Tag Archive for chamakh

Wenger Still Has Fire In His Belly

April 25, 2013 Arsenal, Guest Bloggers 14 comments

On NLIR today I am delighted to welcome Martijn Stolze (@hahostolze) . Martijn is a Dutch history student with a love for Britain and has been a Gooner since 1997. Martijn has written an extremely emotive piece and I’m sure you’re going to love it. Grab a beverage and strap in for an epic ride.Take it away Martijn…..

You can’t blame Arsène Wenger if over the last two or three seasons he has looked glum, burnt out and tired. You can’t blame him if he has felt despondent and absolutely lost. This is a man whose love for Arsenal FC is absolute and unequivocal.  But also a man who has seen his hard work, on one of his finest generations, fail and falter at the last hurdle too many times, and seen the lure of money and glory rip apart the teams he set about to mould in his image. A man who was on par with the greatest manager in PL history when the influx of money set the PL alight. Yet during recent weeks Arsène Wenger seems a man repossessed. The fire in his belly that drove his incessant desire for perfection, for better, for prettier, seems to be roaring at its fullest again. And just when we needed it.

Very few things are as harsh on a person as their position in history. In the last few days the glory of Sir Alex Ferguson has been sung by all those who love him, need to suck up to him or those who respect the man’s achievements. Looking through the Guardian’s review of the titles he won it makes it very obvious that the only man who consistently got close to his all conquering teams was Arsène Wenger. But Arsène Wenger is not a man en vogue today. He is not popular. His legacy isn’t being remembered the way it should. Not even with some of the fans of the club he has helped into one of the biggest and most valuable in footballing history. That has got to sting. I know it stings me. Read more

Would it be Armageddon to play Santi out wide?

December 21, 2012 Arsenal 28 comments

So the world didn’t end. I knew it wouldn’t for a number of reasons but the biggest one is that Tottenham are currently above us in the league and any deity that exists or the will of the universe would not allow the world to be destroyed and have the spirits of Spuds spend eternity claiming superiority based on league position at the time of Armageddon.

God is a Gooner

After the Bradford result you could have sworn that the world was ending though and it’s probably the main reason I haven’t blogged in a few weeks.

I had so much I wanted to say after that game. About our lack of fight, spirit, killer instinct, vision, unity, tactical awareness, mental strength and passion but it all seemed so pointless. I was angry for days and it took a lot for me not to pick up my keyboard and slag off the players, the manager and the board. After I had calmed down I still had some thoughts about the game in me and wanted to blog them but by then we were visiting family and were returning on the day of the Reading game so I thought I’d wait to see if we had learnt what I thought we needed to learn and in some ways we did. Read more

Positivity speaks: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

November 12, 2012 Guest Bloggers 40 comments

Today I am delighted to welcome Adithya V, better known as  as a guest blogger to North London Is Red. Adi recently wrote a fantastic article on his site The Positive Gunner that I thought was so brilliant I wanted to share it with everyone and have agreed to re-post it on NLIR. In true NLIR style this is an epic post so as usual here is your pre-post warning to get a cup of tea and settle down for some quality reading. Take it away Adi…..

I’m not a perfect fan but I consider myself a supporter in every sense of the word. I live and study in London and go to games, home and away, when I can afford to. I have followed the Arsenal since 1998 and having read about dark times such as finishing 17th in the 70s I do not consider this current period to be a bad time in Arsenal’s long history and I do not consider us a “laughing-stock” as some would ridiculously like to portray us.

I believe that even now, being an Arsenal fan is easy when you don’t take things for granted. Every year we get a top 4 place, knock out stages of the Champions League, beautiful football, amazing stadium, classy players and a genius manager — I can think of a few hundred football clubs that would LOVE to be in our position and that we consider this situation to be a “tough” time is a clear indication of how good we have it as fans.

I see a lot of arguments being made about how the badly the club is run, how profit is our only motive and how we prefer to leave money sitting in the bank instead of buying players. I see people declaring “something is very wrong with our club” and while I don’t think things are perfect, I do honestly think we’re a very responsibly run club in an irresponsible world and that seems to be a bit hard to understand by many for some strange reason. The contribution of the media doesn’t help either as they actively seem to castigate Arsenal for running their club prudently while praising the ones who have spent millions from oil money without consequence. It’s almost like they exist in a parallel world where spending so much without any fallout is possible for them and seeing that makes fans want similar without realizing, the consequences here would be dire. Also, there are a few others among us fans resorting to rather silly and disrespectful name calling about “the Yank” or “Ivan the terrible” that only serves to show how far away from classy they are and how startlingly little the ones doing the name calling actually know about running a club. Read more

Something Has To Change – League Cup The New Priority?

November 3, 2012 Arsenal 21 comments

Something has to change. The defeat I can handle but I can’t handle the not competing in games. Today we played like a kid on FIFA who has a PS3 but is playing on his mates XBOX and doesn’t quite understand all the buttons yet. He won’t be completely humiliated because he’s been a FIFA gamer for years and understands the basics but he won’t win because his brain is programmed to PS3 controls.

Just not the same

This is the problem with Arsenal at the moment. We play a certain way and with a certain formation but with the wrong players. We’re trying to play PS3 buttons on an XBOX controller.

We’re not moving forward at a fast enough pace because we’re not adapting quickly enough. We used to play 4-1-3-2 because that is what suited our players best and now we play variations of 4-1-4-1 and 4-2-3-1 and it’s just not working any more.

We changed to 4-1-4-1/4-2-3-1 because it was the best way to get the maximum out of Fabregas. We went to a one striker system because it was necessary to get the best out of Cesc and the rest of our players had to adapt. Van Persie did not initially want to play as a striker and didn’t think he had it in him but it was necessary for him to adapt to that formation because that is what Cesc needed. When Cesc left we persisted with that formation because that was then what suited van Persie best and now he has gone but we’re still sticking with it.

Why are we persisting with a formation that is best suited to players long departed? Read more

Goals Galore

September 28, 2012 Guest Bloggers One comment

Today at North London Is Red I welcome James Watson as a guest blogger sharing his thoughts on where the goals are going to come from. Take it away James.

It was feared that when a certain Dutchman departed for the grim north there would be a dearth of goals – understandable when he was responsible for 37 last season and the only other player to reach double figures was Theo with 11.

Gervinho came in with a big reputation but struggled to find consistency. Chamakh seemingly dropped off the face of the earth and Arshavin fell out of love with the game.

So it comes as a refreshing surprise that, just a few games into the new season, all of the Gunners’ premier attackers are scoring – even Giroud.

This was perhaps the most remarkable aspect to come from the League Cup mauling of a very poor and out of sorts Coventry side – there was goals coming from all over the park. Even the enigmatic Russian got in on the act.

The loss of he who shall not be named has seemingly engineered a shift of goalscoring responsibilities but the general play seems to be the same. You could create an argument that when he was still here, there was an urgency to play through him and look for him rather than perhaps going alone.

What we’re seeing now is a bunch of attackers, all eager to get on the scoresheet and not afraid to go for goal themselves. Podolski has hit the ground running and whilst Giroud has had a slow start, he has that elusive first goal to his name.

However, most impressive has been the goalscoring of Gervinho. The Ivorian remains as erratic as ever but with three goals to his name already, he is playing with renewed confidence.

Such form – ably supported by the wily Cazorla who has become an instant fans favourite – is meaning that contract rebel Walcott is struggling to start. On that note, the young Englishman is looking more and more like the finished article. He may be the one to benefit the most from the Dutchman’s departure.

It gives Arsène a pleasant headache when deciding who to start in attack and maybe for the first time since probably the Henry, Pires, Bergkamp days, there will be a better spread of goals.

With goals almost a certainty this season for Arsenal, it is worth backing scoring draws and even high scoring wins. If you’re of the betting persuasion, and you fancy a flutter Bet Victor have a great selection of football bets available and all the latest Arsenal odds.

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