Up For Grabs Now

Amid the understandable brouhaha over Adebayor’s delicious overhead kick, photographed in all it’s glory here, it has yet to be pointed out that this may well be the very first time during the Wenger reign that an Arsenal player has scored an overhead kick. Truly a momentous effort then.

Some will surely point to Eduardo’s chest-and-volley-on-the-swivel against City last season, but in my view that’s exactly what it was – an ingenious over the shoulder effort which can’t quite be classified as a thoroughbred overhead kick in the Ronaldinho/Crouch mould.

If you can think of others do put them in the comments, it may be that I’ve forgotten some gem or other.

It’s been one of my odder gripes over the past few seasons that we haven’t had players who were that keen to score overhead kicks. Sure, Thierry had a go once or twice, and there was never any doubt that we had players who were technically proficient enough to pull it off. For me, it’s an attitude thing. Wenger’s boys are all about crisp finishes into the bottom corner having bamboozled the entire defence in the build up. 

At their best, it’s more about running it in than walking it in, but this doesn’t involve a lot of crossing and when the ball does go in the air, our players immediately try to bring it down again to pass to a team-mate. The glorious thing about the overhead kick is that it is a desperate measure, a moment when tactics and team-mates go out the window, when all the player is thinking about is getting a shot in, however difficult that might be. And while having such intelligent players is fantastic, you do miss that impulsive, score-at-all-costs instinct that Ade showed on Tuesday.

While we’re on the topic, here’s the greatest overhead-kick I’ve ever seen. 88 minutes gone in their last game of the season, 2-2 against Valencia and needing the win to qualify for the Champions’ League, Rivaldo (having already scored both his team’s goals) produced this.

I want to see some of that from Eboue in the Champions’ League final, and then I want to see Peter Hill-Wood imitating the bloke at 0.10 in that clip. Top exultation from that man.

Moving on, it’s looking like Manuel our Spanish waiter goalkeeper will be sidelined with Le Gal for a wee while, which means Lukasz Fabianski has the chance to impress. Its a big chance for him, too. He’s been patiently chalking up cup appearances, and though he’s 24 he seems to have a good attitude and a commitment to biding his time and making it at Arsenal. He looked sharp on Tuesday and if he needs inspiration he need only remember Alex Manninger, who famously came into our 1998 side and performed heroically. Not that doing similar would necessarily mean we’d have to ship him off to Fiorentina, either.

With Djourou looking good, I hope we won’t miss Le Gal too much (though it would be very nice indeed if his injury turned out to be less serious than it looked), and with Silvestre on his way back we should have everything nothing to worry about.

Finally, if I was a betting man, which I might be, I’d haul my considerable crease onto Betfair and buy up some odds on a Liverpool comeback at Stamford Bridge. They need three goals, but they got four at Old Trafford and will, crucially, be attacking a Terry-less Chelsea, a team which often loses at home to very bad teams indeed. Plus if you do it on Betfair you can wait til Liverpool go a goal up and the odds swing enormously back towards them, sell some of your stake, and hopefully win whatever happens. Easy. Just don’t blame UpForGrabsNow if it all goes tits up.

I love European nights, don’t you?

I think on reflection no Arsenal fan can be unhappy with getting away with 1-1 last night. In a tense match we were absolutely bossed for the first 45 minutes, particularly after Marcos Senna scored a stonker of a goal that Almunia, injury or no, didn’t really have a chance with. People will say Song should have closed him down but you can’t really legislate for that kind of strike, and on the whole Song had a good game. There’s something of the Gilberto about him, in that he doesn’t appear to do a whole lot but is very often doing something sensible, and appearing at useful moments. He’s also got a nice line in the subtle robust-clatter-from-behind-on-skillful-opposition-midfielder, which we’ve been missing in the middle of the park for some time now. Good to see. Man’s game, and all that. We’re seeing there’s more to Song than just a fragrance-modeller.

Other than that the first half didn’t have much to recommend it from an Arsenal point-of-view. Their lot passed it around neatly, and were getting in behind the defenders quite effectively. I wonder if that’s a tactical thing about European sides that’s not a problem in the domestic league – anyway, we looked quite vulnerable, and Gallas and Toure were doing a bit of their terrifying ‘you get it’ ‘no, you get it’ double act. We were pretty lucky only to be one down – Fabianski when he came on made a great save at his post – was my conclusion from the first half.

We did manage to get the ball in the net, after Cesc took a quick free quick, but he promptly got booked for his trouble, though that was only because Ray Wilkins was refereeing, and as we all know, Ray Wilkins with his Chelsea allegiances was after revenge for Thierry’s successful use of the quick free quick all those years ago.

The second half was much better – we came at them much more convincingly, and then, all of a sudden, we scored. I thought it was very good of ITV, given that I was watching the game in order to see it live, to show, rather than the scoring of the goal, Adebayor wheeling away in celebration. However, the replays confirmed that it was  a cracking finish – a quasi bicycle kick, and the third Cesc-Adebayor combo goal in two matches. Those two must have been having secret practise sessions while they were injured, building up a ‘relationship’.

When I was a boy I tried heavily to emphasise the importance of having a ‘relationship’ with a strike partner. I saw myself playing in the hole, banging balls in from behind so my chum only had to balance himself, pull the trigger and finish the job. As I got older I tried to stop choosing my words so poorly, but it is nice to see the direct stuff working. In fact if anyone was guiltiest of Islington Shuffle last night it was the Spaniards; thankfully they won’t be able to do that sort of thing when they come round our gaff, as they have to score, which means that we’ll have more chances. Yum. 

So in conclusion. Positives: 1-1. Cesc. Song. Ade(bits), Toure/Djourou looking ok. Fabianski. Pires’ reception from the away gooners – I can’t wait for when he appears at the Emirates. Last minute Porto equaliser against United.

Negatives: Ray Wilkins being the referee. Injuries to Almunia and Gallas. Marcos Senna being excellent at football. Villarreal looking pretty competent generally.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading. Tell your friends.

Having endured the inevitable United comeback yesterday, there are now 6 points between us and a mentally lacerated Villa with 7 games remaining. We can now justifiably turn our full attention to the Champions’ League – and with some hope I think.

Villarreal away tomorrow night, sans Jens, but with the promise of the chance to burst United’s bloated bubble big-style in the semi-finals. There can be no failure now.

These are not opponents to be underestimated, though, and they will take a bit of beating. In the group stage they held United to 0-0 draws home and away, and they came through their second round by getting the win they needed away at Panathanaikos, no easy place to go.

The superlative Tim Vickery has an excellent profile of their manager and a few of their top players. Definitely worth a read.

They are a club, like Arsenal, which does things a bit differently. One of these things seems to be their commitment to fluid, attacking football, which I hope will mean that we spend the tie launching blistering counter-attacks, rather than simply scrapping in the odd goal from a corner after 180 solid minutes of Islington Shuffling, as is too often the case.

Always more exciting when they attack too, eh? We also seem to defend considerably better against teams who attack, so hopefully Villarreal’s style will bring the best out of our boys and we’ll see a bit of Wengerball.

Speaking of our boys, there’ll be no RvP, no Diaby, no Eduardo and, astonishingly, no Rosicky.

If Arsene was thinking of doing anything other than a 4-5-1, that list could have done some of his decision making for him. He can play Bendtner up top with Ade, or else he can play 4-5-1, (with Bendtner on the wing if he really must).

Having seen Cesc chillin out max on Saturday, basking on the Denilson-Song midfield platform, I’d like to see a similar line-up, with Nasri in for Arshavin if he’s fit. I would expect Theo to start wide right, but wouldn’t be too surprised to see Eboue come in.

Our change in fortunes has seen a remarkable cooling of the raging tide of hatred and vitriol which used to be habitually spewed at Messrs Eboue and Song by certain squawling siblings amongst the internet fraternity. In the bleakest days of this season, I defended our squad and Wenger’s management at a time when the media was telling us that all was lost, and was attacked for being completely uncritical of Wenger. The acid test for my stupidity? “Won’t you criticise Wenger for anything? Do you think Alex Song is a good player?”

Now no-one’s saying that he’s Vieira, or that he’s some sort of club legend, but there seems to be a growing realisation that when he’s on form, he can do a job for us. How times change. Eboue, too, has turned opinion round spectacularly in recent weeks with some strong attacking performances, a few goals and a general avoidance of self-imposed mishap. Perhaps this is because he isn’t getting a starting place very often any more. When it gets to 60 minutes and people start wondering who’s on the bench, some have even been suggesting that (whisper this) perhaps it might be an idea to bring on Eboue.

Amid all the talk of facing up to Bobby Pires, a word, if you will for the forgotten man of Arsenal’s Invincibles, Pascal Cygan, a willing servant of the club during his short spell at Highbury who is still remembered for a number of breathtaking examples of elite-level defending. In fairness, on his day he wasn’t actually that bad and by all accounts he has enjoyed something of a transformation since joining Villarreal. But if it’s not his day tomorrow then we could be in for some fun.

Well that was nice, wasn’t it? Two players back from injury, Cesc and Ade. Cesc gets two assists, Ade two goals, and suddenly we’re six points into the Champions League places, with Villa still to play United later today. Can’t ask for much more than that really can you?

Well, I suppose in theory you could ask for a golden bed that popped out the starlet of the day holding a Crunchie bar and a cold beer, but that would be rather beyond Arsene Wenger’s remit, so we’ll leave it and be happy with the game yesterday, in which we were comfortable, convincing and which boded very well for the crucial game against Villarreal on Tuesday.

So all in all a glorious Sunday morning to wake up to, thanks very much team. Now just as long as Villa can draw or lose to United – any thoughts on what you’d prefer? Then the whole thing will be capped off very nicely indeed.

After his stonker of a comeback Cesc moved to silence the transfer stories, and this blog, who yesterday wondered aloud about his fondness for Pep Guardiola. All I can say is Cesc Fabregas is a bigger man than I am, but you’d probably guessed that already.

The only other news is that the People thinks we’re in for a £12m 18 year old Everton defender Jack Rodwell. All I’ll say is to remind you of the first part of that statement, the one involving ‘the People thinks that’ bit, and suggest you rest easy. A young, good central defender would be no bad thing at some point, but that some point is not going to be the summer at the earliest.

Although it has grabbed my attention that they refer to him in the article as a ‘starlet’. would like to reassure readers that when I hypothesised the golden bed scenario my starlet was a woman largely in the mould of Jessica Alba, and that the crunchie was large.

Have a good Sunday, y’all. More to come about Villarreal later.

Man City this afternoon, in a game we ought to win, particularly with the absence of Stephen Ireland, who though clearly a wanker has nonetheless scored my fantasy team a lot of points this season. City have failed to deceive, or rather failed to built any further deception on the early promise of a season with Robinho et al. Robinho, despite bumping into Mark Hughes oversized forehead about his ‘star’ status, looks like he’ll just about be back, and he’s famously good at football, but fingers crossed the cack-handed ten around him will conspire not to give him any chances, as per usual.

In our news we have no RvP, Eduardo, Diaby or Sam Nasri. If you want a fun matchday game, play ‘spot the player from that list we’ll least miss’. I’d have thought the team will look something like this:

Almunia

Sagna Toure Gallas Clichy

Walcott Denilson Fabregas(yay) Arshavin

Adebayor Bendtner

Though I wouldn’t be surprised to see Theo start on the bench with Eboue on the right instead. And you never know when Alex Song is going to appear.

Particularly exciting, you’ll agree, is Arshavin and Cesc together for the first time. Funny, isn’t it, how the return of the injuries + Arshavin makes us look so much more like a good football team than we were before.

The Joan Laporta/Cesc Fabregas thing is not really worth commenting on, only to reiterate what I’ve said before about I think Cesc has a few things he wants to achieve at Arsenal before he heads to Barcelona, namely winning some stuff, and probably winning some stuff as captain. He’ll be here for at least another season or two, I’m sure. My only slight worry is that he probably would love to play under Pep Guardiola as manager (the guy was his idol as a player), and with Spanish managers in and out like a bishop in a brothel it’s difficult to say how long this dream combo for him will last. Anyway, just a bit of pessimism. It might be bollocks. The stuff we write usually is.

Three points today, please, and we’ve got six ahead of Villa before they capitulate to United tomorrow, and it’s a sunny, sunny weekend.

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