Wellington, wellington, wellington, how about that for a third round Capital One Cup draw for us, eh? The Spuds at their hovel of a ground. Who da thunk it?
At least we’ll get to see the youngsters on TV…but wait…how many will we actually see? Because you know that these days we have a squad of players fighting for a place, so I reckon we’ll probably get to see quite a lot of familiar faces when we rock up at their gaff in September.
Ospina, Debuchy (at this rate with Bellerin keeping his place), Chambers, possibly Gabriel if Koscienly’s back doesn’t turn in to another longer term issue, Gibbs, Flamini and Arteta, Walcott, Welbeck returning from fitness. All of these players will probably be looking at some game time. So unless Pochettino plays his strongest side, we’ve got to fancy ourselves a bit in this tie, eh? Regardless of our recent history of very average of poor results in the wrong side of North London. With some of those players you’d expect them to be given a chance and want to take that chance quite desperately.
But that’s a little way off yet, because we still need to get this season up and running, what with our spluttering and stuttering start to it. Particularly at the sharp end of the team, in which a lot is being made of the number of shots we have had at home in the last five or six matches, only scoring in the last game of the season against West Brom. I think a little too much is being made of it actually. There’s quite a bit of finger pointing, of photoshopping of quotes and stats on an image of Giroud, as well as much gnawing of bone and gnashing of teeth because we haven’t signed a striker.
By the way as an aside, I dreamed that Benzema was in Engkand round my house and had a blond wig on yesterday, so I asked him about the transfer. In a reply that sounds very much like it’s taken from a transcript of a call by add Woodward to Louis Van Gaal, Benezema told me that he didn’t even know Arsenal were interested and that nobody had even found him from Arsenal yet. Make of that what you wish.
But anyway, back to these stats about our profligacy, seemingly aimed at Giroud who has obviously been the person who has taken all of the 61-odd shots that have been taken during our ‘five out of six’ games without a goal at The Emirates. I mean come on people, there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’ and all that. Sure, Giroud has been a little wasteful at times and sure, I’d love an upgrade who could take chances like Ian Wright used to do, but we don’t have that at this moment in time and the reason we haven’t been scoring isn’t solely because Olivier has forgotten where they place the nets at home.
There are a few factors as to why we have gone so many games without scoring and each game has a slightly different narrative. Swansea last season was one of those ‘Champman’ results where the football karma gods decided that we were going to huff and puff and get nowhere. So too was the Sunderland result last season, as a team fighting for their lives made tackles everywhere, but also we had very little to play for.
The West Ham game was an appalling performance and the players know that. Unfortunately that’s just what this Arsenal team delivers some times and I’m coming around to it. Then we come to Monday’s result, partially determined by our own clear nervousness defensively, but in the second half it just looked like we were a little out from picking up all three points in the second half.
So there are mitigating factors in our performances and the manager knows we have to be better. He knows the start hasn’t been great, calling it ‘average’ and he has to force a reaction on Saturday lunchtime. But it’s not just from Giroud. It also has to come from Alexis getting his scoring boots on, or Ramsey bagging goals from wherever he’s placed in the team. Giroud should be contributing more of course, but equally so should Özil and Santi too. It’s a team game and it’s the team that is squandering chances. Not just Giroud.
Perhaps I’m sympathising with him too much, but what else can we do? There’s no point unleashing verbal torrents of abuse of him on my blog that he no doubt has never seen in his life. And even if he did, me shouting the house down doesn’t exactly help him in any way. Arsène has admitted in the past that he’s a confidence player. So he needs to be given that confidence by the manager.
On Saturday we’ve got a Newcastle side who have just come off of the back of a Capital One Cup victory at home and will be buzzing, but Giroud has the odd goal against the Geordie’s so I hope he can find his way again. We can ill-afford another lacklustre display and with tough games against Stoke and Chelski coming up after the international break, things could start to look ropey unless we pull our fingers out.
We’ll find out more from Arsène tomorrow about who’s available, so until then, chins up people.
What a shame we are facing Tottenham so early in the competition. We need to get through or our young Guns will be redundant before they’ve even started. This competition is good for them and a long run is crucial. As for Saturday, no excuses. Three points and nothing less. Got to hang onto the coat-tails of Man City.