Thursday 17 September 2009

Brazilian defending is killing us

Game of two halves. Jekyll and Hyde Arsenal. we’ve heard it all before and saw it again last night in Belgium.

I didn’t see any of the game until this morning when I caught the highlights on ATVO, only listened to the first twenty minutes on the radio while driving to the rink for training. My journey consisted of lots of swearing, some highly erratic and aggressive driving, and whatever c**t who was on 5live last night reminding us that we were two down every minute and a half as well as calculating Liege’s goal total if they carried on their scoring rate from the first 5 minutes. And to think my licence fee pays for these t***ers!!!

Again, like the City game at the weekend, we looked good in possession and going forward, but my god are we lacking at the back. Simple mistakes like Eduardo’s, poor marking (like for Bellamy’s goal at Eastlands), not helping protect the back four (any game with Diaby playing) is causing us to haemorrhage goals, nine in our last four games to be precise.

While we acquired the impressive Tommy Vermaelen over the summer the same problems remain. Clichy is error prone and often left exposed and we still have no competent and consistent defensive midfielder to win the ball and protect the back four.

On the plus side from last night, Bendtner played well and I suppose coming back from two down away from home in a hostile atmosphere shows the character of the team. Yes, we got lucky with Song’s offside handball before Vermaelen’s goal, but we’ve had some pretty crappy luck go against us in the last few weeks, so its swings and roundabouts there. Plus Eddy proved that “divegate” is well and truly behind him, poaching the winner with his knee with nine minutes remaining.

However, at the end of the day, it should have been easier against Standard, right?

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