Same Cog, Different Hairstyle

The term ‘keeping it fresh’ evokes a number of connotations. Images that spring to mind are Dj Jazzy Jeff of Fresh Prince of Bel Air fame and feminax (the mind is a wonderful thing). I think its about time Wenger popped down to his local supermarket and picked up a pack of sanitary towels to boot.

We’re starting to look a little bit a.n.i.mat.ro.nic in our play. ‘Sagna is out wide in space...does not compute, does not compute....initiate side pass sequence to Arteta’. Our stubbornness and perhaps arrogance that we have the mental and physical agility to eventually outwit any opponent has proven yet again to be our undoing.

On the balance of play yesterday night we certainly deserved to score a goal and possibly take all three points. However Manchester United were’nt without their chances and Szczesny  had to pull off one of the saves of the season to deny Robin ‘the elbow’ V. Persie (I thought Ferguson and his tactics had departed the Man United dressing room, evidently his purple-faced ghost still lurks).

What I would say in defence of our performance was that it was resilient and hard-fought, gone are the days when our rivals could expect to out-muscle and bully us into submission. Arteta was fantastic, shrugging off his sub-par performance last weekend and Wayne Rooney at the same time, winning the vast majority of his aerial duels with the potato and stealing the ball to set up Giroud who spanked it into row z.

Wilshere was consistently fouled throughout the game by a number of United midfielders, none of whom recieved a single booking which we found to be quite startling really. Should Wilshere have been injured yet again this season our lack of central midfield options against Liverpool would have been worrying. Similarly a number of those fouls served to prevent counter attacks which is surely a yellow card ‘er day?

One more rant at the officials before we can resume, the linesmen were shit.

Where we sit at the Emirates there is a bloke (a geezer, a right proper f***** l.a.d.) who loves to shout ‘wiiiiiidthhh’ sporadically throughout the game. Szczesny has the ball, ‘wiiiidth, we need more wiiiidth’, we’re about to take a corner, ‘wiiiiiidth, someone go wide for him’, OK mate we get it you think we need more width.

You can see where this is going can’t you. Last night that is exactly what we needed. I thought Giroud had Vidic in his designer brief back pocket (I meant what I said) and won a good deal of headers as well as shielding the ball very well to give our players time to reach the sixteen yard box. As we saw with Sagna’s exceptional Mr. Whippy into the box which Giroud just failed to get onto, United this season are particularly vulnerable at the back.

Similarly when Rafael and Valencia were substituted during the course of the game this presented us with an opportunity to attack their full backs who comprised of an exposed Evra and out-of-position Smalling (although we are aware that he has played this position a number of times, like Vermaelen he is not a natural full back).

However rather than look to run directly at these players and aim to get in behind (oi oiiiii) to cross in a number of dangerous balls (like we started doing from the 70th minute) we opted to narrow the midfield and initiate ‘triangle sequence code no. 237765.’

This was so evident when Oxlaide-Chamberlain came on for Rosicky with around twenty minutes to go. Rather than put his pace and skill on display the Ox sat far too deep and central, not solving any of our first half problems but rather continuing the same trend. Like a mechanic who tries to fix the problem by putting in the same piece but newer, Wenger must be more willing to gamble some more players forward and trust his defensive players.

We have been hurt this season by teams like Dortmund, Southampton and Manchester City on the counter attack which in our opinion has left a deep impression on Wenger and Bould. Like our fourth place run in last season and our early title form this year our results have been built on caution, positioning and work rate off the ball and taking what limited chances come our way.

With this in mind it might be unwise to risk our tenuous position especially when teams such as Liverpool are not that far behind, but what we would say is that the team who goes on to win the title will have shown some real attacking potency for spells this season, as Arsenal did in the first three months, Chelsea the last month or so and City for most of the season.

We have to rediscover our ruthlessness in front of goal and without Ramsey and Walcott this is looking increasingly hard to do.

The solution seems to be, gamble. Gamble on Giroud finishing one of five chances in a game, gamble on Gibbs arriving at the back post, or similarly the Ox charging in to finish a cut back pass from Cazorla.

If we continue to play a war of attrition around the opposition’s sixteen yard box we will inevitably beat a good deal of teams that we have left to play, but to win the title we have to be willing to switch it up and realise when our opposition have conceded some ground or presented a weakness.