Winning dirty with a bit of style



Dominant...Djourou winning in the air against Everton's Saha

 A veteran of countless title showdowns involving Arsenal and Manchester United now reckons that the Gunners are well-equipped to lift their first title since 2004.
Everton’s Phil Neville put aside personal allegiances earlier in the week to declare the readiness of the Gunners to end their silverware drought. Having witnessed at close quarters the damage this current crop of Gunners can inflict, last Sunday, he deemed it timely to anoint them capable pretenders to the throne currently occupied by Chelsea.
It must have been sweet music to the ears of Arsene Wenger who has worked hard and tirelessely to build up this squad to its present state. Along the way, he has stubbornly and tenaciously held-on to the principles that helped him forge his reputation. His particular brand of football that combines high-pressing passing, en masse movement and what World War II Germany was famously known for – blitzkrieg.
An Alsatian, whose family migrated from Germany to Strasbourg in France after the second World War, Wenger has maintained a blind, sometimes infuriating faith in his methods and the players he has chosen to put that method into practice. After years of stop-start failures, minimal success and a yawning treasure room, it now looks like he will be vindicated at last.
Neville captained Everton to last Sunday’s 2-1 defeat at home to Arsenal and saw how the visitors refused to be bullied and rather, imposed their game on the hosts and roiunded it up,with precision finishing in front of goal.


“You always fancy yourself to rough them up”, he confessed. “But we couldn't do it, and that's where they have improved. You could see the difference. We have always caused them problems with our energy before. They haven't been able to cope, but they did this time. They were deserved winners”.

It brought back memories of the years of the ‘Invincibles’; the Patrick Vieiras, Fredrik Ljungbergs, Ray Parlours, Kolo Toures and Thierry Henrys. Men mountains who happened to be footballers. Colossal figures who bestrode the landscape of English football. Vieira once said that at the height of their powers, the Invincibles often attempted to beat teams in the first 20-30 minutes, and spend the rest of the game passing the ball around.
In those times, Arsenal maintained an embarrassingly vice-like grip on all – yes, all – London clubsides in the premiership by never losing to any of them for many, many years. All London clubs including Chelsea, Tottenham as well as of course WestHam, Crystal Palace, Charlton Athletic.
This present squad are not there yet, but the foundations are firmly in place.
When you develop a fearlessness away from your own turf and believe in your ability to go anywhere and win, then you are to be handled with care. And awe.
So far this season, after 13 games, the Gunners have won four away matches, drawn twice and only lost once. The manner of the draws against Liverpool and Sunderland suggested that we could – with a little bit of luck – have snatched wins. The nature of the four wins demand respect if for no other reason, but for the fact they were recorded in notoriously difficult terrain. Against Manchester City, Blackburn, Wolves and Everton. Those are not places for the faint-hearted and for all their skill and talents, the one ingredient – fighting spirit – which the Gunners have always been accused of lacking seem to have been added to the mix at last.
As we have seen season after season, titles are often won and lost in such backwater, less-glamorous settings, faraway from home and in hostile, miserable conditions that test the mettle of visiting teams and push their resilience to the limits.
Maybe Wenger cannot truly teach defence. Maybe not. But long as he’s got the right men to do the job for him, he need not fret over the perceived inadequacies that are often mentioned about his teams. In men like Koscielny and Squillaci, he has acquired battle-tested hardmen who have stood up admirably well to all the intimidation that comes with defending in the rough and tumble of the premiership. Whatever you may think about them both, I’ve been impressed with their application to the job.
The only other defender schooled by Wenger, the young, injury-prone Johan Djourou has invariably been forced to up his game. Wenger has always believed in him. It was why he separated him from the fumbling Philippe Senderos and sent the latter first on loan to AC Milan and later to Everton before selling him to Fulham last summer.
After persevering with Djourou for years, it is most-heartening to see him now living up to that trust. He has seen two ready-made defenders come in over the summer and known that it had to be now or never for him as regards a career at Arsenal.
A one-time Swiss international, who appeared in the 2006 World Cup finals before falling out of favour and reckoning, he has stepped up to the plate in all the games he’s played so far this season. Pushing things further, he has emerged as a fighter and bulwark of defence using his giant frame to maximum effect and it is no surprise that the Ivorian-born who turns 24 next January has played more games already this season, than he did in the past 14 months. What a remarkable change of fortune!
The likes of Chamakh, Fabregas, Walcott and Nasri may be hugging the limelight and taking all the plaudits that come with goalscoring, but it is the dirty work done at the back by someone like Djourou, alongside Koscielny, Squillaci, Song and Vermaelen (whenever he returns) that will significantly determine our title hopes this season.
So well have they been doing the dirty work that a disciple of defending like Phil Neville has been impressed.

Has Newcastle defined our season?

 

Leading from the front....Fabregas scoring the winner against Everton


Since the opening day 1-1 draw away to Liverpool, we’ve not got anything out of a game after falling behind. That tendency, or failure, or flaw has punctuated our season so far and almost blighted what we all hoped would be the start of something glorious
But how quickly things change in the crazy world of football. Who would have thought after that gutting defeat by Newcastle at the Emirates, that we would now be sitting in second spot, just two mere points behind ‘mighty Chelsea’?
Against Newcastle, heads seemed to drop too easily. Spirits seemed to ebb away too quickly. Legs tended to become heavier too willingly and the malaise spread from the stands onto the pitch; everyone in the stadium got sucked into a depressing vortex of conceeding defeat cheaply.
I feared at that time, that quite unlike our perennial rivals Manchester United and Chelsea, we suddenly had picked up the bad habit of giving up too meekly.
There’s a rather intelligent saying amongst church-going folk, that an army of sheeps led by a lion, would always defeat an army of lions led by a sheep. Smart talk ay?
Which is why we have to look again and closely at the leadership of this team.
We surely haven’t forgotten all the brouhaha and hell-raising of the summer when Barcelona tried their utmost to lure Cesc Fabregas away from us. We couldn’t have forgotten how nerve-wrenchingly long it took for Fabregas himself to come out and pledge his loyalty to the club. That in itself spoke volumes of the torment and soul-searching he was going through. It’s a short career for sportsmen – footballers inclusive - and despite all the mind-numbing riches and unbelievable fame that attends their profession, the real legacy and chest-thumping moment they will cherish most when it’s all over are the trophies, the medals, the silverware they managed to reap.
So far, Fabregas has only one miserable looking FA Cup medal to show for all his seven odd years at Arsenal. In between, he has won two very major titles with Spain – something most players will never achieve in three lifetimes. But at club level, the barreness is not just looking like a permament thing, it is looking like becoming endemic and most dangerously, it is becoming accepted. When your club manager starts talking of third place in the league, being a ‘success’ for a club as famous and rich in history like Arsenal, that might be the signal for everyone in the house to re-assess their commitment.
At such a young age, Fabregas has done so much – sometimes I think too much – for Arsenal. Of course he has been well-rewarded and must be one of the top ten richest 23 year-olds in world sports. But if you have studied him carefully all these years, you will not fail to notice that he is hugely and fiercely ambitious.
So often in the past three seasons, the young Catalan has dragged us almost single-handedly from the brink of gaping defeats onto sweet heights of victory. He has put his fragile body on the line so many times that we’ve lost count, in a quest for success. He has been forced to grow up fast in the midfield following the enforced departure of established names like Ray Parlour, Gilberto and the mercurial Patrick Vieira. The examples are countless but his performances and goals against Manchester United at Old Trafford on September 17, 2006 where we beat the Mancunians through a Fabregas-Adebayor combo in the last minutes must stand out. In that category, add AC Milan at San Siro on March 4, 2008; Tottenham at the Emirates in October, 2009; and Aston Villa also at the Emirates, December 27 last year when he rose from the bench on one leg to destroy the Villans in 26 minutes and retired limping from the pitch.
In all his days at Arsenal, Fabregas has epitomized the spirit of the all-conquering Invincibles whose never-say-die attitude took them throughout an entire season unbeaten. Fabregas was a fringe member of that squad and was schooled in the art of never giving up.
Many iconic leaders of men bear that trait and it is what separates them from mere mortals. No war, no battle, no contest – sporting or otherwise – ever goes perfectly to plan, simply because there will always be unforeseen developments in the heat of the moment. There will be mistakes since we are human. There will be miscalculations. There will be surprises. There will be things like weather and nature which are beyond human control. And most importantly, there is the over-riding factor of the unpredictability of the enemy. The best laid-plans are always, always at the mercy of the enemy due to the simple fact that we never know the enemy’s own plans as well.
It is the same principles that govern football. But with a team led by a lion, you stand a good chance of overcoming whatever the enemy comes up with.
Wenger had little hesitation in enthroning Fabregas as captain in the winter of 2008 after William Gallas descended into unwarranted personality clashes and finger-pointing. For such a bold move, he deserves praise. The master has had no reason since then, to regret the decision because the pupil has delivered and led the team by example.
There has been criticism since the departure of Tony Adams and Patrick Vieira, that Arsenal has been reduced to a team of sissies, without a shouting, Sergeant-Major-type captain to scream at malfunctioning teammates and knock heads together. Someone like Adams, or Roy Keane who would take umbrage at any laxity and confront teammates seen to be shirking in their responsibilities. Thierry Henry and Gilberto were seen as too weak. Gallas? Too temperamental and unpredictable. Fabregas? Too intense and surely not a talker, least of all a shouter.
What he lacks though in vocal ability, he makes up for by his exemplary fighting spirit. Against Newcastle however, he wasn’t at the races. He couldn’t find his range of passing. He was easily outmuscled and shuffled off the ball by the duo of Kevin Nolan and Cheik Tiote. Granted that he hit the bar with an exquisite freekick, that had it gone in would have changed the dynamics of the match, he still looked frustrated and unhappy. And so as the game wore on and became a siege, his lack of spirit transmitted to other teammates and we found ourselves mired in an unyielding armwrestle. At a time when everyone looked up to the captain for direction, passion and spirit, we got a tired man who looked like he didn’t want to be there any longer.
Seasons are won and lost on moments and games like the Newcastle match. No team wins all games. Not all games are won on strolls. No team equally scores first in all games. When a team concedes and falls behind, it is then that its true character comes to the fore. Not when they are hammering the opposition with five, six goals or when the opposition are one man down.
But events since that game has shown that in Fabregas, we may yet have a leader of men with mettle and grit to lead this team out of a prolonged hiatus. His manly performances against Wolves and Everton this past week clearly showed where his heart lies – putting aside all the shenanigans of Barcelona over the summer.
Fighting back from the brink is what has made Manchester United respected, famous and feared. They demonstrated it once again against Wolves and Aston Villa over the past week. We used to have that quality in abundance as well, even sometimes with ten men. Backs-to-the-wall wins in notoriously-difficult places like Molineux and Goodison Park seem to have re-ignited that spirit.
It was so heartening to see the way and manner Fabregas has led his group out of adversity. It has been re-assuring to see how we responded from that Newscastle loss to save our season.
November used to be a luckless month for us where for some strange reason we never got it right. If that was really the case, no one has told this bunch of lions.
In the space of one week, we have been transformed from no-hopers, into real contenders for the title. Thanks to Newcastle it seems, we have re-discovered our mojo.

Everton 1 Arsenal 2



Collector's item...Sagna screams his delight as Squillaci offers a helping hand

We bulldozed our way back into second spot at a a very unlikely place, Goodison Park on Sunday afternoon with a very handy 2-1 win against Everton.
Two sweet strikes by an unlikely Bacary Sagna and Cesc Fabregas either side of the first half got the maximum points for us and though Everton managed a riposte through Tim Cahill in the 88th minute, we held on to a very vital and crucial win in what is now becoming an intriguing title race.
Just as was the case at Molineux, four days earlier, crucial saves by the fast-improving Lukasz Fabianski was the platform on which our fourth away win of the season was built on.
He stopped at least five goal-bound shots in the second half to prevent an Everton fightback and enhanced his reputation to the limits.
More than anything else though, was the eventual capitulation of log leaders, Chelsea later in the day to Sunderland, which now reduces the gap between we and them to a miniscule two points. What a win. And what a fortunate turn of events all weekend to make the win all the more sweeter.


Below are the ratings to help describe the match better,


• Fabianski (8/10) – Simply put, he played a blinder. I could recollect him making point blank saves from Jermaine Beckford, Steven Piennar, Loius Saha and Jack Rodwell. He has truly turned the corner and must now be seriously considered as our new number one even if the luckless Almunia returns from injury. His overall command of his area and confidence rubbed off on his teammates as he steeped up to the plate in the second half when Everton bombarded us with shots raining in from every angle. After all the fierce criticism he’s faced in the past year, this has been the best kind of response from him.
• Clichy (6/10) – Did well whenever pressurized especially in the early minutes of the game when Everton seized the initiative. He initially found the marauding Seamus Coleman a handful but settled well as the game progressed and we took control.
• Djourou (8/10) – Another bloke who played out of his skin. He stood up to all the aerial balls pumped into our area by Everton as the hosts tried to make the best use of Cahill’s aerial abilities. Djourou outjumped everyone and also put in some crucial tackles around the edge of the box. So good was he that Fabianksi hardly had any save to make all through the entire fisrt half. He has filled in admirably whenever called upon and methinks he has a big, big future long as he exorcises the demons of injury.
• Squillaci (7/10) – You have to admire the all round ability of this well-travelled Frenchman. Watching him go about his job makes you wonder why we held onto the departed Mikel Silvestre for so long. His replacement, Squillaci, has proved a far better alternative to the hesitant defending of his countryman. He was more withdrawn than Djourou which isn’t surprising considering the difference in years, but all in all he helped keep the dangerous duo of Cahill and Saha quiet – until the 88th minute at least.
• Sagna (8/10) – Whatever you say about this match, Sagna’s goal will always get prominent mention. Only his second goal for us since coming here three seasons ago, this one was sweet as it was crucial. Receiving the ball from Arshavin in the 36th minute on the edge of the Everton area, he dummied past Mikel Arteta before unleashing a fierce howitzer. So brutal and powerful was the shot that Tim Howard in goal only reacted after the ball had hit the net. Sagna’s reward for his endless overlapping runs could not have been more emphatic. How happily he celebrated and how grateful his teammates all were to share in his special moment. More of that hopefully, from Mr Bacary.
• Song (7/10) – As usual, he shielded the back four with panache and calmness. Never stopped running. Never stopped tackling and his role was crucial in stiffling the likes of Arteta and Pienaar who enjoy running from the deep. He almost scored himself in the first half with his new-found attacking confidence by unleashing a shot from distance. Top marks though to a player who’s fighting spirit always propels the team.
• Wilshire (5/10) – His appearance was only for 45 minutes but in that time, he did all the usual things he’s known for very well. Switched play with the confidence of a seasoned pro and his trickery proved too much for their hatchetman, John Heitinga who couldn’t resist tugging and fouling the young Englishman. Wilshire was withdrawn in the second half with the intention to protect him from such rough handling.
• Nasri (7/10) – The little Frenchman was also full of running and drive and was denied twice from scoring after good link up plays. Firstly, a last ditch Sylvain Distin block thwarted him in the first half and in the second, his 40 yard sprint past Phil Jagielka was almost rewarded with a goal if not for the timely intervention of Howard. Nonetheless, he never tired of running into space and looking for outlets. A useful jack-in-the-box player, whose bag of tricks and intelligence makes him a handful for defences.
• Fabregas (7/10) – The captain was ontop of proceedings here. He played a very forward role, as second striker thus allowing him to express himself in an advanced position. Scored with a first shot in the 46th minute to seal the match and almost set up Chamakh later in the game with a cross field pass behind the Everton defence. He has soldiered on masterly and led his troops with distinction since overcoming a troublesome hamstring problem. It was good to see his trademark smile flashed all round at the end of what was surely a worthy win.
• Arshavin (7/10) – Despite not scoring, he could not be accused of not applying himself. Following on the Wolves game, this was another stellar performance from the Russian bear. Though supposedly used as a left winger, he switched positions endlessly and it was such adaptability that produced the first goal, which he laid on for Sagna to smash home. Could this new tendency to drift across the pitch be a new ploy by Wenger to maximize his talents? We wait and see.
• Chamakh (6/10) – Not at the top of his game for this one but nonetheless, he did enough to justify his reputation. He was continually taking up good positions and profited a lot from balls from the midfield. Was at the end of a Fabregas pass from the flank which he jabbed over the bar with the goalkeeper beaten. Was also involved in a cute one-two that produced the Fabregas goal.


Substitutes
• Denilson (7/10) – For a substitute, he gets a good rating for his interception and passing that immediately produced the second goal. He resisted well the Everton midfield and proved a more resilient alternative to Wilshire. Seems to enjoy playing on this ground, considering that he scored a long range effort here, last year in a 6-1 rout.
• Rosicky (6/10) – Came on for Arshavin and helped us withstand the growing threat of Everton as the game wore on.
• Eboue (5/10) – Replaced Chamakh late in the game as Wenger preferred to close shop and we held onto our two goal lead.

Once again, we forced our way back into the title calculations and made a statement regarding our aspirations for this season. As noted in the last blog, Goodison Park is one of the most-intimidating grounds in the league and their day, Everton have ben known to crush many a title-winning sides. Credit to us the way we withstood them and slowly imposed our game on them. It was a win that will go a long to determine where we end up come May.