Gooner Daily

Apologies for not publishing your daily Arsenal digest yesterday. I woke up really late and arrived at work late too. After a long day of plying my trade, I decided to hang out with my friends to have some chicken and beer. The chicken I’m writing about isn’t the chicken standing on shit ℓįkε Tottenham’s crested logo, it’s the type of ‘chicken’ that sits on your thighs and strokes your head with one of her hands.

Its pretty difficult to blog in such a situation. 😀

The Premier League’s 5th weekend had it all.

Arsenal endured its worst start in 58 years, the three promoted sides secured convincing victories, the striker-deficient Sunderland whitewashed Stoke Rugby FC, the water-tight Man City let Fulham back, King Kenny and his expensive Red ruffians got gazumped by Tottenham and Fernando Torres had the miss of the millennium despite scoring his first goal since the days Shakespeare wrote all his plays.

Arsenal activated their Self Destruct mode against Blackburn in Ewood Park and all Hell broke loose as Wenger’s men literally saved Steve Kean’s job with that disastrous second half performance.

However, Johan Djourou remains optimistic and has told the media Vultures that Arsenal has to bounce back:

“When you lose, it is always important to have a response. Even if it is at home in the Carling Cup, we want to win so we need a big response on Tuesday.”

“We have to bounce back because we have another game and we have to be ready for those. We are disappointed but there is still a long way to go and things are not over yet.

“We had many chances to put the game to bed in the first half and, when you don’t do that, you are always in danger of getting punished. I think that is what happened on Saturday.

“The team is building together and we are getting stronger together. We could have won the game but this team has got a lot of potential and we have to work hard to be the best.”

It’s always good to practice what you preach but Djourou has been shambolic for Arsenal and his waned form dates back to the preseason adventures. It’s understandable for a center back not to adept as a full back but Djourou was largely disappointing and he has to improve.

Last season, Djourou rose from the shadows to emerge as Arsenal’s best defender by a far mile but its sad to know that he didn’t build on this form. With the Verm still out, Djourou has to step up his game to challenge the likes of Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker but I’m sure that he’ll get a runout tomorrow.

As the adage goes:

“Uneasy is the head that wears the crown”

King Arsène Wenger has come under serious stick following his sides poor showing on Saturday and whispers are emanating about his future as Arsenal’s boss.

Since his arrival in 1996, he hasn’t missed out on a Champions League qualifying place but Wenger’s men are in a very precarious position in the Premier League. If Fulham beat Man City, Arsenal would have been sitting pretty in the relegation zone.

Wenger said that his team paid for their weak moments and the players are lacking confidence.

“That’s where we were guilty. The second, third and fourth goal are all goals where we made basic errors and you just have to focus on the next game.”

“You could see that the confidence in our defenders has gone and it’s important to find it back.”

“We have the potential to do well, you could see that so overall I believe it’s important that we get our confidence back quickly.

“It’s very difficult to accept that you lose a game when you have that much domination, that many chances. It’s unbelievable.”

If your team can’t get the confidence to play a team that was on the bottom of the table, I wonder where the confidence wants to appear from.

There are been many games were the opponent hasn’t been that good, Arsenal has been very poor. The list of matches to be mentioned are endless so I won’t bother delving there.

I’ve learnt a lot of lessons from Arsenal’s match against Blackburn and there were more negatives than positives:

Laurent Koscielny

Koscielny has shown that he’s an inconsistent defender and he really needs to improve on that. You cannot expect Thomas Vermaelen to be fit all season long and Koscielny has to show that he’s a deputy that can be banked upon.

You might feel that I’m a little bit harsh on Kos but he’s not getting any younger. He turned 26 when Arsenal played Swansea but he proved his mettle in the game against Dortmund.

That’s the Koscielny I want to watch every week.
Marouane Chamakh

The Moroccan is turning out to be a peripheral figure at the Emirates and it’s high time he gets a decent run out to gain his confidence back.

I really wish Wenger can employ the 4-4-2 again someday. The Arsenal of the 2007/08 was breathtaking.

Zonal Marking

Set pieces has always been Arsenal’s undoing in recent seasons and Saturday’s game was no different. Yakubu’s second goal was as a result of more porous defending by Arsenal in the 18-yard box.

Wenger’s men have to get it right as the season progresses because more goals could be conceded from there.

Defensive high line

Anytime I think of Nani’s goal against Arsenal, I get a feeling that’s equivalent to a man that wants to shoot his own foot.

Nani was acres of space away from Arsenal’s backline and he had a million and one options to choose from. Annoyingly enough, he made the most embarrassing choice of them all; chipping it over Wojciech Szczesny.

Arsenal’s defense tends to keep a line without executing the offside trap welll and it has been exploited by the opposition.

This simply has to stop.

Despite all this, Emmanuel Frimpong still tagets a top four finish:

“People have written us off this season – and obviously that 8-2 game at Manchester United didn’t help.

“It was a very difficult situation but the manager has told us it was something that only happens once.”

“We started slowly and at the moment we are playing catch up – but I believe top four would be a good achievement for us.”

A man who cannot afford a car shouldn’t be hoping for private jets but @AdeGooner shares the same optimism with Frimpong, that’s why he has the quote of the day.

@AdeGooner: “I’m happy Liverpool is dropping points. Good for the fourth place campaign, Sp*rs aren’t a threat for that position.”

It’s one game at a time, if you ask me.

I’m going to publish another post around 9am.

This post was meant for yesterday.

Forgive this blogger 🙂

Sayonara.

You can follow Gooner Daily on Twitter @goonerdaily. I’ll follow back 🙂

You can also visit Gooner Daily’s Facebook page and click on the like button.

Finally, you can subscribe to the blog to get notifications of new posts by email

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.