without a second glance. In that way, the appeal was futile from the very start – only if the players had been ten yards apart would the FA have considered retracting the decision.
Some feared that the ban might be extended, but that was an unnecessary worry too – if you look at the appeals deemed frivolous this season, they are all clear cut cases, usually violent conduct. Appealing a red card when you’ve walloped someone in the face is stupid, this one doesn’t come close.
So Vermaelen will miss the trip to Birmingham, leaving Wenger with a major decision to make. Assuming Campbell can play either at Birmingham or against Barcelona but not both, he has to decide where the big man is more important. With Gallas still out (and I’m told he won’t be fit for Barcelona, contrary to reports), Sol and Vermaelen are our main pair, but does he play them both in the Champions League and partner Silvestre with Song at the weekend? That would be risky.
Personally, I think he’ll partner Song and Campbell this weekend, and Song and Vermaelen next Wednesday. Why? Simple – I think he’s lost faith in Silvestre. When Vermaelen was sent off at the weekend, the obvious substitution was Silvestre for Denilson, but instead, he pushed Song back.
Now consider that Song was putting in a man of the match shift in midfield. Despite the obvious damage removing Song from our midfield would do, Wenger still considered it a better option than Silvestre at the back.
What this does show is how lucky we were that Gallas and Vermaelen stayed fit for the first half of the season. With Djourou out, Silvestre was the only cover, and frankly, had he been forced to play even semi-regularly, we wouldn’t be in the title race.
So instead of bemoaning Vermaelen’s suspension, let’s just be glad he has remained injury free all campaign.
Elsewhere, the papers are stirring the pot again. There are the scurrilous Cesc to Inter stories, which are laughable in the extreme, while Arshavin is quoted as being concerned by the state of the squad:
“I am still of the opinion that to win trophies Arsenal needs more players.”
“There is the simple fact that last summer we sold two players and bought only one. So there is an obvious deficit of at least one. Then we lost Van Persie, Gibbs and Ramsey for a long time. So for me it is natural we need new players.”
It seems pretty clear to me that these words have been taken out of context. The press are having a field day, claiming that the Russian is ruling us out of the title race, but given that he is talking about last summer’s activity, it makes sense to presume he was asked about what he hoped Arsenal would do this summer. When you put his answer in that context, it seems perfectly reasonable, with him seemingly suggesting that we need to keep strengthening to win trophies on a regular basis.
No arguments here. The timing has been questioned, but Arshavin seems to be a guy who answers all questions put to him, which takes the timing out of his hands.
Finally, we come to Tony Pulis, who has had yet another dig at Arsene Wenger, claiming that his team are getting no respect from the bigger sides:
“Everywhere you look there’s people who want to shoot us down.”
“It wasn’t in the script for us to be competitive. That’s why you get people like Arsene Wenger moaning on at you – because we have made it difficult for them and we’re not supposed to do that.”
Where to start with this idiot? Firstly, Wenger had a go after the recent game because Ramsey’s leg had just been shattered. And quite frankly, I thought he was impressively restrained – perhaps indicative of how used he is to seeing that sort of incident.
Pulis, like so many others who like to ‘rough up’ the big boys, think that we expect them to roll over when they come to town. We don’t – the fact that anyone can beat anyone is the league is why it is so fantastic. We are even relying on that competitive edge denying United and Chelsea points between now and the end of the season, so to claim that they ‘weren’t supposed to be competitive’ is ridiculous.
For the record, Stoke’s Premiership record against the three title contenders this season is Played 4, Lost 4.
What Wenger rightly objects to is the style of football that is intended to hurt and injure, and the tactic of rotational fouling where no individual catches the eye of the referee, but they all take turns to kick players. That isn’t football, but the problem we have is the likes of Pulis and Allardyce believing it to be a legitimate approach. That they get away with it is a sad indictment of the attitude of referees. On the continent, they would not survive.
As for respect, I’m sorry, but if your two tactics are to a) kick lumps out of the opposition and b) get a player to spend 45 seconds drying a ball on a towel and then hurling it into the box, then you aren’t going to get any. Deal with it.
That’s about it for today. In the next few days you will notice the site take on a different look – I’ve been working on a redesign for some time and it is (finally) nearly ready. Stay tuned for that, and more goodies.
Until tomorrow.
Three years ago, I started this blog to little fanfare and even fewer readers. Back then, I would be lucky if ten people popped along to see what I’d written, and my jaw would drop anytime a comment arrived.
Three years and two server moves on, I am having more fun with it than ever, thanks to its interactive nature. Writing for no-one gets dry fairly quickly, so I’d like to thank readers, commenters, abusers and mailers for all your time, whether you’re a silent reader, someone who agrees with what I have to say, someone who doesn’t and is happy to debate it, or even those just here to start an argument. It wouldn’t be the same without you. In fact, it probably wouldn’t still be going without you.
The blog got a new hosting company and a makeover for its second birthday. For its third it got an early birthday present of another new hosting company, and a dedicated server all to itself. A new look will follow as and when I get the time to design it.
For now, I just want to say thanks – please keep reading, keep the feedback coming, and enjoy the year ahead.
Happy birthday Groan.
Good afternoon.
If you are reading this, then welcome to the third incarnation of The Beautiful Groan. This will be the blog’s new home, hopefully for a very very long time.
The blog was initially hosted by 123-reg back in 2007, supported by their terrible blogging tool that was unwieldy and horrendous to use. To make matters worse, the site kept going down without warning, and their ‘customer service’ team would never reply. Google ‘123-reg’ and you’ll find a million sites dedicated to how shit they are. There is a reason for that.
So in March 2008, I moved to Lunarpages, a very reputable hosting company offering a competitive deal. For the last two years, that has been Groan’s home, but recently, the number of readers has risen substantially, and as a result Lunarpages got a little tetchy. You see, the site was hosted on the same server as a couple of hundred other sites around the world, and every time I posted here, you lovely people came to read, and their sites all went down. Whoops.
So it is time to expand. Thanks to a recommendation from the venerable Arseblogger, we have moved up in the world, to our own spangly server, hosted by ServInt, who are by all accounts, the shiznit. I’ve certainly been impressed so far.
So welcome to our new home – in theory nothing has changed, the web address is still the same, all you feed readers should be able to get the posts from the same place, and I still spout the same nonsense I always have.
However, I now have scope to add a huge amount more to the site without getting shut down, which is nice, so stay tuned for all sorts of new goodies, particularly the start of a podcast series.
2010 promises to be an interesting year here. Hopefully the same is true for Arsenal.
Thanks for reading.
Very quick one tonight, as it has gone midnight (hence the Christmas message), and having spent the whole evening doing the parental thing of trying to work out how kids toys fit together, I’m spent.
It has been a big year for the blog, and I’d like to extend a sincere thanks to everyone who reads, comments, emails or just passes a quick glance this way. It has been much appreciated, and I hope you enjoy some of what you see.
2010 should be another interesting year for the blog, I have a whole bunch of new ideas up my sleeve, most notably a podcast which will start early in the new year. I’ll touch on that more after the festive season is done.
Until then, have a great Christmas break, enjoy the Villa game, eat, drink and be Arsenal.
Take care, and I’ll see you on the other side.
