Finally the start of our Season

Arsenal 2 . Sunderland 1

Our fortunes got a little better. We got the 3 point. That was a lot relieving than watching man utd , liverpool, newcastle , spurs drop points. The game started at a blistering pace. Arsenal on 5th gear from the whistle. RVP scored within 30 seconds. What more do u need for settling your nerves. We were rampant. RVP's next chance a beautiful Vela style chip, that deserved to be a goal. Just for the sheer brilliance. And then after 20-25 mins we were back to first gear. I dont know why but the comments from Arsene Wenger before a few weeks about playing with a hand on the brake annoys me. We are too nervous. We lost the plot again. Looked completely out of our way. Concentration of just 25 mins.? Seb Larsson then scored a wonderful free kick. Only thing nice about that goal was his no-celebration after the goal. Showed a lot of respect for the team that made him and also about his character.

We could've won the game 5-1 but we could've as well lost 2-1 or 3-2 . Thats how atrocious our luck has been. Watching our team play so unlike arsenal is hurting. We were struggling and could've conceded 2 goals. Grevinho apart from the first minute assist was nowhere to be seen. On came Arshavin . His trickery , that one awesome dribble deserved to be a goal . After a while on came benayoun for rosicky , who in my opinion had a good game. Big fan of his swift turns. Got to see a lot of them . Benayoun played well. His movement was nice. We created more chances with Arshavin and Benayoun on the pitch. Then we had our captain fantastic RVP's brlliant freekick to set us en-route for the 3 points which were actually deserved. His celebration was good to see. And it finally looked as if our season has started after a delay for a few times.

Got the 3 points in the bag. Happy ending for the day. But a lot of things were in dis-array for us. Just to let you all know i'm an optimist but i'm rather worried about a few certain points.

1) The Formation . 4-3-3 worked wonders for us. That was when Cesc was there . It was exclusively designed for him. When he was there he performed well and also brought the best out of others around him. Now that he is gone, I wonder if we should carry on with our current formation. For large part of the game we looked to play 4-3-1 Grevinho and theo were a lot less involved in the first half.

2) The lack of movement. This first came to my notice when i heard a football pundit on espn talk about it and i gradually began noticing about it. Our players seem to wait at a spot for the ball to arrive. They take up positions get the ball, and as no body is making runs we pass it sideways and sideways and now a lot of times backwards too. And when there are runs made we dont pass the ball. Next time when u see arsenal play try noticing this. We were once kings because we were the masters of this trick that is when we were the Invincible's. It is our trade, we don't have to learn this outside. We know how to do it effectively , just need to find it back.

3)Fear. The team is lot scared. Scared of conceding a goal. They are not able to play the free-flowing football properly. Yes we have lot of injuries but other players are more than capable of dominating the field and help us continue our free-flowing football. The new system of playing with the hand brake on is good when its done sometimes. It is a self-destructing thing to do frequently. I mean we are the mighty Arsenal- we play the most attractive football in England., to be honest i find it more attractive than Barcelona's style. If we stop playing in our own style of free flowing , fearless football we are going to find it a long long year. We need to defend as a unit - yes but not at the cost of something that we do the best. Good thing is that for 25 solid mins we got to see the old arsenal playing scintillating stuff.

4) Free-kicks and corners - Long time since RVP scored a free kick., good that he finally scored one. We have to score more from free-kicks and corners. We had Henry who was superb at free-kicks. Now we dont have someone like him. There is RVP , he'll take it if its positioned for a left-footer but we need a right-footer too. I wonder if any of our players stay behind in the training and work on free-kicks.?

And thats about it. There are a lot of positive signs for Arsenal.

• The return of Vermaelen is not far away.
• We have finally started our new season .
• The atmosphere at the Emirates its improving every day.
• With time we can only get better. Team chemistry is improving.
• RVP the leader. We've got (Robin) "Van the man ".
• Our squad has got competition for places now.

We are rising. Everyday we are stepping up. Not to forget about the performance of certain players in the game against sunderland. Robin was phenomenal , but for me Alex Song was equally outstanding. Rosicky, Arshavin , Benayoun , Jenkinson ( apart from 1-2 sloppy moments) , Szczsney had a good day.

If you've read this blog do let me know about your thoughts about the 4 concerning points i made. Thank you.

We are the Arsenal.

This is us.

Past > Present < Future

                 I'm not a person who likes to write long posts, but i sure do love to write and i'll try to keep this post as short and simple as possible. There are 1000's of different things that you'll read at a time like this if you are an Arsenal Supporter. I can also assure you that 90% of the things are not positive or encouraging. Its like someone calling you and informing you that your house is on fire, that too when you are inside your own house.! Get a life you haters..

                      As the days pass by in this new season 2011-2012 I'm developing a sense of hatred towards football facts and statistics. To the build up to any match that we are to play, we hear stuffs like "Blackburn have defeated Arsenal only once in 16 meetings" and by the end of the 90 minutes Arsenal have made another history (but not the good one).  A lot of similar negative stats surf up before every single game we play. Though I want to mention some of the stats I came across I think its better to give them a rest here.

Not  many times something like this happens, but at Arsenal you have to be prepared for any outcome. Our own success in the past is haunting us now. With the arrival of Mr.Arsene Wenger the league changed completely. We saw some breath-taking stuff. Superb football , Stunning goals, awesome players doing  unimaginable stuff bringing success to Arsenal , so much so that we used to have huge waiting lists of fans  for our home games at "The Highbury" which had a capacity of around 38000. Those are some huge numbers we are talking about. Being the kind of a man that Arsene is, he thought of taking a risk even when he had everything with him , a dream team , an unbeaten season, trophies.Along with the management he took a decision for the fans "Build a new stadium" and here we are .

                      The Emirates Stadium - a 60000+ capacity stadium , home of football  - i like to call that because we play the best football in london ( spare the last few games we played) . The stadium meant a new beginning for Arsenal in a lot of ways. The superb football was still there but we had to part ways with some (almost all) of our players who were a part of the dream team so that we could meet the expenses of building a new stadium. We still played some amazing football created new stars. Here, I'd like to highlight 3 points -

1) We sure lack the homely feeling at the emirates. There is almost no atmosphere over there. - Our away games are more noisy than at the home. Creating an atmosphere at a new stadium is tough but having complete silence is not the way ahead. Make some noise guys!

2) The stars we create leave us when they gain stardom and start feeling they can do better of without Arsenal. - Everytime we look set to achieve something after coming close some important player leaves us. We have still performed exceptionally and have gone past every hurdle but have not reached the finishing line. Not a good trend that is developing at Arsenal. There are several examples , but lets hope nothing of that sort is repeated again in the future. Management needs to look after that. Mr.Wenger should be relieved of this work so that he can concentrate more on the other issues with our game.

3)  The most important one - May be -just May be is that by coming to the Emirates we never really had the league or champions league as our ambition for a few years. But we still excelled. We still challenged for the big prizes. We were a force but came short at the final hurdle for a few times now. For all these years we have been written off from the top 4 places but we still managed to silence the critics again and again. This year is no different.

                    With regards to our success in the past , we have always been a subject of high expectations around the footballing world. We are a team that has done unbelievable stuff which even the mighty Barca with all their world class players haven't achieved. That part of our past is like a base for us. Anything below that is abysmal for Arsenal . Worst part is that some of the supporters support that idea. Even after making so many signings this year we look less competitive than previous years. We are facing a dark time- no doubt. But don't forget - The night is the darkest just before dawn.

                   Whatever that could go wrong for us this season has already exceeded or surpassed our worst nightmare. What now ?? May be we could end up with another trophy-less season , sad to talk about something like this at the start of the season.But the point here is to stay strong and not give up. Who better than Arsenal can show you that you need to keep playing and give your all till the final whistle.The team has enough quality to win a trophy this year,push for the league physically, but at the moment we are low, very low on confidence. I don't know which mental strength Mr.Wenger talks about but we are lacking behind mentally.  We need to stick together for a hard, long season by supporting each other ie., the fans and the team. I'm sure Arsene and the team will make us proud.

                             Next up is Carling cup action i hope we finally get to see Ryo Miyachi, Ox , and our other signing Young. A good performance by them will surely give them and the team much needed confidence and also competition for places and rest to few of our players. Will love to see a good atmosphere at the Emirates. Looks a long time since we had one.

                               And now about our future. One thing i know about our future is that we will be very strong financially. We need to get Goetze , Eden Hazard , Marvin Martin, or atleast 1 or 2 of them. Arsenal need Arsene more than Arsene needing Arsenal. He is running a project which has surely not been on course or in the time schedule framed but if there is any person who can get us out of it and firing again it is Arsene and Arsene only.!

Lastly, I want to end this post with a video i saw on youtube which is really nice to see and hear. I guess everyone will agree to the lyrics in the song and also the quote I'd like to say " It is better to be Envied , than to be Pitied.! "

Messi, Xavi, Iniesta ... Barcelona

Many of you will be wondering what sort of title that is.? Continue reading and you'll know. Messi, Xavi, Iniesta are hailed as the best football players around the world. Ok there is Ronaldo, Kaka, the best of them all Gareth Bale (really..?) also. But when you talk about Barcelona you start hearing a lot of compliments about them. The best team in the world, The best team in the history of football, and what not.. They certainly are the best team at the moment. All the critics compare Arsenal to Barcelona. We are following a similar footballing philosophy to the best team in the world and according to pundits we are way behind them. Everyone reading this will say we know this.. what is new in your blog.? Well friends whatever I'm going to write is well known to all of you. Its just that you have forgotten it or you are too involved in something really important (criticizing, trying to scout players for arsenal for free , finding solutions for arsenal's problem, trying to calm down other fans). Getting back to my point now.

Since Arsene Wenger came to Arsenal we have had so many good moments to cherish about. I think we began to become a very famous club around the world because of him and his footballing principles. We played scintillating football and won trophies raising the bar for every other team and more than that for ourselves and to our fans. And hence the criticism, the hatred among pundits , fans for our trophy drought. I can't argue with everyone about it. Some of them are true about some of their comments. My point is that we should remain a little more patient with our team. And here is the reason why we should. Barcelona also endured a 6 year trophy drought recently.

Barcelona won the La Liga title for the 1998-1999 season and then didn't win anything until 2005.During that six year trophy-less run they were developing their own young talents Messi Xavi, Iniesta Now look at them..., they are talk of the whole world.!

Arsenal has been doing the same thing. I'm not saying we'll be winning 6 trophies next season, but i just found it interesting that nobody seems to mention this little bit of information. We have lot of talent in comparison to Messi, Xavi, Iniesta.. to name a few Cesc Fabregas, RvP, Samir Nasri , Theo Walcott , Jack Wilshere , Aaron Ramsey (few more) . oh wait..!! we have twice the number of good upcoming players in comparison to Barcelona during their drought. I agree that they signed Ronaldinho who changed their fortunes. He was signed in 2003 and barcelona came back to winning ways in 2005. Well we have lot of players with huge potential and we saw a few coming up with their potential this season Nasri, Walcott, Jack , so why not be optimistic about our future .? I'm sure we will see some changes at Arsenal this summer. Rio dinho ( Rio Miyaichi ) has been a huge success at Feyenoord should be with us next season. Poor lad is already under huge expectation levels, but i believe he will do well if not awesome in his first season at Arsenal . So people be a little more patient with our team.

Now to Arsene Wenger. Lots of people want Mr. Arsene Wenger out. But have you given a thought about how much this man has given to the team. I mean look at him he has started to look like a Zombie figure to me ( No Offence) . No manager in the world will take all this stress for a team when he is one of the most demanded managers around Europe. He could've very well have signed a lot of big players bring success for a short while along with millions of debt after the new stadium, after the Invincibles and left Arsenal. But he decided to stay , put his own reputation on the line for the good of Arsenal. He is the best thing that has happened to Arsenal. One of his quotes "A football team is like a beautiful woman. When you do not tell her, she forgets she is beautiful." Its the fans time to tell the team how good they are, how capable they are of becoming the best of the best and not to discourage them.

For Cesc Fabregas doubters i have two things to tell. Watch the match against spurs if u doubt his passion for the club and about his performance i would like the stats to do the talking..

xavi since 04 – goals 49, assists 65, total apps 347

cesc since 04 – goals 52 , assists 88, total apps 310

Finally my message to Arsenal fans. You have a different view, i have a different view but we all have a thing in common. We are all die-hard Arsenal supporters and Arsenal is a big part of our lives now. We should be a little more patient with our Favourite team in the whole wide world.! We should stop all the criticizing, debates, arguments and show how good Arsenal supporters really are and support the team like never before. Arsenalforever..

HOLD MY HAND ..!

With Arsenal all the football supporters are treated with a bit of history. We are history makers. With the remarkable start to his Arsenal career Mr.Arsene Wenger raised the bar for other teams. We won Doubles, we were The Invicibles. Well everyone knows this. But today I'm talking about our history in the recent past. For the last few seasons our Arsenal team has performed in certain pattern. We start the season on a very strong note. We even top the league or are around the second place in November , December but after February we seem to lose our footing drastically and go on a run of few goal-less games, drawing games which we normally would win. This is a history which keeps repeating year after year which is really annoying. And when we look to do a little better we are stopped by the Injury gods and consistent refereeing. By consistent refereeing i meant the repeated poor performance of the referee's against us. This history was yet again repeated this season and we have not performed well after February. The game against Liverpool had every bit of history in it. we were heading for a goal-less draw at home but we scored a penalty and then the referee decided that to deny us another victory as they have done for a lot of times this season.

More than the 2 points dropped I am worried about the behaviour of Arsenal fans. I am not able to differentiate between the (brainless) football pundits who keep writing us off and calling for the end of Arsene's era at Arsenal and the complaining Arsenal fans. The fans alike football pundits tell we are not good enough, we lack this , we lack that ,we need to buy him, we need to send him out, we need to send Arsene packing ..Too many complains..Do you lot mean we are not good enough to win the title..(which i think is a yes) I have one question for you. Why do you think that Arsenal will win the trophy when you yourself have written them off before the start of the season .?? They have already surpassed your expectation level by being at a position where they currently are.

Arsenal have silenced their critics time and again. And this time we have to shut their mouths in such a way that they are not able to open it again. This season is not over. We have 6 games left. We are capable of winning each one of them. As for Manchester United who are at the top of the table with a 6 point cushion they have to play Chelsea , Arsenal were we can expect them to earn 0 points . Its possible. Apart from those games they play Newcastle, Everton, Blackburn and Blackpool. On a bad day they can draw any of the first three games. And that's the reason I refuse to give up on our season just yet. This season can go down to the last game as well. So gooners just don't write off your favourite team this early.

And now coming back to the ever complaining fans. I know that many wouldn't read this blog but i would still like to make a point to the fans who insult our own players/manager. If we did not have Fabregas we wouldn't be playing in our 11th consecutive champions league knock out stage. He is our heart beat. Watch a few matches were fabregas is not playing and the ones in which he is playing you will know what he brings for our team. And the Wenger haters ... If Mr.Arsene Wenger had not come to Arsenal we wouldn't have had The Invincibles, about which we proudly boast to the supporters of other teams & humiliate spurs.. without him we wouldn't be sitting in a fanastic stadium with guaranteed champions league football unlike our minor fellow rivals "spurs".

I know that being trophyless for last 6 seasons is a big problem for a club of Arsenal's stature. It is not that we have struggled to challenge for a trophy. We have come close, a lot of times Champions league final 2006 , League cup runners up 2007 , Third in the league in 2007-08 why I'm mentioning this is because we were rocking the league up untill the Eduardo injury. This year we lost in the League cup finals again. Our season looks done and dusted but I wouldn't stop believing that we can turn it around. Not long ago we were not given a chance to qualify to the semi-finals in the champions league when we had to face Barcelona. Our own fans had little hope. But you all will never forget that amazing night when we beat them 2-1. All of a sudden we had a hope of doing what seemed Impossible at the start. Eventually we failed but my friends don't forget how close we were to our goal and how we were denied of it.

Its all about believing . Believing in the players, in the team, believing that it is possible. I have a point for the fans who tell look at Manchester United.. They never seem to falter like us. Had they stopped believing for their Champions league finals match against Bayern Munich they wouldn't have scored in the 91st and 93rd minute and the rest as they say is history. Our season is now at such a stage. So HOLD MY HAND and your fellow gooners and start backing the team untill the final hurdle. A single finger stands no chance against a group of fingers forming a fist. Stand up and make yourself counted.!

NEED FOR SPEED

NEED FOR SPEED FOR GUNNERS.

Every single Gunner is dejected and deeply depressed about the fact that in 14 days all the hardwork done for months has ended up in vain. Out of 3 competitions and all of a sudden we are heading towards a similar disastrous end to our season as in previous years. Though we are dead and out of these competitions the manner in which we were ousted was more hurtful. The latest defeat being against Manchester United in the FA cup Quarter-Finals. After this defeat i wasn’t as dejected as i was for the exit from Champions League. I wanted to bring to light 3 deficiencies or 3 reasons for our long trophy drought.

FIRST :- Move to the Emirates Stadium.

Well this topic has already been discussed by someone in his blog . He has done a fantastic job and i don’t think i would’ve written about it anyway near to the quality of her blog. So if you haven’t read that go ahead and read it first , here is the link and you’ll know how it affected us.

http://www.arsenalreport.com/2011/03/the-mighty-transition-why-arsenal-havent-won-anything-in-6-years/

Now to the second and third reasons..

SECOND :- COUNTER ATTACK

The total domination over Manchester United is pointless if we don’t score. That defaults our finishing standards , but that is different in every game. In one we score 3 and in another we don’t score at all. Manchester United destroyed us with their ability to counter attack. They do it with full speed and hence the chances to catch the opponent team off-guard. When we look at the situation in our team even if we get the ball at half court and the way to the goal is wide open with 2-3 opponent players trying to defend and others rushing to get back to their positions we tend to slow it down for our players to move ahead but it kills all the time and till then the opponent is organised and ready for us. I’ve noticed it so many times that we hold the ball back, slow it down even when there is opportunity to go ahead with full speed. Thats where the Need for Speed arises. With Walcott we get all the speed but we all know how bad our relationship with injuries is. Total dependence on him is not nice because if he is having a bad day team is bound to suffer. There are other players in our team with good pace Nasri, Arshavin, Clichy which we need to utilise.

Earlier during the times of Henry, Ljungberg, Pires, teams used to fear the pace with which we could break them. The times arsenal conceded a corner it was a reason for the opponent to get happy but it wasn’t. After the corner we would hit them for counter attack and score within 10 seconds. This is what we miss. Walcott is the sole player who leads our counter attack in the current team. You would tell that no other player possess similar speed but its about getting ahead and going real quick and not slowing it down.

We have seen the fruits of quick counter attack so many times in our old team. Also in the new team when Walcott plays. The goals at Anfield from Adebayor and Arshavin for the champions league and premier league were due to the staright forward counter attack lead by Walcott. We need to do it more often.

Now to the third :-

The third reason is the second/third player being available. In short its off the ball running. Not a single team in the world has an answer to this technique. Barcelona are very good at it now and hence the best team in the world. We exploited others with this technique when we were INVINCIBLE. This was so fruitful to us then. But the question is why not now.? The answer is simple we don’t have off the ball runs from our players , it has become a rare sight. We pass the ball quickly but our overall play is slow and easy for other teams to predict. Only with the killer runs our quick passing is useful. We have the players who can do it, they have the ability to do it week in week out. They just have to work it out. With Cesc, Nasri, we can have the killer pass always , only the killer runs are missing... We all know the big win against Manchester United when Nasri scored twice. It was the off the ball run from Walcott which created a big opening for Nasri. Thats what we need to have more and more

In the end there are signs of this team completely developing. The speed, counter attacking style and hunger which was all visible in the game against Barcelona at the Emirates. It seems that if we hold up as 1 unit with no players leaving the club we are going to rule the world for a long time.!