November 11 – Arsenal 1 Wolves 1

Remembrance Day. Numerologists Day. 1 – 1 on 11/11. Today was like remembering performances of years past – dour and turgid. This was game I’d been waiting for. Our homage to AW. Maybe in prior years (i.e. CP, Watford etc) we’d have lost the game. We did our best to lose today. They had their chances and we had none. I believe their GK had one save to make through the entire game whereas Leno was our best player (along with the post/bar).

This was painful. Unlike the last game we played before the international break against Fulham where we excelled, today essentially everything was wrong. There was no passion, drive or energy – and that was just Emery on the sideline. This performance was more in line with what I’d been expecting. This was Soulless Arsenal. This was Clueless Arsenal.  The only saving grace was that somehow we managed to gain a point.

Right from the start we lack ideas and pace. Our play was sideways and backwards. We had no creativity. I don’t expect us to maintain the levels we’d obtained in prior games but then I didn’t expect such a listless performance either. Some players were particularly poor but, in truth, none exactly covered themselves in glory. The best were average. And then there was Xhaka. Remembering days of years past. Just plain awful. He found a time machine and managed to generate a performance of prior years. His judgement was poor and energy levels dreadful. Kolisanc, following in the fine tradition of Santos, was awful all day. But he’s aimless infield sideways pass in the general direction of Xhaka did not help. But for Xhaka, in that position on the field to not take responsibility and then not to track back their soon to be goal scorer, was classic inept play. Both Kolinasac and Xhaka were pretty miserable all game long. Kolinsac can’t defend and is clearly thin on confidence. Hopefully we’ll get Monreal back after the break. But as good as Kolinsac can be going forward he’s clearly not a defender.

We were so poor today that Mustafa was not our worst player. He worked hard for that honour. He reverted back to his method of hoofing the ball upfield with overly optimist passes after the rest of the team has tried to retain the ball and build patiently. Holding was solid though obviously exposed by the pace of their players. Bellerin was ok but he had no support in front of him. Though Ob1 tried to generate activity in the first half his desire to drift across the pitch meant there was no presence on the right hand side. I was not surprised to see him come off nor Guendouzi come on. He injected some energy but continues to show he’s inexperience by running into dead ends and forcing the play. But today our more senior players were not involved. Ozil dropped too deep, Cigarette was not involved and Aubameyang was non existant. Except that is from a blinding miss in the second half when it was easier for him to score than it was for him to hit the post.

We were so lucky today. How we did not lose I’ll never know. Seconds before we scored I’d shouted out that we’d never score today. Then Mickytarriend swung in a cross that went directly in the back of the net. That was the only way we could score today. It was weird to see this team not apply pressure on Wolves in the first half. We retained possession but did nothing with it. The second half was barely much better. It’s hard to figure out. It was not impacted by injuries. The starting eleven was about right. Ob1 deserved to start. But there was no balance or rhythm to our team. It demonstrates how far we have yet to go and how many issues we have to solve. One game does not mean the end of the world. Whereas we had turned into a winning team we now seem to be the drawing team. There is some comfort to be had from not losing but we have much tougher games coming up that will surely expose us. Even little old Torreira had an average game – which was above standards compared to others. When Ramsey came on he added little and Mickeytarrien was his usual crap. But at least we had Leno. If I was Cech I’d be getting ready for a long time on the sidelines.

Back down to earth today with a large bump. All that optimism from the last game has now evaporated. We remembered and paid homage to awful performances of years past. It’s hard to see much positive from todays game. It was, as in previous years, very painful to watch. The lack of fluency and adventure was the most noticeable. And then the self destructive passing and ball lose from Xhaka and others were equally depressing. Today amplifies that the rebuilding process at Arsenal is a long and patient once. Today does not undo all the good work of the team so far this year. But it does level set the scope of changes that are needed in this team if we actually want to be challengers for any competitions. I know this was only one game. In most others this season we have over-performed this year so it was inevitable we’d have a game like this where we were just plain abject. We’ve seen most other teams have games like this. But what was noticeable was the lack of leadership on the field. I liked the way Ozil was removed as the second sub. That at least showed the manager would make changes and not protect anyone. But Ozil was by no means the worst today. Too many underperformed. There was no urgency in our play and that’s hard to understand.  Nor were we too smart in trying to breakdown their defensive lines. Too often we were too predictable. We take too long on the ball and then refused to make that penetrating forward pass. Cigarette barely received the ball and Aubamyeng was anonymous. But that was because there was no link up play in the final third. All our passing lack momentum and speed. It felt like we thought we could stroll through this game and we would be handed the three points. Whereas we were very lucky to even obtain one.

Now we go into yet another boring two week break for the irrelevant international football. That’s the third break so far this year. So we’re 12 games into the season and we’ve already had 6 stupid internationals matches. At some point, someone somewhere will break this monopoly of FIFA that insists on playing these irrelevant international matches. FIFA has and always will be out of control and utterly corrupt. As criminal as Blatter (and Platini) was (and is), Infantino shows that it’s inherent in the role. For the President of FIFA the main job requirement is to be corrupt. It’s not possible to forfill the requirements of the job otherwise. We do need to see the larger European teams come together to breakaway from FIFA. Short term that might be chaotic but for the longer term good that needs to happen. The money that threatens the balance of the EPL and other European Leagues – whether it be Oil money, Oligach or Chinese in origin – is still preferable to the uncontrolled corruption of FIFA. FIFA has no money of it’s own nor any assets. FIFA does not own any clubs or facilities. It just has the marketing rights to one competition every four years. It’s now trying to create other bogus competitions in order to fill up it’s coffers with more money. People believed that the departure of Blatter would solve FIFA issues. It’s made it worse because the removal of the all too incompetent, prehistoric Blatter lulled people into a false sense that FIFA might implode. Now we need to rely on the football money to have this happen. It will take a few years. We’ll still have to suffer a WC in Qatar. But this corruption in football has to be rooted out. For the good of the game. In the meantime, I think we can be thankful for a two week break that hopeful allows Emery and Arsenal to rediscover the path they had been progressing along. Here’s to hoping that today was an aberration. A day of remembering more painful days from pervious years. Our homage to AW.

-LB7

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