The Beautiful Groan

Arsenal 4 (Silvestre 37, Gallas 46, Adebayor 64, Van Persie 68) Tottenham 4 (Bentley 13, Bent 67, Jenas 89, Lennon 90)
(Premiership)

Absolutely unbelievable. For the majority of the game, we saw an Arsenal performance that was confirming us as genuine title contenders, a fast and fluent display that was slowly tearing Spurs to pieces. And then suddenly, we utterly and completely threw it away, in a manner that the rest of the challengers will no doubt be chuckling about this morning.

A full match report would be too long, but the goals were all notable for their own reasons, so I’ll go through those. Credit has to be given for Bentley’s opener, it was an audacious smash from 40 yards and executed with tremendous skill. Some will blame Almunia but I’m not amongst them - the ball swerved so viciously that no keeper would’ve kept that out.

No doubt Bentley will be harping on about this one for a long time, but the trouble with him is his lack of consistency, or perhaps even application. He has the talent, as he can prove in the big games, but before last night had contributed nothing to Tottenham’s season. Last night’s goal will fuel his ego, but don’t expect a run of good performances off the back of it.

The goal sparked an injection of pace into Arsenal, with Theo especially determined - I’ve never seen him with the bit between his teeth so much. He must’ve had four shots in the first twenty minutes and looked really up for the game.

But almost inevitably, the equaliser came from a set piece, thanks to Spurs being even worse at defending them than we are. Van Persie whipped it in, Gomes flapped, and Silvestre nodded home.

Second half, and Huddlestone gave away a stupid free kick, allowing Van Persie to whip in another cross for Gallas to head home this time. Soon after, the centre back pairing should’ve made it three when Silvestre missed an even easier header from another corner.

The third did come, though, and it was our only goal that can’t be attributed to atrocious defending. Van Persie played another magical ball through to Nasri, who lofted the ball over Gomes for Adebayor to pounce. It looked to be game over, but Huddlestone then fizzed a shot in that went through Almunia’s hands and into his face, rebounding kindly for Bent to tap home.

Their hope was short lived, as a minute later Hutton played a woeful backpass, Adebayor picking it up before feeding Van Persie for a well deserved goal. It knocked the stuffing out of Spurs, and the game relaxed. Substitutions were made, showboating began, and Spurs gave up.

And that is exactly the point - inside the last ten minutes, Spurs completely and utterly gave up the game. They were never going to earn their way back into it, because they had stopped trying. Unfortunately, Clichy, who had been brilliant all night, dallied over a pass and then fell over, Jenas picking the ball up before curling beyond Almunia. Four minutes of injury time remained, and you just had that feeling. Crucially, so did Spurs.

And so it proved. On a normal night, Modric’s shot wouldn’t have got a deflection and would’ve gone straight at Almunia. Or, the deflection would’ve taken it wide. But this wasn’t a normal night, and with Almunia covering the goal, the only way the goal could’ve happened was exactly the way it did - the shot deflected on to the post, Lennon tucking away the rebound. Items were thrown, colourful language was used, and had there been a cat, it would’ve been flying across the room.

It truly was unbelievable. This wasn’t like Hull, Fulham, or Sunderland. This was, at times, an electrifying performance that shredded Tottenham’s back line, but it was completely ruined by some abysmal defending. Almunia had a bad night, but he’s been so good recently that he can be forgiven. The real problem was the decision making in the final couple of minutes.

If you are two goals up going into injury time, you keep the ball - simple. Okay, the players sometimes relax, but certainly once one goal has been pulled back, you make damn sure you hold on to the ball when you have it. When you get a corner, as we did, you faff around wasting time by the flag. And this wasn’t inexperience - the worst pass played in those moments was actually from Cesc, of all people. From him giving the ball away, Spurs broke and scored.

This was a freak game, like those Liverpool-Newcastle ones of old, and no doubt it will go down as a Premiership classic. The irony is - that performance would batter Spurs 99 times out of 100 - we were really really good. But in those final few seconds, we contrived to wreck it all.

In the worst of times I am an optimist, but even that is challenged by madness like we saw last night. We’re used to Spurs providing comedy defending. But we are not Spurs.

A compilation of ten things we’ve just come to accept in our game:

1. If you play the ball past an opponent and run into them, they will get a yellow card irrespective of whether they moved to block your path, or simply stood their ground, as they are permitted to do.

2. Once added on time has been announced, it can only be increased by serious injuries. Any goals (which should add an additional minute) or substitutions (which should add thirty seconds) after the announcements will not increase the total.

3. Speaking of injury time, there can only be whole minutes of it. ‘There will be a minimum of three minutes’ does not mean there could be 3:15, 3:40 or even 3:59 of added time, it means precisely three minutes.

4. The ‘Sensible Soccer’ rule: The full time whistle can only be blown when the ball is in the middle third of the pitch, preferably after a defensive clearance.

5. If the ball strikes you on the hand anywhere on the pitch, it is always a free kick. But if you are inside your own penalty area, it has to have been deliberate, otherwise the award of a penalty is deemed ‘harsh’.

6. You cannot be booked twice in the same incident. You can use this to your advantage if you have committed a foul you know you’ll be booked for, by riling the other player into reacting. Even if your reactions are equal, they will receive a yellow card for it and you will only get the yellow for the initial foul.

7. For the first 85 minutes of the game, you can take twenty seconds preparing to take a throw in, and if losing or drawing, that continues. But if you are winning by a single goal and in the final five minutes, make sure you take the throw in within five seconds or you’ll be booked for timewasting. This is especially the case if you are the underdog and under the cosh away from home.

8. You may be penalised for raising your foot too high if you take the ball above waist height. But overhead kicks are fine, even if the ball is an inch from the defender’s nose when you strike it.

9. And on the topic of being penalised for a raised foot, if two players go for the same high ball, the one who wins the ball will always be the one who gives away the free kick.

10. To get a free kick for a shirt pull while chasing after the ball, all you have to do is stop running and shrug in frustration towards the referee. This works even if it was you doing the shirt pulling.

Feel free to add your own…

Nicklas Bendtner has been a bit of an enigma over the past couple of years, undoubtedly blessed with wonderful footballing talent, but often showing worrying signs of being arrogant and not fitting in at a club where team spirit is so important.

In his loan spell at Birmingham, he rubbed a few people up the wrong way, we had the infamous Adebayor incident last season (which was blown out of proportion, in my opinion), the lack of him celebrating with teammates (which was more concerning as it hinted at a deeper problem), and the general air of nonchalance and arrogance that followed him around. He seemed detached from the rest of the players somehow.

Recently, that has all changed. His joining in with the goal celebrations might seem trivial, but it suggests a much tighter bond with the squad, and I don’t consider it a coincidence that at the same time, he is linking up far better in a footballing sense.

There was one moment against West Ham that displayed this perfectly - he and Adebayor played a double one-two, Ade ending up forcing a good save from Rob Green, chasing in the rebound and ending up tumbling off the pitch. The Bendtner of last season would probably not have combined with his fellow striker quite as well, and even if he had, he would’ve probably casually trotted away after the chance had gone. This time, he ran over to Adebayor, helped him up, tapped him on the back and carried on.

Now this might all seem very subtle, and perhaps meaningless, but everything about his demeanour has changed in the last six months. No longer does he seem arrogant, merely confident (in a good way), and he can now be the selfish striker he needs to be, as shown by his superb curling shot from a wide position when Walcott was calling for it in the middle, while also turning supplier when appropriate, as he did for the second goal.

It is almost as if he is now comfortable at the club for the first time, and that can only be a good thing going forward. A clear talent, the worries around him have usually been the nature of his character, but if he can continue to be as much of a team player as at present, he could really fulfill his enormous potential.

West Ham 0 Arsenal 2 (Faubert og 75, Adebayor 90)

(Premiership)

From the moment Robert Green prevented Van Persie from scoring by catching the ball two yards outside of his area, and escaped without a red card, I thought the script for this match was written. And so it proved for 75 minutes, Green producing a string of excellent saves en route to what appeared to be more points dropped for Arsenal.

Bendtner, Van Persie and Walcott had all been denied, the latter two also hitting the woodwork, before the deadlock was finally broken with fifteen minutes left. Adebayor, on as a substitute, fired a cross shot across the goal, and Faubert, unsure who was behind him, slid the ball into his own net. The feeling was one of relief more than joy, as the afternoon had been one of the most frustrating in recent memory.

Some of the play up to that point had been lacklustre, devoid of the usual zip, and West Ham were defending their goal admirably. They even had some excellent chances of their own, Almunia superbly denying Bellamy after an Arsenal-like counter attack.

Late on, Adebayor added some gloss to the scoreline, rounding Green and slotting home after Bendtner played him through from the left back position - one of the best passes you’ll see all season. The two had earlier combined for Adebayor to force another fine save from Green, yet the Sky commentators still managed to get in a comment about the two ‘not getting along’. They seemed fine to me.

There was still time for Carlton Cole to get sent off for a lunge at Song, and I have to be honest, I thought the red card was harsh. It was a tackle borne out of frustration, but it was one footed and came from the side. A yellow would’ve done.

The only argument you could make is that by Phil Dowd’s standard of yellow cards, it was certainly a red, but that was only down to the ineptitude of the official, who was dreadful all day. I’m really glad that after the late goals I can criticise him without running the risk of being accused of sour grapes, because he put in an awful performance.

Some referees communicate with players very well - Martin Atkinson, Howard Webb and even Steve Bennett spring to mind - but others treat footballers like naughty schoolkids, and while Rob Styles leads the way on that front, Dowd id not far behind. Every time there was a mistimed tackle yesterday, he would scold the player like a repressed primary school teacher. The Respect campaign doesn’t stand a chance when men like him treat the players with such a lack of it.

There was only one bad tackle in the entire game yesterday, yet it ended with six cards. And the number of times he insisted free kicks were moved two yards and retaken was getting beyond a joke by the end.

So I feel a bit for Cole, whose tackle was stupid but not dangerous, and who will now miss three games. For us, thoughts turn to Spurs on Wednesday, perhaps revitalised by the arrival of Harry Redknapp over the weekend. We’ll see.

Until then, enjoy only being a point behind Hull.

It’s back to the action this afternoon as Arsenal travel to Upton Park to play West Ham in a match that hasn’t gone too well over the past few seasons. Three points would see us move four points clear of United, and to within a point of Chelsea, who finally lost their unbeaten home record to Liverpool this afternoon.

Team news sees Gallas return alongside Silvestre in defence, with Toure and Sagna on the bench, while Bendtner starts up front ahead of Adebayor, who is being rested for Spurs.

Unfortunately, the build up to this match has again been overshadowed by the actions of our captain, with Gallas this week photographed with a cigarette in his mouth. I can’t say he was smoking, because it was unlit, but these things aren’t exactly fashion statements so to claim that he had no intention of smoking it would be ridiculous in the extreme.

It might seem like a minor crime in the grand scheme of things, and it is, but it just adds to the catalog of black marks against his reign at the club. And I say ‘reign’ because it seems that is how he sees it.

He isn’t playing well, which is the first thing, and while he admits this himself you suspect that his frankness is an attempt to get the fans on side. But while players make mistakes on the field, he isn’t showing the defensive commitment as much as he should, his pre match team talks seem more for show than anything, and his comments off the pitch aren’t as captain-like as those of his ideal replacement, Fabregas.

But Wenger isn’t one to admit his mistakes quickly. Remember that this is man who gave Aliadiere chances for seven years before finally letting him go. He likes to prove the critics wrong, and while he usually succeeds, the Gallas experiment is surely not going to be seen as one his best decisions.

My opinion? Gallas’ reign as captain will end with him leaving the club, whenever that may be. It could happen next summer, but it is hard to imagine him staying in any other capacity.

But there are more important things to think about today, and that is how to get the three points from a West Ham side likely to play football under Zola, rather than shutting up shop. Here’s to a good game, and three points.

Fenerbahce 2 (Silvestre og 19, Guiza 78) Arsenal 5 (Adebayor 10, Walcott 11, Diaby 21, Song 49, Ramsey 90)
(Champions League Match 3)

A crazy night in Istanbul has left Arsenal in a dominant position in Group G, needing just one more win to qualify with three games remaining, two of them at home. Going forward some of the football was absolutely scintillating, at the back there was less to write home about, but it made for a great spectacle.

Predictably, the atmosphere was electric, even though the hosts had made a dreadful start to their season, but two goals in two minutes silenced one of the loudest stadiums in Europe (Asia, technically). Both were cookie cutter goals, Fabregas first sliding Adebayor through, who avoided the offside Walcott to finish coolly, before Cesc then played the same pass to Walcott himself, the on-fire man rounding Volkan to make it two.

A hostile and tricky trip had just been 70% won, and had Nasri’s effort not been superbly saved moments later, it would’ve been over after a quarter of an hour. As it was, slack marking from a free kick allowed Guiza a free volley, the ball cannoning in off Silvestre, but any thoughts of a comeback were almost instantly repelled by a fine run and finish from Diaby, making his return to the starting lineup.

The second half saw Song, playing at centre back, smash home a great volley after awful defending from a free kick, Guiza beat the offside trap to pull one back, before Ramsey fired in off the post in injury time to score his first for the club. Hard to imagine that he only made his professional debut for Cardiff in January of this year.

From an attacking point of view, the performance was practically flawless. Five different goalscorers, some clinical finishing, and a wonderful display from sometimes unheralded players. Diaby, making his first start after injury, showed no signs of lacking fitness in a superb performance behind Adebayor. He caused problems all night with his dribbling, and looked far more the offensive threat than the holding midfielder he is often described as. That said, at times he filled in that role, and did so perfectly well. His adaptability could be a great help this season if he could just stay fit.

Cesc was magnificent again, setting the tone for the match with his two early killer passes, while Walcott scared the life out of their defence. Nasri was up and down, but his threat from wide positions was part of the reason their defence was so stretched, allowing Cesc to pass through them.

At the back, the story wasn’t so good. Silvestre and Song played a very high line, allowing Guiza to threaten the offside trap a number of times, and while this was obviously a ploy, they were sometimes very fortunate to get away with it after some poor positioning.

Silvestre was rusty, to say the least, while Song is looking more and more like a central midfielder with every game he plays in defence. He has come on leaps and bounds over the past two seasons, but although Gallas and Toure haven’t been up to their usual high standards recently, they will certainly be welcomed back.

A word though for Manuel Almunia, captain for the night. What a superb performance he put in - an early block set the tone, he acted as an alert sweeper all night, making a couple of cracking saves, and organised his makeshift defence well, even showing rare exasperation at the marking for their first goal. He was outstanding, and gave a true captain’s performance. Gallas, take note.

The final word goes to Eboue - he was also excellent, making a couple of very brave blocks (yes, really), before turning provider for Ramsey’s fifth in injury time. If he can keep that level of performance up, he really is going to change our minds about him.

Overall, the signs were very good, although tempered by the fragility of the defence. But make no mistake about it, five goals in Istanbul is some achievement, and even the home fans knew it, applauding our players off the pitch. One foot in the knockout stage means that the league takes priority again, with West Ham and then Spurs to play in the next week.

More about those games when they get closer, but enjoy the afterglow of another excellent display of attacking football. Dull we certainly aren’t.

Arsenal 3 (Nasri 48, Van Persie 70, Walcott 90) Everton 1 (Osman 9)

(Premiership)

For a long time, it wasn’t pretty, but a much improved second half performance saw the three points gained against an Everton side even lower on confidence than ours. An early strike from Leon Osman after some fairly lacklustre defending was followed by a half in which we created very little, and Everton could easily have scored a second. Some of the ‘challenges’ our players were putting in were incredibly token efforts, the sort that simply isn’t good enough at this level.

Much has been said about the selection, with Song bizarrely asked to play right back, but in truth no-one played up to their usual standard in that first half and the only consolation was the fact that Everton didn’t really taken advantage.

It could only get better, and it did. The second half began at a much quicker pace, and Nasri fired in the equaliser from outside the box after only a few minutes. It was the sort of goal we needed, coming from nowhere, and it was exactly the kind of goal Hleb would never score. That particular piece of business is proving excellent.

The goal flattened Everton who, remember, are on a terrible run, and the result wasn’t really a surprise from there on in. But before the goals were scored, there were some pretty appalling decisions by the referee.

Now, I’ve begun to notice something recently. I’m not usually one for conspiracy theories, but it does seem that sometimes the BBC decides that it wants to put a particular slant on a match. And I’ve noticed of late that dubious decision that don’t go our way aren’t usually shown on Match of the Day, almost as if they don’t want to give the impression we’re being unlucky, preferring their current ‘crisis’ angle.

And Saturday was the perfect example. Hibbert lunged in with a dangerous tackle, and then squared up to Clichy. Both were booked, but given that Hibbert’s reaction was worse than Clichy, and he made the terrible tackle, he should’ve seen red. The incident wasn’t shown.

Then, van Persie was blatantly hauled down in the area for one of the clearest penalties you’ll ever see. Again, the highlight was deemed not worthy of being shown on the BBC. Most odd.

It wasn’t to matter, Van Persie scoring with a rare header after Cesc’s shot had been blocked before Walcott put the icing on the cake in injury time after good combination work with Diaby.

The bad news was that Toure’s shoulder potentially has ligament damage, although the extent of the injury hasn’t been forthcoming. But overall, the second half display was very encouraging, especially given the patched together nature of the side.

Europe returns tonight, more on that shortly. Meanwhile, let’s all chuckle once again at Spurs. Just when you thought they couldn’t get any worse, they lose to the closest rivals and finish the game with nine men. Heh.

At last, we are back to club football after what has seemed like an eternally lasting international break. A good couple of weeks for England have coincided with another spate of injuries for Arsenal, with Gallas, Sagna and Bendtner all out of today’s match with Everton.

Van Persie has been passed fit though, and today would be a good day for he and Adebayor to click as they did against Porto. As Wenger says, with the next internationals months away, this is the start of the marathon, and kicking it off with an impressive win would build confidence and send the right message to the rest of the league.

Because as it stands, we are still being written off. Some were even claiming us to be out of title race after the Sunderland draw, ludicrous given that United were only a point better off this time last season, and went on to claim the league by more than that. But knee jerk reactions are something we have got very used to.

Back to today, and Everton are a much better team than their poor start suggests, and they won’t be easy. Having said that, nothing less than three points will do, and it is up to a couple of new names to make their mark. Silvestre is likely to make his debut with the absences at the back, and the thought of him pulling on an Arsenal shirt still seems bizarre to me. In midfield, Diaby is likely to feature at some point, making his first appearance of the season. It is a big year for the Frenchman - he has a real chance to earn himself that central midfield slot alongside Cesc, and to do that he needs to cut out the occasional laziness in his game.

Elsewhere, the team is pretty much as expected, and the good news from the Everton side is that Cahill is suspended, a welcome boost given his aerial ability and our utter fragility in that area. He would’ve been a real threat.

Enjoy the game.

Two seasons ago, there were two curses that struck the Arsenal team. One, we always conceded the first goal, and two, it was always an absolute screamer. Time and time again Lehmann would be beaten by a thirty yard thunderbolt.

Last season, the blinding goals dried up, before picking up again this season. We now only concede two types of goal - from corners, or from distance.

Is it any coincidence that in the season where those long rangers weren’t getting us down every week, we had a midfielder who harried their players into rushing everything they did, and increased the speed of the game to a point that left most of the opposition behind?

There is no mistaking the quality of Geovanni’s goal two weeks ago, but watch it again and you won’t see anyone making his life more difficult. Again, when Grant Leadbitter scorched one into Almunia’s net from 25 yards last week, Song had first given it away and then instead of making a challenge, stood off just ensuring he wouldn’t commit a foul.

Although Flamini may have prevented one or both of those goals, there is no point bemoaning his departure - he only broke into the side with a year left on his contract and had every right to move on in the summer, and through no fault of Wenger or anyone else. These things happen. But what we need to do is assess who can step into that role, because it made a massive difference while he was filling it so expertly.

Early season, it seemed Denilson was the surprising choice. He has added a bit of bite to his game over the last six months, but his positioning does still let him down, and he doesn’t add speed to the game at the moment, which is a little odd for a Brazilian. If Cesc were injured, he would surely move forward into the Spaniard’s role, a more natural fit for him.

As for Song, does anyone know yet whether he is seen, long term, as a central defender or defensive midfielder? It seems a different direction is taken every time the decision has been made. If he is to play that holding role, he certainly needs to add drive to his game, he is a little too lackadaisical to play like a pitbull. Diaby, whenever he is fit, could be accused of the same.

Vieira, Gilberto, Flamini - we’ve had a good run of holding midfielders over the last ten years, but right now we don’t have a natural successor. Aaron Ramsay looks the right sort, but is far too raw to be called.

The question for Wenger is whether he adjusts the structure to match the personnel. Cesc is as willing a runner as we have, but stuck in the Bergkamp role as he was last weekend he cannot control the centre of the park. Without him there, we lack energy. The alternative would be to push Toure forward, but that hits our second problem - a lack of cover in central defence.

Right now, as I see it, we have no Flamini, so the onus is on those that remain to raise their game as he did last season. Song can tackle and he can create, but he needs to play with more fire if he is to protect our sometimes shaky back four.

Because if we keep letting Premiership players time to take aim from 25 yards, we’ll be out of the title race by Christmas.

Three days after a home defeat to Hull shook the club to its core is not a good time to face Arsenal, or any big club for that matter. The top clubs tend to respond to adversity, or a bad result, by taking it out on their next opponents, and with Porto having such an abysmal record in England (the only previous time they had avoided defeat was that draw against United when Mourinho danced down the touchline), it was all set up for a recovery night at the Emirates.

And so it proved, but a great deal of thanks for that must go to Porto themselves, who were utterly dreadful. It says a lot about the Portuguese league that they can be so dominant in their own country yet play in Europe and look so horribly inept.

It could have been different - the first half an hour was actually quite tight, but once Van Persie had slid home the opener all the fight went out of Porto. It was precisely the opposite reaction to Hull’s at the weekend, and they got exactly what was coming to them. Both strikers ended the game with a brace, and with Cesc and Walcott running riot this was exactly the tonic everyone needed after the wake up call that Hull had given.

It is difficult to read too much into the match though, and it shouldn’t be said that this marked a complete recovery, because Porto were so utterly dreadful that what looked like a tricky Champions League group should now be a walk in the park. After all, Porto actually won their opening game, a feat that is unexplainable after seeing some of their woeful defending the other night.

But it certainly was a timely confidence booster to some, especially the pairing of Adebayor and Van Persie up front, whose goals should have eased the pressure on them a little. Vela again impressed in a late cameo, showing he could be a game turner from the bench this season.

A draw in Kiev and a 4-0 win at home is a great start to the European campaign, and the Carling Cup is again looking like an entertaining distraction. It is in the league that slip ups must now be avoided.