Sept 15th – Newcastle 1 Arsenal 2

Another game of two halves. And fortunately for both teams. We were nowhere in the first but for the first 20 minutes of the second we dominated and sealed the victory. Newcastle pressed in the first half and disappeared in the second. And, naturally, we felt comfortable enough to gift them their token goal.

The fixture list has been kind to us. It’s giving Emery time to recover from having to play two real teams to now playing the dross at the bottom. Hopefully he’s learning some lessons. The obvious one from today is that Torreira has to start. Though I really like Guendouza, if you’re not going to replace Xhaka then he has to be the one to give way. Once Torreira was on the pitch the tempo of our game picked up. We drove forward more, passed the ball quicker and with more purpose. Sure, some of that might have come from the half-time team talk but some of it was due to this change.

We had many chances to make this 3-0 as we dominated the game. Newcastle looked lost. There was no passion in their game. Normally at St. James Park you face a team that makes up in passion what they lack in talent. Not today thankfully. In the first half they did look threatening but that was as much due to our inability to retain and pass the ball with any purpose. It was all possession with no intent. Ozil and Ramsey were barely involved. It was all rather bland and boring to watch. A team with no personality playing against a team with no talent.

What were the other lessons? Hm, I wonder? Oh yes, it turns out we have a retard at center-half. Shocking. I’m sure that has been unnoticed for a while now. In the first half retard boy falls over – reprising the great fall from the League Cup final against Man City – to give them a run on goal. Fortunately, Sokratis covered for him. In the second half he had to step up his game as we’d taken a two goal lead. So he managed to completely lose his man in our area such that when they crossed Joselu had a free header that Cech saved. Disappointed in that failed attempt he managed to completely lose his man again so that Clark could get their goal. At some point Emery has to learn the next lesson – that playing Mustafi undermines the defense. Playing a one legged, blind handicapped person with syphilis in a wheel chair would be an improvement. I fear that Emery can’t see what everyone else can. I fear Emery can’t make the important decisions we need to move us ahead. I’m not judging him quite yet. I’ve committed to waiting 10 games before the mighty pen is wielded in that regard. But the defense has to be addressed. No clean sheet and the last three games have been against the worst the Premier League can offer.  Though Cech barely had a save to make we looked vulnerable in the first half and positional suspect. We don’t’ seem to have learned any lessons from Cardiff in terms of how to defend set pieces. Why are we still putting the smallest players on their largest ones? It’s always Ramsey or Bellerin at the back post marking their target man. How has this not been addressed?

Xhaka scored. Praise the lord. And, care of Mustafi, he was not the worst player on our team. In fact he improved once Torreira showed up. It’s always good to have the younger kids running around, doing all the leg work such that the grown-ups can just stroll around at their leisure. It was a good free-kick though if Cech had let that in we’d all be calling for Leno. This free kick was the main contribution of Aubameyang. I remain unconvinced. He should have put us 3 nil up and overall his link up play was poor. This was compensated for by Cigarette who had another strong game. Chasing down lost causes, making great runs off the ball and providing intelligent link up play. A non-elephant-like Giroud if you will.

Ozil coolly slotted away the all-important second goal. This capped a much improved second half performance from him. Again, this opportunity came care of another Cigarette attempt on goal. When Ozil moves the ball quickly there is no-one quite like him. But I don’t really see how he forms a partnership with Ramsey. I see little fluency. Ramsey was poor today. Too often giving the ball away and slowing down our possession. But it’s good he can play like that and we can still win. He’s had a good start to the season and is allowed one off game. Unlike Mustafi….

As good as Cigarette and Ozil was though our best player across the 90 minutes was Sokratis. Having to play alongside our retard has got to be tough going. He covered for him on numerous occasions. His distribution was solid aside from one errant pass in the first half. But his defensive performance overall was stellar. He was aggressive, decisive and a rock at the center of our defense. His best performance for us by a long shot. Hopefully this is a sign that he’s getting to gripe with both the physicality and pace of the English game. Unlike a certain other (retard) he is not easily brushed off the ball. He uses his physical presence to impose himself on the attacker. And he’s calm. Now we just have to find him a defensive partner. We can’t wait for Kosclieny to return in November. We have to make a move before then. But I fear Emery will stick with the same team. As he did after the Cardiff match. And that’s worrying.

This week we restart the NoHopaCup which will at least give him a chance to see a different defensive pairing. And we’ll all finally get a look at our new Nazi goalkeeper. With the addition of some of the younger players that makes these games more interesting than normal. Then the week after that there’s the Brentford game in a competition that no-one knows the name of. This is Emery’s chance to experiment and challenge the players on the edges of the first team.

I’m happy that he’s using Mikeytarrian from the bench. That’s some progress. I’m relived that he’s finally understood that Cigarette deserves to start. Now he has to get on board with Torreira. If we see that move for the Everton game then the next piece of the puzzle is the replacement of our retard defender. Then we might start to have a spine in our team. It’s just not possible with Mustafi. He’s too much of a liability. We know he’ll play well for 85 minutes in every game but will make one if not two crucial mistakes in every game. And at this level that’s unacceptable.

Change needs to be a-coming. We changed our manager. We changed so much. Maybe before Christmas we can change our center half. I suspect before we do that we’ll have changed our CEO. A lot has been written about Gazidis leaving. If he’s going to go then the sooner the better. But after 10 years in the CEO role to leave now is underwhelming in that he did little except for the last year or so. He’s just made the most important change, finally has control but wants to leave now.  It will introduce some instability and unnerve the Sven and Emery and impact the management organization. If mini-Stan takes over maybe that will help but who knows as his only qualification is his DNA. I doubt whether he has any experience, talent and ability to fill this role. But I think this has been drawn out too much. If Gazidis is going we should fire him and be done with it. If he does not want to be here after 10 years then we should not want to retain him. And maybe after a year or so Mini-Stan can give way to a grown-up. In the meantime we need to get some of these players tied down to contracts and increase the commercial scope of the club.

Back to football though. Three wins on the trot. Not too bad. The performance was not convincing. We need to sort out the balance of the team. But getting the points is what really counts. The EPL games will start to get tougher now. That also means the field will open up a little more which, if we can solve our defense, could help us going forward. We can score – that we know. But can we defend? Unfortunately we know that answer as well.

-LB7

 

 

 

 

 

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