» The Gooner World

The performance of the Arsenal medical team has concerned me for some time now. Gary Lewin did an excellent job in treating Eduardo, but there have been several other cases, where the injury hasn’t been diagnosed properly, or the player has been rushed back too soon, or the comeback times have been predicted incorrectly. To back this up, I’ve done some research on the injuries this season.

Gallas – he had a groin injury in August against Blackburn. The official statement made on 20 August 2007 was that he would be out for 3 weeks. Scheduled comeback date was 10 September 2007. Actual comeback date was 20 October 2007 against Bolton at home. He was actually out for 2 whole months, twice the initial predicted comeback period.

Robin van Persie – he was injured on 17 October 2007 while on international duty for Holland. He was initially expected to be out for four weeks. He made a comeback on 12 December 2007 against Steaua Bucharest. He was actually out for 8 weeks, again twice the initial predicted comeback period. He did not play again till 9 January 2008 against Tottenham in the Carling Cup, despite not being fully fit, something which he has admitted later on. He aggravated the injury and was out till 4 March 2008 when he was named on the bench against Milan.

Rosicky – The strangest one of all. He had a hamstring injury in January 2008 against Fulham, where the medical staff felt it was a matter of days, not weeks. Arsenal fans didn’t see him in action till the end of the season.

Sagna – He damaged his ankle against Chelsea on 23 March 2008 and was expected to be out for a minimum of three weeks and a maximum 5 weeks. He is still injured and recovering and is even out of the European Championship, which is significantly more than the predicted 5 weeks.
Rosicky’s injury may be a one-off instance, as the medical staff seemed genuinely flummoxed at the nature of the injury. But the comeback times for the other players have ALL been exceeded, and its time someone took a serious look at this. Not only is this frustrating from a fans point of view, but should someone question the competence of our medical team? The diagnosis of injuries, predicting comeback times and proper treatment and rehabilitation of our players should be the main focus of the medical team and they have let us down in that aspect for the past 2 seasons. Whenever Wenger has anything to say about injuries, I simply ignore them, coz the odds are that he is wrong.

Latest news that Neal Reynolds will now be Assistant Physiotherapist at the club, joining from Norwich City. Hopefully, this will prevent some recurrences of the above incidents.

Will Gallas and Toure continue to partner each other next season? Or will one of them be replaced by a new signing? If so, which one will make way?

To me, these questions are more critical for next season, rather than wondering why Nasri hasn’t signed yet, or whether Ben Arfa will sign. Arsenal’s problems did not lie in the goal scoring department. We scored only 6 goals less than ManU, but conceded 9 more. Granted, the defence had to cope without Gallas for a month in September, and without Toure for the duration of the Africa Cup of Nations. However, during the critical period, it is this defensive partnership that let down the team, against Chelsea at the Bridge and ManU at OT.

Wenger is not one to criticise his team in public. However, he had this to say about our defence after the Chelsea game:

“We were 1-0 up and had it all in our hands. We needed a bit more defensive authority as the game was there to be taken. We had plenty of chances on the counter-attack when they went 4-4-2. It was just a matter of time to score the second goal. We were not serene enough defensively.”

"We conceded an easy goal against Middlesbrough, an easy goal against Aston Villa. Defensively, we lost control of the game. We got caught when Nicolas Anelka came on to the long balls and the physical battle. We lacked defensive authority.”

These are huge indications that changes will be made to the defensive partnership. In the last few games, when Sagna was injured, Wenger chose to break up the Gallas / Toure combination and play Song at CB instead of playing either Hoyte or Eboue at RB.

Gallas & Toure are two excellent CBs, but they do not gel as a partnership.

In Premiership Games in which Gallas & Toure have started as our centre pack pairing our record reads (these stats have been borrowed from an Arsenal forum):
P 19 W 9 D 8 L 2 F 29 A 16
Win ratio: 47% Clean Sheets: 6 Goals Conceded per game: 0.85

In Games in which the partnership has been broken our record reads:
P 12 W 10 D 2 L 0 F 30 A 8
Win Ratio: 83% Clean Sheets: 6 Goals Conceded per game: 0.66

Although its harsh to blame the partnership for each defeat when that’s certainly not the case, these statistics do show that the partnership needs to be broken up. According to me, Wenger never wanted the Toure-Gallas combination. At the time (in 2006), he didnt want to let Cashley go to Chelsea and was more than happy for the Toure-Senderos partnership to flourish. I feel that Gallas impeded Senderos' learning curve, as he was progressing nicely. Senderos dip can be traced back to him losing his 1st team place to Gallas.

This team needs a defender in the mould of Vidic / Skrtel. A tough, no-nonsense defender who will get in the way of those long balls down the middle and deal with them effectively. That leads to the next question – who should make way? Is Gallas the better defender, or is it Toure ?

Gallas is, no doubt, the more experienced campaigner. His positional sense is excellent and he compensates for his slight lack of pace with intelligent positioning. He has been instrumental in our improvement while defending set pieces, barking out instructions to his junior colleagues and pulling them back into position to defend free kicks and corners. We have only conceded 3 goals from headers this season. He has had a defensively solid season, for the large part.

Toure, whilst lacking the positioning of his more experienced partner, makes up for that with his blistering pace, making several excellent last ditch tackles. However, even his more ardent supporter will have to admit that Toure had a poor season, especially after the African Cup of Nations. He was exhausted, which is understandable given that he has played non-stop for more than 3 seasons now, with little injuries. He had to be taken off from the RB position in the last few games coz of his exhaustion. But he will be back next season, rested and raring to go.

Did the fact that Wenger take Toure and put him at RB for the last few games an indication that Toure will face the axe at CB next season? And if he doesn’t play at CB, where will Toure play ? Sagna is the better RB, and Clichy is a top class LB. I think we will have enough options at LM / RM.

Centre of mid field? That is the only position he can possibly play in, apart from wide mid field. But we seem to have enough options there as well.

This issue vexes me as I do not see an easy solution. This is far more important for next season than putting out a wish list that includes 20 wingers and 40 strikers.

As you all know, our very own Cesc Fabregas held yesterday a TV show that will be broadcasted on May 19 on the telly. However, a very lucky man who had the honour to be on the crowd to watch the show personally discribed how it looked like, plus revealed a lot of nice stuff such as our new kit.

For the article written by Milo Hewitt, click here: http://www.epltalk.com/cesc-fabregas-show-review-photos/2092

Now you have just read the article and are just delighted thinking: "Jesus, I really wish I was there!", I bet (because so am I, heh). Anyway, time for some words about it: really nice to know Nike is giving that attention for Arsenal and, most importantly, for Cesc. The boy is becoming a legendary player, even though at the age of twenty one, and due to this fact I read somewhere today that Arsenal is set to offer him a £100,000-a-week deal. Going ahead, I got really interested by our new kit. Although our friend Milo has not received his yet, I looked for some pictures through the internet, and I found some really nice. Before giving you the link I would like to highlight they are not official, but who knows? Here they are: http://img2.putfile.com/main/1/1608442069.jpg and http://img2.putfile.com/main/1/1608442099.jpg and http://a901.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/71/l_9250341673471641ad29ac918d431824.png (looks awesome, though I do not think Nike will change our white kit, given it was released this season).

Take a look at the slideshow featuring photos from behind the scenes: http://s185.photobucket.com/albums/x298/LemonSQ/?albumview=slideshow

Always nice to see the old Arsene that happy. Cesc looks like his father. Cesc's mother looks nice. Bendtner looks like a rapper in the pics and I would just love to play PES2008 with Cesc.

Well, at first I would like to apologise for the time I have spent without posting here. You all know the life in London is not that easy, plus London School seems to be keen on fucking me. However, thanks God there are our very deserved weekends so we can chill, relax and, of course, prepare for the Arsenal games.

I will be traveling to Sunderland in a few hours so I can watch our very last game of the season. You know I have been affirming here that I am very proud of the team, as we did overachieve this season, so that is why I will be there screaming my heart out until the last second of such a good season.

Talking about the match, I am really excited about it as the boss affirmed he is going to play some lads such as Randall and Gibbs. We all know that Fran Merida and Carlos Vela might return to London as soon as the next season starts, so taking a look at the already-here boys will be amazing as Flamini is gone and Hleb may leave as well. Before talking about Hleb, here is to a two-nil victory with Adebayor scoring twice and owning Nando Torres once and for all.

Now about the belarusian, well, you also know that I do not really care about the rumours about him. He has scored only thrice this season, one goal less than captain William Gallas and only one more than Phillipe Senderos. Poor, poor numbers for a winger. No matter if he can dribble and is skilled, Merida and Vela can do the same plus will score more often than him, I bet. After reading articles claiming he had an ice-cream with an Inter Milan agent just before such a crucial match against Milan in Italy, I just do not think he is as committed and focused on Arsenal as he should be. So if really wants to leave, just let him go, Wenger. We do not need/want a player who does not want to play for Arsenal.

The Sun and Goal.com claim Arsenal have signed Lyon Hatem Ben Arfa for something between £16m, £20m. I say we should wait a little bit more before being happy for such a great news, given these sources are not that reliable. However, fingers crosses it is truth, because Ben Arfa is just a fantastic, gifted and skilled winger who can score goals. Plus, Goal.com also links us with Gennaro Gattuso, Niko Kranjcar and Gareth Barry. Gattuso was a big surprise. Though I do not really believe Wenger would go for a 30-year-old player, I have to admit that it makes sense because the boss did affirm he would add an experienced defensive player. Kranjcar and Barry, both are classy players and are already used to the Barclays Premier League and would add some quality and skill in the heart of midfield.

That is it, my friends. Let's hope the season ends just the way it should. Hope the boys get crowned by an excelent perfomance and result over Sunderland later today. About the champions, though I have to admit I would hate to see Ronaldo winning one more trophy, I would be difficult to swallow Avran Grant's side as the champions. So, let's see what the day will bring.

Have a nice day.

Where to start on our out-going MD. The Arsenal we had and loved back in 2000 when he took over no longer exists, everything a lot of us held very dear to our hearts has been destroyed.

His biggest claim to fame will always be the smooth seamless transition from what we used to call THOF (The Home Of Football) to a place some call Emerties, some call Ashburton, some just simply call it the new place.

Yes we now have decent views from every seat, yes a lot more of 'us' can now get tickets to every game, but what we have lost far out weighs what we have now. Give me a 30,000 ground with the lads I grow up on the terraces with any day, to a ground that by design was built to fleece as much cash out of people pockets on a match day as possible.

The main reason we was told we had to move from Highbury was so we can compete with the Man Utds, Barca's, Ac's and Liverpool's The extra money generated was to make us able to bring the worlds best players to The Arsenal, by being able to afford not only there transfer's but also there wages. Well Edleman, that fucked right up didn't it. Not only have we got rid of the highest wage earners since moving grounds, we have also carried on our nice recent tradition of make a profit on transfer sales/buys.

Edelman is also the man who boasted about us having the biggest match day revenue in Europe. Nothing to be proud of when you have a ground half full of people who are either on a jolly up or want entertaining opera style on a Saturday/Sunday/Monday or whenever Sky tell us we have to turn up these days.

As i said before more of 'us older fans' can now get tickets to games, by being on the season ticket/ TRS waiting lists for 10years plus. Before Elderman when you was on the old TRS you used to pay £20 and in return you got a quid off every ticket you got. Now you have to pay £26 plus a season AND have to pay the totally useless online booking system a few more quid just for buying a ticket. So now if your on the silver list and buy a ticket for every home game, not only are you losing the £20 membership fee, you also have to fight the online system at 9.30am to try and get one of the lower tier seats before they are sold out. As a silver member myself i can tell you that Elderman LIED to us when he said more cheapER tickets would go on sale on a game to game basis.

Our badge has also sadly gone, the reason behind this ? simply to earn a few more quid out of us.

The copywriting of the word "Gooner" again just to make a few quid.

So to sum up, Edelman you can stick your £750,000 a year right up your arse, I would of sacked you years ago, you have done nothing for The Arsenal except fleece more and more money out of our pockets. But I would like to wish you good luck in your next job for BP or Shell, the way they also rob people suits your style.

Overall, a flat performance by Arsenal, but good enough to get all three points through a Bendtner header against an Everton side that perhaps deserved a point from the game. Everton were defensively solid for large parts of the game and had a few good chances, but couldn’t convert them. Joseph Yobo had a very good game, keeping Adebayor largely quiet.

The game had a definite end of season feel to it, with Arsenal dominating possession in the 1st 15 minutes, but doing little with it. Everton’s tactics were to put 10 men behind the ball to defend, and hit Arsenal on the counter attack. Effective tactics by David Moyes. The 1st half marginally belonged to Everton in terms of chances created. Pienaar put Andy Johnson through, only for Fabianski to bring off a good save to deny him, Song with the clearance. Jagielka, left unmarked off the subsequent corner, headed the ball to the near post. However Denilson did his job and cleared the danger. Everton looked dangerous.

Arsenal came back well in the half. We saw a bit of the elusive ‘Plan B’, with Toure playing an effective long ball to Adebayor whose 1st touch was very good. His shot tested the keeper. The best chance of the half went to Adebayor again, with Eboue pinging in a good cross only for Adebayor to miss the header when he really should have done better.

Eboue was poor overall, he gave the ball too easily, he would not track back when he did lose the ball. Another frustrating display from Eboue, and one that will only increase the calls for him to be sold.

In the 2nd half, Arsenal started brightly, but couldn’t finish with a goal. There was a penalty claim from Leon Osman for a ‘foul’ by Song which was soft, to put it mildly. Hardly a foul. Alex Song had a solid game in the centre of defence. This lad impresses me with every game. He’s had a good season overall, marred somewhat by injury, but has stepped up each time he’s been called upon.

Then came twin subs by Wenger – Lehmann on for Fabianski in his last home appearance for Arsenal, and Traore on for Toure. Eboue slotted in at RB (where he should have started), Theo moved to RM and Traore slotted in at LM. Traore played a good one-two with Bendtner, and his cross was very good, sharp with pace. Bendtner came flying in (ala his Tottenham goal) and headed the ball in to put Arsenal ahead. Bendtner has also done well this season – you cannot expect more from a back up striker who’s 19 years old.

I must express my reservations about Traore at LM. Its déjà vu of a kind. Last season, Eboue was moved to RM for the last game of the season and he had a promising game, which prompted Wenger to move him there permanently this season. That move didn’t quite work out. The same thing seems to be happening with Traore as well. He looked lively, sharp against Everton.
I have seen a few reserve games featuring Traore who has scored a couple of good goals. However, his crossing on a consistent basis leaves a lot be desired, as does his finishing. He doesn’t look like the kind of player who will score 8-10 goals every season. I hope this doesn’t prompt Wenger to move him to LM next season.

Moyes introduced Yakubu and Anichebe but they made little difference. Everton lacked the urgency in the final minutes to force an equaliser, and they now need a point from their final game to ensure UEFA Cup football next season. Denilson & Gilberto had decent games, but special mention to Clichy. He is a machine ! What terrific work rate and commitment in a game of little consequence, running all over the place, contributing consistently to our attacks. Solid defending as well. Gallas marshalled the defence adequately.

Farewell to Mad Jens. He had made some mistakes during his time and a few unnecessary comments about Almunia and Wenger this season but at the end of the day, I will remember him fondly for his positive contributions to the club, especially during the unbeaten run in 2004 and our CL run in 2006. A quality, world class goal keeper. Thank you Jens.

With ManU winning on Saturday, the ‘5%’ chance of a title win is now gone. It will be interesting if Chelsea drops points against Newcastle on Monday which may open the door for Arsenal to pip Chelsea to 2nd. Otherwise this season is well and truly over and Wenger might experiment with some of the kids for the final game. I’d like to see Gibbs, Randall, Barazite or Fonte given a chance to show us whether they are ready to make the step up to the 1st team next season.