Up For Grabs Now

Arsenal 1 Dynamo Kiev 0

Well thank heavens for that. One nil to the Arsenal, and have you ever been more relieved to hear those words? Unconvincing, certainly, and I suspect there were a few hearts in mouths during the second half. With Porto winning we’ve cemented our position in the last sixteen of the Champions League, and also secured ourselves a semi-dead rubber in Portugal.

Thoughts?

Positives: The win. Cesc’s first match as captain a victory, and a strong performance from him. Gallas getting his head down and doing a job, though he looked shaky at times. Almunia’s save in the second half. Vela’s brightness in the first half, a bit of breathing space before business resumes in earnest on Sunday. Young Jack Wilshere looking as promising as usual. Comedy opposition sending off – ‘headless chicken kiev’?

Negatives: The shakiness we’ve seen in recent games, particularly in the back half of midfield and defence, was still there. Chelsea, not to mention the other big European teams, will hardly be quaking in their boots at the thought of playing our team. Still, we’ve got players to come back, and morale will pick up. Denilson is not a winger.

So. Things to correct. A good night for the Arsenal. What do you reckon? 

In the wake of the gamut of guff being spun about Cesc’s appointment, Up For Grabs Now would like to single out for special attention Arsenal’s erstwhile left-back, Gael Clichy,

In this player’s loveable heart, head and legs lies the beating essence of Arsene Wenger’s philosophy as a football manager. He is as quick as the wind, skilful, attack-minded and young. So far, so erratic Arsenal. But what separates Gael from the rest, and what’s been clear since he joined, is that he will give his all every time he steps onto the pitch. When all around him players are dropping or giving up, Clichy will be there chasing, harassing and driving forward. How many times have we seen him, having run all game, collect the ball in the 80^th minute only to go stampeding up the wing, surprising his own teammates as much as the helpless, exhausted opposing right midfielder? It doesn’t seem to matter whether we are winning or losing – as long as he is on the pitch in an Arsenal shirt he will keep fighting.

This is not to say he never makes mistakes: he had a bad game against Man City at the weekend, and he was responsible for Tottenham’s crucial third goal. Last season it was the penalty he conceded against Birmingham that marked the beginning of the end of our season. Unlike William Gallas he got up, shook himself down and went back to the fight. All players are going to make mistakes, particularly at the start of their careers. This is particularly going to be the case in an attacking team like Arsenal, where movement and speed are prioritised. The difference with Gael is that he always looks willing to learn from his errors, and to atone for them.

As I have written, he was my pick for captain. In hindsight it’s easy to see it was always going to be Fabregas, and I’ve no doubt Cesc will be a great leader of the club. One wonders what Clichy would have made of the talk he would be made captain. No doubt he would be too modest ever to accept the possibility, or at least to say so.

His response to the captaincy announcement was typical of what we’ve come to expect. He addressed some of the expected criticism about Cesc’s age and experience, and made the comparison with Tony Adams which will warm the hearts of gooners everywhere. But more than that he dealt with the Gallas situation, and restated the support he feels from the whole squad. True or not, it is exactly the message of unity the club needs to project at the moment. Even if we suggest cynically that the words were put into his mouth, a PR department could not wish for a finer spokesperson. Gael Clichy, this blog salutes you.

On to other matters, and this evening we face Dynamo Kiev, a game which could cement our place in the next round of the Champions League. With our league form as it is, the European competition is crucial, and a cup run can build a head of steam which carries over into the league. If Gallas, by the end of last week, had become a dividing force in the dressing, here’s to hoping Cesc can launch the new-look squad afresh and let them unleash their baby-faced potential on the world. We’re still missing key players, but I’ve no doubt the importance of the game won’t be lost on the side. One wonders sometimes if the European game holds, for the foreign imports, the magic which the FA Cup holds for English players. It certainly might explain our recent superior form on the continent.

It will also be interesting to see how Gallas responds. Who doesn’t want him to unleash his full defensive majesty on the game and respond to the abuse he’s endured with his feet? I know I do. If he can accept his role in the team and calm down, there’s no reason he can’t play a part for many more games to come, but he needs to knuckle down and get on with it.

Time to silence the critics, Arsenal.

P.S. We wish to apologise to Le Grove and its many, many readers for any offence we may have caused yesterday. We may have the given the completely true utterly false impression that he was mad. We now realise the error of our ways, as he has conclusively proven himself to be a visionary  genius with his revolutionary 2-4-4 formation for Arsenal’s future. What’s more, his 2-4-4 formation includes Bacary Sagna, hitherto understood to be quite injured. I daresay an explanation will be on its way. Perhaps he knows a guy who knows a guy. 

Here is the link: www.le-grove.co.uk

It couldn’t really have been much messier, but today Arsenal have a new captain and it’s the one most people wanted: it’s Fabregas. Because of the circumstances, he’s not really being allowed much fanfare – Wenger’s grouchy “I don’t have to explain why” and Arsenal.com’s silence on the subject are a bit moody and not particularly Arsenal, normally a club which is aware of its more momentous announcements and makes them with appropriate pomp and circumstance.

Despite the lack of official fanfare, we the fans should congratulate Cesc on a truly awesome achievement. He’s only just older than Tony Adams was when he became captain. This guy is a real bona fide 100% Arsenal legend – let’s enjoy having him in our team.

Initial thoughts? Probably the right choice and surely one that ought to have been made in the summer. Cesc has spoken before of his desire to captain the club and now he’s got it. There will be more pressure, for sure, but has that ever affected Cesc? People always said captaincy affected Henry’s form but I never really bought that, to be honest. His form was always really good but he suffered debilitating injuries at crucial times. 

More worrying is the recent trait of Arsenal captains becoming embroiled in lengthy and emotionally draining “I love dis club/I’m leaving” sagas – see Henry, Vieira. Don’t worry though, this is only really likely to become a factor with a guy as loyal as Cesc if the team starts to seriously underperform. Erm, oops.

Wenger also defended Gallas, saying “He was working as captain in a very difficult media environment“. Fair enough? Well, no. Not fair enough, actually. The media environment was difficult but it got a whole lot more fucking difficult when you had to open your big fat gob and start publicising dressing room rivalries and openly criticising younger players, didn’t it? That made the whole thing considerably more fucking difficult.

Good luck, Cesc.

So despite what I said earlier, it seems William Gallas has not been stripped of the Arsenal captaincy, and will not play against Manchester City tomorrow. 

In terms of captaincy, good riddance to bad rubbish. His shortcomings were becoming clear long before his antics against Birmingham last year, but since then he has lurched from bad to worse. In hindsight it will no doubt be said that after his outburst yesterday his position was untenable, but as is clear from below I’m not convinced this was completely the case. 

Still, this is where we are now. Twelve games in, four defeats, all to opposition we ought to have beaten, and an away game against one of the up-and-coming and stronger sides in the league with no captain and no Fabregas. 

Immediate thoughts suggest Almunia will take the armband – Nigel Winterburn, no less, thinks so. Though he was with me earlier today in not thinking he would go, so who knows what’s going on. Almunia wouldn’t be my long-term choice, but for tomorrow he is the oldest in the squad, and also seems to be a popular figure.

He’s suspended for tomorrow, but thoughts will turn to Cesc Fabregas. My theory behind not making him captain is that he’ll have a set list of objectives to complete as an Arsenal player, and being captain might well be one of them. Hold out on it for a while, and perhaps he’ll hold on for a couple of years. We also saw with Henry how being made captain can affect personal performance. Cesc has struggled for form this season anyway, and whilst it might perk him up, it would also put even more pressure on his already burdened shoulders. On the flip side, one suspects that he’s one of the few players in the dressing room whose talent inspires universal respect, and that could be an important unifying factor (as it occasionally worked with Thierry).

That said, I’m completely aware that this theory sounds like a complete load of bollocks, and also that my alternative candidate, Gael Clichy, might struggle for respect in a dressing room with more experienced and already antagonistic heads in it. 

Of course, people will be tolling the bells. But it’s important to put things in perspective. A senior player has stepped out of line and been punished, but it has not come completely out of the blue. We are also high in the league, at an early stage of the season, with a young side bristling with talent but lacking something in belief. This kind of adversity can breed triumph. Let’s not jump to any conclusions before we’ve seen how the dust settles.

It’s not all doom and gloom, gooners. Heads up.

Happy Monday to you all. Yesterday was Sunday, which for me was significant in that I didn’t actually see the sunlight at all. I went to bed at six thirty and woke up at five, feeling really rather peculiar.

Most of the Arsenal coverage this morning lurches, predictably, back to the ‘doom and gloom’ setting after a brief interlude to spread joy and light after the united victory. Suffice it to say most of it’s beyond rubbish. Whatever people might say, our season is very far from ‘over’. Aside from the Champions League and domestic cups, in which we’ve so far looked pretty convincing, in no sense have we lost the league. And Arsenal fans with even very slight memories might remember a few seasons in which we’ve come back from weak starts, and a few more where we’ve started very strongly only to throw it away at the end…

Goonerholic has a piece about how Cesc should go home for a holiday. This intrigued me. Whilst he has looked a bit off the boil, so far I’ve thought this was as much to do with despair at the ineptitude of his teammates, and his lack of compatibility with Denison (at least compared to the Flamster). But perhaps he is just tired. I have now conjured in my head an image of Cesc trudging home to Barcelona, perhaps with his belongings wrapped in a handkerchief attached to a stick, before collapsing into the bosom of his mother and eating some jamon Serrano and drinking sangria. There’s then a montage of him doing Barcelona-like things like visiting the church and lifting logs in the snow, before returning refreshed and in time for the big game.

My imagination then continues to the big game, in which he repeatedly passes to Bendtner, who controls the ball with a typically grandiose first touch and then does a step over, falls over and watches the ball roll out for a goal kick. Cesc then starts pouring gasoline over himself like the guy in Airplane!

Hmmm. It’s very difficult to know what to say today. The lessons are essentially the same as they were before, and after, the united game. If I were the boss I’d certainly be tempted to mix it up a bit – perhaps give Ramzoid a start, or Carl, or change something at the back.

Dropping LeGal might put a rocket up a few arses but not, I fear, his own. He sometimes gives the impression of being too thick to even realise things like that – he’d probably think that being dropped was some sort of special prize. It’s also unclear who would be stronger. Toure and Silvestre? Djourou in there somewhere? Who knows. Should be an interesting week, anyway.

For anyone feeling a bit sad about Arsenal, this should cheer you up a bit. I honestly believe my family could have died in an impending nuclear holocaust and it would still make me chuckle. That is supposing, of course, that YouTube was still working right up to the last minute.

A very good early afternoon to you all. Talk today is mostly of the United match, with each side lying about tomorrow in their own ways. From our side, the injured Adebayor says he wouldn’t take any of the current United team and put them in our team. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, since if you took any of Manchester United’s strikers at the moment and put them in our team Adebayor would be out of a job quicker than you can say ‘Togo’ which is, helpfully, rather an amusing word to say very quickly. So we can conclude that whilst amusing, Adebayor’s statement is a lie. On the form of the last two weeks we would take several members of the current United side. Possibly all of them barring Cesc and Gael Clichy. If any further proof were needed, over the summer we willingly took, in Silvestre, a player who was not so much part of the United side as practising using his free bus pass to get to and from the training ground.

On the side of United Christiano Ronaldo has come out and said that he’s apprehensive about playing Arsenal. This, equally, is complete bollocks. The only thing Christiano Ronaldo’s scared of is Martin Keown, and quite right too. Given that Stoke didn’t seem that scared of playing us last weekend, it seems unlikely that the strongest club side in the world will be that worried.

Still, this could work in our favour. Had we been winning loads of matches, I’d reckon Saturday for a surefire United victory. However, since we haven’t, I reckon these are the sorts of games where players come out with their surprise hats on, and do some surprising of the opposition. Particularly in this regard I’m hoping the midfield can turn up and do some damage. I’d love to say they’re fighting for their places, but they’re not really at the moment are they? Still, it’s matches like these where players can show they mean business, and shouldn’t be put out to pasture after our Off-The-Nanger-Good-Central-Defensive-Midfielder (OTNGCDM) arrives in January. Wouldn’t it be great if Eh?Boo-him could be part of this? Wouldn’t it be great if he didn’t know what Arsene did last summer?

Anyway.

In other news, we now have a shiny new email address you can use to write abuse, share your views, and ask for any special features you’d like to see included. upforgrabsnow@gmail.com – we will enter into any correspondence.

A very good Monday to you all. Not such a good Monday for myself, but there you are. Not really your problem, I suppose.

What is all of our problem is Arsenal’s weekend. That was a weekend that Arsenal needed like I needed another beer at one last night, which was not at all. I, however, can piss out beer, whilst we cannot piss out our defence, much as I wanted to after Saturday’s ironically piss-poor display.

Before this run I was firmly in the ‘Arsene knows’ camp about our transfer policy, but increasingly it looks like it’s just not going to cut it. Aside from anything else, an injection of rock-hard experience in the middle of the park would give everyone else in the team a boost, and perhaps a bit of belief.

For the time being, however, we have to consider how we can get everyone pulling together. The midfield situation is ridiculous. Alex Song is not a Premiership starter, and if he’s ever going to be he’s certainly not going to develop into one over the next two months. Diaby, for all his flashes of greatness, is similarly erratic.

It’s obvious and also sounds stupid, but the way to start winning games is to start winning games. It would be great if this could happen against Fenerbahce on Wednesday, and then even better if it could continue into Saturday. Beating United would be exactly what the team needs – confidence from victories maketh a weak defence strong – remember the 2005 Champions League run. Admittedly there were some older heads, but the back four which conceded two goals before the final featured a much-maligned Senderos in the middle and Flamini at left back. I’d dearly like to see this lot find some of that form in the league. All it needs is a bit of that siege mentality to get everyone working together – look at Hull.

In hindsight you’ve got to say that was as important as any part of Flamini’s departure – he’d been through the fire already, and knew what the team were capable of. Denilson, for all his promise, has not had that kind of baptism. Perhaps something can be forged from the current turmoil. We desperately need to stop teams thinking they’re going to get a result against us – ironic perhaps but this won’t be such an issue against United, who probably always feel they can beat us.

Lots to ponder, anyway. Weekend is the big one but wouldn’t it be nice to polish off the qualifying round at this stage? Particularly with the injuries from the weekend I’m sure Arsene would like to be able to rest the likes of Cesc and Clichy over the next month. Van Persie has rested himself of course, the muppet – a shame, as he was very effective against spurs and seemed to be getting into the kind of form we know he’s capable of.