Up For Grabs Now

So the first game under Captain Cesc and the first step on the road to recovery for this team. Let’s hope that road is about 12 metres long, paved with gold, and we’re allowed to drive a turbo-charged eleven-seater Ferrari. We need to get there fast so that when we next have a really difficult fixture we are at our best. What’s that? Chelsea away? On Sunday? Oh dear.

Back to last night, and Kiev. We shouldn’t allow the current problems to obscure the significance of ickle Jack Wilshere’s plucky European debut. He looked tidy and inventive as always, and supremely comfortable on the ball. Perhaps he’s been taking lessons from Alex Song.

For some reason I never noticed it in the Carling Cup games but playing for a bigger Arsenal side against a lumping Kiev team, Jack looked a bit like what happens on SuperMario when your guy gets shrunk. He was TINY! Seeing him marking one enormous bald bloke at a free-kick I half expected him to be crushed underfoot in a shower of lost gold coins, or else to leap ridiculously high and kill the bald bloke by stamping on his head shouting “Yippee! Wahey! Wazoo!”

It’s probably good in the long run that he didn’t do any of these things. Instead he gave a cameo performance which has had some fans calling for him to have a bigger role on a more regular basis. My view is that I’d like to see him get a few games this season and then really push for a place next year a la Walcott. Ramsey is still ahead of Jack for his sheer beefiness, and while last night wasn’t Aaron’s best performance, it’s much easier to look good for 15 minutes than for a whole match, as we saw with Carlos Vela who Wenger withdrew due to fatigue after an hour. The good thing is that Jack plays centrally and on the left, Aaron plays centrally and on the right and so they should both be providing healthy competition for more senior players.

Other observations: Gael pulled off some sick tricks to get himself out of trouble when he was in really tight spots. He’s been doing these more and more this season. I can’t think of another full-back in the world to match his sheer audacity (think the casual overhead lobbing of Ronaldo the other week). This can also land him in big boo-boo (think Totts) but it’s certainly exciting to watch.

I was concerned by Van Persie’s performance last night. He looked pretty lazy for most of the first half and I lost count of the number of times I was screaming at him to get in the box and he seemed to dash off in the other direction, making space for… wait… nobody, because he was the main striker. I know it’s very early to judge, but the Van Persie-Vela left footed combo didn’t really look too promising.

Typically for a club of such class, Gallas received a pretty reasonable reception. He had a night of near misses at both ends as he had a good finish disallowed, was then lucky that an error of Bramble-esque proportions went unpunished by their grubby looking striker, and then put a goal-saving block on a Van Persie which looked destined for the net. The early signs were promising that he will be able to stop girning and get back to being the pretty excellent defender he once was.

Cesc chose exactly the right words on Gallas, words that should unite the team and the supporters: 

“I have a great respect for William. A lot of people from the outside have been very unfair with him because he is a great guy, a great professional and he always tries to do everything to help this club. You can never doubt his commitment to the club. It has been spot on since the first day and he has been a big, big player for us.”

This is quite hard to take as fans still angry at last week’s apparent betrayal, but coming from a player as adored as Cesc is, it’s kind of hard not to just accept this. Cesc knows Gallas and has trained with him for two and a half years. We don’t and we haven’t. He’s been in the dressing room and heard what has gone on. We haven’t. Cesc knows?

Finally, a word on injuries. Nine is a lot of first teamers (ok, eight if you don’t count Eboue) to have sitting on the sidelines, and seeing them all cosied up in dark grey parkas and silly hats I fear that unless our wounded players either get better and start wearing red shirts and white shorts again or else change their casual dress-sense pretty soon, people are going to start mistaking them for low quality rap collaboration The Blazin’ Squad and they’ll have to do gigs and such. But then Adebayor would probably quite enjoy that, wouldn’t he.

Arsene says that Sagna, Nasri and Ade are all “50:50″ to make the Chelsea game. He does love his percentages, doesn’t he? I wonder whether he keeps them all in his head and how often they change, e.g. when Eduardo first got injured his percentage must have been 0:100, when he had it plastered up it was probably around 2:98 and it’s been ticking up ever since. I wonder where he’s got to now, it will be VERY good to have him back.

(Final) finally, don’t miss this. Proof (which was obviously very needed) that Rooney is a cheating git. Purple Nose said he “didn’t mean to do it”. What exactly did he mean to do then? Execute some kind of unlikely diving header with the ball at his feet? Take flight up into the chilly Spanish sky? Most tastelessly of all, Ferguff-on goes on to attack Rob Pires for not apologising after his dives, which, lets face it, have probably happened once or twice. Proof (which was obviously very needed) that Purple Nose is a total git.

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? 

Roooaaaaarrrrr.

Is emphatically not how I feel. But then again, how I feel is nothing compared to how I look. How I look is like a man covered in glow paint, a small amount of beard and a larger amount of self-loathing.

Ah yes, the Arsenal.

Surprisingly little Arsenal news this morning, all things considered. Mostly there’s fall out, or whatever fall out’s happier cousin is, perhaps ‘step up’? Or ‘climb in’. Yes, climb in. So, mostly today there’s climb in from the Wigan game, with particular praise being lavished on the transpubescent shoulders of Young Jack Wilshere, alongside the less novel plaudits for the Ramzoid and Carl. Nothing to get a newspaperman’s attention like a young Englishman who’s good at football, is there? And yet still, people will doubt winge that Arsene has never made an English footballer, or some other rubbish.

Apparently Young Jack Wilshere is like Paul Gascoigne. If he’s like Paul Gascoigne then I would like to use this forum to advertise myself for the position of his Fivebellies. Aside from helping him to keep it real, I’m also handy with a fire extinguisher, good in a dentist’s chair and not mental.

Speaking seriously I hope Young Jack Wilshere has an alright time of it. I know people will look to Theo and talk about Wenger’s track record with bringing through youth players, but I feel Wilshere is a special case in that he is so young, and comes chasing both the expectations created by Theo and also an Emirates crowd aching for a London boy – you can hear the extra roar when his name is announced over the tannoy. They’re bitter about Cashley Hole. Bitter and angry, and a wholesome homeboy is just what they need. It’s occurred to me that all this talk of the collective need for a boy is questionable, so I’ll stop, but you get the idea. I just hope he’s got a cool young head on his young shoulders – I’ve always felt that Theo was uniquely together and collected – it’s easy to assume all youngsters will be equally able to cope.

Anyway aside from all that bollies it’s probably worth mentioning the scum, and specifically their worrying discovery of how to play football. Harry Redknapp, to my mind, has so far escaped becoming a knob, but if his team continue to score goals then his name may have to become Harry Redknobb, and nobody wants that…

But with Liverpool and Chelsea both out the competition is seriously open. If we can get rid of the mankers then there’s a competition the Colts can cast a realistic eye towards, and what could be better? Other than the other competitions, of course, but a winning Colts team will put some pressure on the old boys. If I were Bendtner I’d be seriously worried about Carl, who appears to be his opposite, being short, dark and able to play football. Perhaps if they ever play together one will have to destroy the other, like a Dostoyevskian doubling. I wasn’t so worried about damaging his subjunctivity, and if I were the manager, I’d be seriously tempted to start Carl against Villa. Let me know if that’s wrong.

I’m not mentioning Dooda Monster’s antics last night, because they’re beneath contempt. He’s as close as you can get to a giant bannister covered in vagina.

And anything else. Until later.

That was fun, wasn’t it? The Junior Gunners dished out a stylish 3-0 thumping to a full-strength Wigan team. I saw the Wigan line-up and thought to myself ”Ok, so there’s no Heskey and the poor buggers have been forced to start Titus Bramble. Wait, hold on, what’s that? You mean Bruce actually chooses to have Titus in his team every week? That’s crazy-talk, at his best he’s a sort of nightmarish version of Pascal Cygan! Vela will eat him alive!”

And how the little scamp gorged himself on Titus’ tender flesh. Wenger has the pleasing knack of finding players so extraordinarily speedy that their favourite trick is simply to hoof the ball into loads of space, giving the defender a 15-20 yard start before tearing past them in a hilarious display of rapidity (I’m thinking Thierry, Overmars, pre-insanity Anelka, Gael, Theo). The second and third goals yesterday put Carlos Vela firmly in this category.

For the second Carlos tore past Boyce down the left before unselfishly crossing for Jay Simpson, who took both of his goals very well, crashed an early shot against the crossbar, and would have had all the headlines to himself in a normal game. What took those headlines off him was quite simply one of the single best touches of a football by any foot belonging to a representative of Arsenal Football Club. The only one I can think of as definitely being better was the one with which The Great Dennis Bergkamp humiliated The Distinctly Average Nikos Dabizas in 2002, though I’d love to know if anyone can think of others. 

Sprinting at full tilt and with Bramble charging towards him, Carlos struck a chip so good that God ought to have dashed downstairs, frozen it in time, bubble-wrapped the entire Emirates Stadium and turned it into an official World Heritage Site. Truly, a chip of outstanding natural beauty. The fans behind the goal watched it float in with open-mouthed astonishment. Actually, some of them even looked a bit scared. 

The great thing about this kid is that he doesn’t just score goals, he scores incredible goals, and watching him play he gives off the impression that he can do absolutely anything he likes with a football. I thought his link up play feeding Simpson in the first half was excellent, showing there’s more to his game than just incredible finishing.

Post-match, Arsene said he was very surprised that Carlos missed his first half chance. Good, so was I. In fact for a horrible moment I thought he’d caught the dreaded Arsenalitis and would be doomed to spend the rest of his career galivanting through opposition defences before needlessly pissing away great chances. We need more strikers who surprise you when they miss – they’re definitely better than the ones whose misses are buttock-clenchingly predictable. Arsene also referred to “the other team” who beat United. Yikes. No second and first teams any more then?

Two players who must be getting close to playing regularly for “the other team” are Ramsey and Wilshere. Both looked first class last night and I thought Charlie Nicholas (who couldn’t stop smiling, bless him) made an insightful comparison between Wilshere and Deco. Both are midfielders who seem to do everything required of the modern midfielder. Let’s hope that, like Deco, Jack leads his team (us, that is) to two European Cup triumphs. Let’s also hope that, unlike Deco, he doesn’t become a whingeing, cheating git who regularly competes with Cristiano Ronaldo at major international tournaments for the title of Most Despicable Human Being.

Finally, seeing Eduardo sitting on the bench in Arsenal kit made me feel all warm and nice. As would a crushing Liverpool victory at Shite Hart Lane tonight, come to think of it.