Nacho – Page 3 – Bergkampesque

Three positives:

Nacho’s wing-play and crossing: I thought Monreal had a good game today. Every time he comes and supports the attack on the left wing, Nacho makes himself available and exhibits excellent composure. His final ball is also very good, and it looks like he will be an improvement on Gibbs who still needs to develop further with regards to his delivery into the box. His pullback for Cazorla’s second goal was pure class, but there were more examples of good delivery into the box today: a very promising development.
Jenkinson’s composure and general wing-play: I thought Carl did well today. He put a number of sharp balls into the box, especially in the second half. He also played with good drive and hunger, and had some fantastic battles with Agbonlahor. One or two headers could have been better and his link-up play with Arteta was a bit rusty, but that is to be expected after not playing many games in recent months.
Cazorla’s finishing: Once again Theo, and especially Giroud, did not have their shooting boots on, but Cazorla was in fine form today and scored a brace in the process. The diminutive Spaniard was everywhere and seemed to revel in his free role today. He worked very hard; helping out the team as much as possible up-front, in the middle and at the back. It has been a while since we had a midfielder who makes such great runs into the box and Santi positions himself really well. Many a player would have blasted the ball for his second goal, but his composure and technique made sure that this chance was not wasted. In his free role on the wing we might get a new fox in the box, and today Santi has been worth his weight in gold: without him we would not have won today.

Two negatives:

As a unit, our defense still lacked organisation and structure: Once we scored the first goal, Villa were able to build up decent attacks on a number of occasions; and both our midfield and defense were not cohesive and well-disciplined enough to take back control, especially in the first half. The game flowed up and down, and we were wasteful in not scoring the second goal during that phase. However, Villa also had a couple of decent chances; and had they scored, it would not necessarily have been against the run of play. Diaby had started strong in the first 20-30 minutes, but faded away towards the end of the first half, and Arteta was turned over a few times as well. As our two ‘DM’s’, Arteta and Diaby have some way to go, and on days like these, I am still smarting about our loss of Alex Song last summer. I also felt the triangle of Mertesacker, TV and Szczesny looked unorganized, or should I say allover the place, at times. The Villa goal was a well-worked counter-attack by them, although our fullbacks did not cover themselves in glory: Jenkinson’s header should have been aimed better and Nacho should have closed down Weimann’s shot. However, from that distance he should not be able to score and I thought Wojcieh should have done better. Our defense remains an area in need of improvement.
Lack of clinical finishing by Theo and especially Giroud: Football is a team sport, and let me say first of all that both Theo and Giroud worked hard for the team; especially the Frenchman worked his socks off. However, both players lacked composure and clinical finishing skills in the box today, and especially Giroud lacks quality at the moment. It looks like he is trying too hard again, which seems to influence his decision-making and execution quite a bit. I like Giroud for his work-rate, but hard work will not be enough to make it at Arsenal, and the jury remains out about him. Theo made some good runs on the wing and put a few more than decent balls into the box, but him and Giroud do not have a great understanding between them as yet, which is also costing us at the moment.

In conclusion:

A vital win at this stage of the season and well-deserved, I thought.

Although, it should be said that Villa played also well today, and did not just park the bus against us. They soaked up pressure well and were regularly dangerous; especially on the break.

Santi made a real difference today and I am really happy he stepped up when our three midfielders; Arteta, Diaby, and to a lesser extent, Jack, did not have one of their best performances.

Eight days rest now, and time for the team to reflect on the last week and get ready for the all-important derby with the Spuds. We will need to be more solid in our defensive play, and dominate the midfield area better, as well as being more clinical up-front. Not much to do then! 😉

Written by: Total Arsenal.

Stoke parked the bus but Lucas found a way through the Pod-holes.

In a way it was nice to see a team park the bus against us again, as it allowed our team to control the game and find its shape and rhythm. On the other hand, the lack of space combined with the disciplined defending of Stoke showed up our lack of guile and penetration on too many occasions yesterday. We know that Theo works best on the wing when he can combine his speed and good first touch with being played into space, and Ox is not that much different; although he is better able to take on a defender from a standing still position.

Yesterday’s game screamed out for Gervinho. As said many times before, he is the only player who is comfortable with attacking a congested flank and get himself into the box with the ball. This is such an important commodity to have when teams park the bus against us, and I felt we missed him yesterday.

It took an ugly goal – a deflected free-kick by Podolski – to find a way through the parked layer of busses yesterday, but who cares. It was exactly what we deserved and the happiness on the Pod’s face, combined with the joyous, collective team celebration – good to see Nacho joining in straightaway – told us all what it meant to the players.

Nacho impressive debut.

Nacho did fantastically well! He was still a Malaga player less than 48 hours before the kick-off, and yet Nacho was able to boss his area and contribute to our attack as if he never played for another club than Arsenal. First impressions are very good: he is fast, hard as nails if needed, reads the game well, good crosser of the ball, and has both stamina and desire to keep supporting our attack. Highbury Harmony aka The Gooner already told us what a good player Arsenal had bought and yesterday’s performance showed indeed a lot of promise.

The Ox’s horns still need strengthening, and the whole team lacked composure up-front.

Alex was played on the left wing against Stoke, and I thought he did ok. The Ox missed two very good chances of which Podolski would probably have converted at least one. This is where he really needs to start improving now: converting chances/ scoring goals.

When a team parks the bus, it is important to take your early chances, and Arsenal had a spell of just a couple of minutes in which they had three decent opportunities: Ox missed; Giroud inexplicably headed towards his fellow players in the box, whilst there was a decent gap on the keeper’s left side to head towards, and Koz headed a decent chance straight at Begovic.

It is fair to say that as team Arsenal were not clinical enough and on another day we could have ended up with just the one point. However, after having scored a great number of goals in the last dozen games, this is not an area we should worry about much at the moment.

Diaby and Arteta properly protect our defence, but they should also have supported Jack and Giroud more in the middle of our attack.

It was good to see Arteta back in the deeper DM role, which he combined well with Diaby. Defensively our midfield did a great job, as they never allowed Stoke out of their trenches even when they wanted to. However, with our flanks being restricted by Stoke during large parts of the game – despite Wilshere’s constant endeavours to find a way through – I would have liked to see Diaby or Arteta to move more into the area in front of Stoke’s ‘D’. Especially Diaby has the qualities to hold onto the ball there and play other team mates in, or penetrate the Stoke bus himself and have a shot at goal.

We were surprisingly physical and ‘together’, and the quality on the bench made the difference today.

I really liked the way we handled Stoke today from a physical point of view. Our approach was perhaps epitomised by Arteta’s fair but hard tackle on Owen late on in the game. It was the sort of tackle we have had to endure many times in our encounters with the Orcs in recent years. It was good to see Arsenal handle the physical side really well, as it looked our players had mentally prepared themselves for a tough battle, and yet not a single yellow card was collected by the team.

But ultimately, it was the quality on our bench which made the difference. The combined arrival of Podolski and Cazorla brought new impetus and thrust, which meant we did not relent our attacking efforts and kept trying to find a hole through the parked bus. Eventually our efforts paid off, and with Chelsea losing and Everton drawing unexpectedly at home against Aston Villa, this hard fought win really helped our push for a top three/four finish. Well done to the boys.

Written by: Total Arsenal.