Arsenal v Chelsea post-match thoughts

I am sick to the back teeth of seeing us lose to Chelsea in the exact same way every season. We have plenty of possession but are way too predictable and easy to defend against so Chelsea just flood the central areas and counter attack against us and score. It's frankly getting rather embarrassing. Chelsea must be rubbing their hands when they play us.

Also, it's getting really repetitive and annoying how poor our big game mentality is. We approach them so timidly and don't really start having a proper go until we're losing. Why? It's ridiculous. I watch Everton a lot when they play at home to the big teams. Most of the time what they do is start quick, sharp and with a high tempo, and also mix up their style of play. It puts the opposition on the back foot and unsettles them.

We like to give them the initiative by backing off and letting them have the ball unpressurised and then make it all so easy for them to defend against us and counter attack against us. Then we finally show some urgency and authority when we go behind. But then of course we're still too easy to defend against.

I just can't understand why our manager hasn't observed this and thought "you know what lads, we might need to mix it up a bit against Chelsea and change out style a little bit. They catch us on the counter virtually every time we play them so let's watch our for that". But no.

And this leads to us going 1-0 down in virtually every big game. Sometimes even 2-0 down (which we did a few times last season). Here's a list of the big games over the course of this season so far and last season where we went 1-0 and 2-0 down:

• Man City away
• Chelsea at home
• Man Utd away (2-0 down)
• Tottenham at home
• Chelsea away (2-0 down)
• Man City at home (2-0 down)
• Bayern Munich at home (2-0 down)
• Liverpool at home (2-0 down)
• Dortmund at home
• Chelsea at home (2-0 down)

It's just way too often and it's a problem that needs addressing and sorting out. But we know it probably won't be and that we'll probably be in the same position on Saturday against Liverpool.

On Carl Jenkinson, I really do have doubts about whether he'll ever be good enough for us. The lad has unquestionable spirit and heart but has very little footballing ability. He's pretty inept at crossing, passing, keeping the ball and clearing the ball- his kicking of the ball generally is poor.

Yes he's young and has time to improve but it's worrying when he's been here for 2 and a bit years, played a lot of games and still looks like he hasn't improved technically at all. He still looks so incredibly nervous on the ball and uncomfortable. Defensively he's generally sound but his lack of improvement in those other areas is alarming.

On the plus side, the atmosphere was much better tonight- as it usually is when we ply Chelsea to be fair. The fans sang a lot, loudly, and roared them on a couple of times, loudly.




(Image courtesy of http://www.nononsensefootball.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Carl-Jenkinson.jpg)

Managers like Martinez the way forward for English football

If England want to move forward, they need to deploy the managerial philosophies of the likes of Arsene Wenger, Roberto Martinez and Brendan Rodgers. Managers of this nature just let their flair players do what they want and allow them to make mistakes.

I've been regularly watching and studying Martinez's management of Everton and in particular, Ross Barkley and his other attacking players. It's clear how he has positively influenced them. His management of them is terrific as he gives the likes of Barkley more license to express themselves and be creative without restricting them to playing with inhibition and burdening them with instructions to play simple, and then criticizing them when something exuberant goes wrong.

This added license gives them more freedom to express themselves and their ability because they haven't got the fear of their manager playing hell with them if they lose the ball or make a mistake. This gives them more confidence and adds authority to their game and the result is a better, more effective player.

Look at what Roberto Martinez has done for Ross Barkley in just two months. The lad has the license to drift, be creative and be exuberant with the ball without the fear of an angry reaction if something complex he tries doesn't come off. Arsene Wenger, Brendan Rodgers and Michael Laudrup are the same.

In this country our footballing culture and general philosophy is to berate players who have the courage to try to be skillful and take attacking risks. As a kid you can be playing in a match, try to Maradona move someone, fail and be slaughtered by teammates, your manager and parents on the touchline. "Come on, play the simple ball". There's also too much hoofball and smaller, skillful players are the victims of the British football culture as the game passes them by and they are imprisoned by the critical nature of managers, fellow players and spectators. This inhibits them, makes them less confident and less expressive and, as a result, less effective.

If you compare that to countries like Spain, their footballing culture welcomes skill and exuberance and doesn't give into to the pressure to resort to long ball tactics where the game simply bypasses the gifted footballers.

Gary Lineker recently spoke of this sort of thing and he was totally spot on for me.

“[We need to] allow talented young players to express themselves on the field, to take people on, to try a trick, all without the dreaded, predictable rubbish cascading into their ears.”

I play Sunday league football and there are a lot of people there who are very encouraging and my team doesn’t vocally criticize me, but there are some people at every game who criticize people for “taking too many touches” or “not playing the simple ball”. Our footballing culture needs to welcome creative and courageous players and give them the license to be more complex on the ball, because players like this are very talented and will be very effective when given this freedom, as Barkley is showing at Everton.  

That's not what you want as a player. Of course there's a difference between Premier League football and Sunday league football but I'm sure the likes of Sam Allardyce are very critical of skillful players in this regard too. That's not the way forward. You don't want creative, courageous players like Ross Barkley to feel caged within the confines of a football philosophy that includes a manager and players who lambast him when he makes a mistake. They should be given the freedom to go out and express themselves and this will bring the better out of them.

This is what England need to do with the likes of Wilshere, Barkley, Chamberlain and Ravel Morrison. That's the way forward in all walks of football- to give your creative, attacking players the ball to feet on the floor and let them express themselves and make sure they're not scared to try complex, creative things by encouraging them.




*Images courtesy of the following websites/sources:

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/67940000/jpg/_67940397_martinez2.jpg

http://img.bleacherreport.net/img/article/media_slots/photos/001/150/963/hi-res-185350259-ross-barkley-of-everton-attempts-to-move-past-curtis_crop_exact.jpg?w=650&h=434&q=85

http://ripley.za.net/wp-content/plugins/rss-poster/cache/f096c_a6a39_120704102710-iniesta-xavi-horizontal-gallery.jpg

Strictly's Double Standards

I really enjoy watching Strictly Come Dancing, yeah I know, I'm a real party animal. Saturday night's in my life are just wild. But the double standards when it comes to Tess Daly and the judges purring over blokes' chests really irks me.

If Len Goodman said "my God Rachel, that bum is lovely and I couldn't take my eyes off your chest during that dance. Same next week girl!" he'd probably be forced to issue a public apology (at least), the show would have to issue an apology and you'd have loads of people complaining and calling him seedy and he could even lose his job.

Yet when Bruno, Craig, Tess and co. perv over Artem's chest, or Ashley or any of the other attractive male contestants/dancers it seems to be OK. No-one bats an eye lid. It's not just the odd compliment every now and then, it's actually pretty embarrassing behavior. Perving over younger blokes like a group of desperate old ladies and doing it over and over and over again.

I don't mind women complimenting attractive men every now and then, I'd just like there to be equal standards and it not be a case of one rule for one gender and another rule for another.

Is it so bizarre to say only English players should play for England?

I can't believe the fuss that has been kicked up by the media and some fans after Jack Wilshere's comments bout Man Utd's Adnan Januzaj and his opinion that only English players should play for England. His comments after that about "we're English, we tackle hard, that's what we're about" are a lot more concerning for me, they're words that make me shiver to my very core; but that's a topic for another day.

People seem to desperately justify the idea of foreign players playing for England by just saying "well the world's changing". Yeah, so? The world's changing all the time- throughout history different eras have seen constant change in societal values and rules. It's not just a sudden thing you know. It's quite a lazy thing to say anyway, they're not providing justification of a foreign talent playing for England with a concrete reason. They're basically just saying "well this would suit us so screw it, the world's changing so why the hell not?"

It defeats the object of international football for me if you're allowing people who've lived in the country for 5 years to play for that country. If I go to France now and live there for 5 years, am I suddenly French? No.

In my opinion you represent the country where you were born. Because that means that's what your nationality is. Not where your parents were born, not where you've lived and worked for 5 years, where you were born. The more you stretch the boundaries of what qualifies you to play for a specific nation, he more international football becomes like club football- a lottery that benefits the better footballing nations. It is also made rather pointless as the concept of international football is defeated. International football is competition of which country has the best football players and which has PRODUCED the best players. Now if England won that competition with the help of players from other nations, how can we really say our nation has produced the best players?

It's hypocrisy of the highest level as well from our media and the FA. They keep banging on about how clubs need to stop buying so much foreign talent and invest more in young English players to benefit the national team. And then as soon as a foreign player becomes available for England through a questionable hole in the rules, they're desperately trying to get him into the national team.

If England beat Brazil 1-0 in the 2018 World Cup final thanks to a goal for Adnan Januzaj and a wonderful, man of the match performance from him, would it feel totally fine? Would it feel like us English have won it? Even though we wouldn't have been able to without the help of sneaking a Belgian born and raised talent? Someone Belgium clubs and coaches have brought up and trained and given him the talent that has attracted Man Utd to buying him? Wouldn't it feel like we've stolen from Belgium for our own gain in a wrong way?

I think it's desperate and hypocritical for the FA to call upon foreign players like Januzaj (especially after just one good game) to help England ahead of promoting native talent to play for the nation. They should be getting excited about the likes of Ravel Morrison right now, not Adnan Januzaj on the basis he could be eligible to play for England in 5 years. The whole thing reeks of desperation and hypocrisy.

So yes, Jack wilshere is right to say only English players should play for England. Not people who have plied their trade here for a matter of years. Not because I don't want that player, but because it's wrong to steal the talents of a player from another country when that country should be reaping the rewards of schooling and developing that player into the talent he is.

Kefalonian Paradise

Last night I arrived back into the country after a week's holiday in Kefalonia, the Greek island to the west of the mainland. The island was beautiful, I've never seen such a variety of great scenery that was so pleasing on the eye. Having said that, I went to Rhodes (another Greek island) 4 years ago and that at least rivaled Kefalonia in that department.

The Melissani Cave (pictured above) was a wondrous experience; very aesthetically pleasing and exotic. We were given a boat ride tour (as shown above) as well by Jon Voight in Anaconda's voice twin too.

It's hard to beat relaxing all day, seeing the attractive sights and scenes and going to the beach, swimming in the sea and your pool during the day followed by going out to a variety of lovely restaurants in the evening.

Every morning I'd wake up and look out of the window at the view, it was wonderful really. A great overlook of the sea, the hills and the greenery. I had some vey good memories as well; the cave for example, chilling out at the beach, swimming in the sea and the food was terrific. All in all it was a great holiday and apart from the trepidation caused by flying, there was no stress involved, just relaxing.

I watched the second half of Swansea v Arsenal in a bar on Saturday night with a lot of enjoyment of course. It was pretty weird how such a perfect day for Arsenal happened while I was on holiday; two great things happening at once and all that. Arsenal winning away, Tottenham and Chelsea drawing with each other while both Manchester clubs lost. I also watched the last hour of the West Brom on my laptop in the villa as it was very late at night there with the time difference. Arsenal winning twice just made things even better!

How Can-io Sunderland keep doing this?

I don't get clubs like Sunderland. Paolo Di Canio hasn't done a great job at Sunderland but his arrival resulted in them staying up last season and I just don't understand the logic of sacking a manager 5 games in after letting him create a team of his own by allowing him to sign 14 new players.

Gary Neville seemed adamant on Monday Night Football recently that having Paolo Di Canio as the favourite to be sacked first was "rubbish". But it has proved the case, which just shows how poorly Sunderland have gone about things. You can't let a manager go out and basically buy a new team and then sack him a few weeks later.

Now a new manager is going to come in and be managing players he possibly knows very little about; it's unfamiliar so it takes a while for him to adapt and find out what his best team is. And that leads to Sunderland's poor form continuing. Or perhaps the new manager doesn't rate these new players or they don't suit his style of play. So then he goes out and buys a variety of new players and the whole thing starts again.

There needs to be more patience at football clubs and more stability. You can't change your manager every year and expect to progress. The counter-argument to that would be to tell me to look at Chelsea but they're a lot different to Sunderland, they have massive resources and are already around the top of the league so there isn't as much building of a team involved. Plus, wouldn't Chelsea have achieved more success had they stuck with a manager for longer than it takes a season of Mock The Week to start and finish on TV?

Sunderland need to instill stability now. Whoever they pick as manager, they need to be willing to give him time and stick with him. They keep underachieving and floundering around the bottom 6 area season after season and no wonder. There's no stability, too much change of manager and too much turnover of players so there's never any continuity at the club. The team is in a constant state of getting used to playing with new players or playing under a new manager and trying to gel as a team. Then by the time they have some new manager is in changing things up again.

It's time to pick someone, stick with him and not have such a dramatic turnover of players. That's what clubs like Man Utd, Arsenal and Everton have had over recent years and their long-term prospects look very good. Teams who change managers and players all the time just end up slumping down the leagues, look at Blackburn and Leeds United.

Let's not jump to conclusions

I think we're far too quick to jump to conclusions in this country when it comes to football. It probably extends beyond football as well, but football illustrates the knee-jerk mentality that this country reacts to events with.

We need a calm down and have a more objective perspective and more rational outlook on things. I think it starts from the media and transmits to the general public; in this case, fans and spectators. The newspapers, radio talk shows and football pundits on TV start spreading dramatic talk to sell newspapers, get more listeners and get more viewers. Not to mention helplessly overhype English players, especially in World Cup year.

Recent examples include "Wayne Rooney being back to his best" supposedly. He's had one good game against a disappointing Bayer Leverkusen team at home and scored a free-kick against 10 man Crystal Palace. It's just one very good game and another very good free-kick. He's not gone on a run of excellent form where he's consistently delivering top class performances and scoring a lot of goals on a regular basis and making a consistently big contribution to Manchester United. That's what he did do when at his best; in the 2009/10 season that's what he did, likewise for most of the few seasons previous to that.

We won't be able to consider him as being "back to his best" for at least another month in my opinion. He needs to be showing significantly good performances and high contributions on a regular basis before we can all say he's back to his best form.

There's a similar sense of melodramatic knee-jerk reactions regarding Ross Barkley and Aaron Ramsey. Both players are on excellent form, especially Ramsey but I've seen a lot of people say Ramsey is all of a sudden better than Wilshere. 10 months ago he wasn't good enough for Arsenal, now he's better than the player who was then deemed our best player? He looks much improved since then, don't get me wrong, but all we can say at the moment is that he's on better form than Jack Wilshere. Giroud is in very good form, is he better than Van Persie all of a sudden just because he's in better form?

Ramsey has come on leaps and bounds and is the most in form midfielder, and possibly player, in the Premier League at the moment. He is contributing significantly and scoring a lot of goals but it's not even just that, his general play has improved so much as well; his passing, tackling, authority on the pitch, his command in centre midfield, his protection of the defence, his runs forward.

But this doesn't all of a sudden make him better than Wilshere necessarily. Let's wait and see and judge them both over a prolonged period of time, rather than judging who's better than who on the basis on a handful of games spread over about 5 weeks.

 



And Wilshere is still playing well by the way, even when not at his best he's playing well in that Arsenal midfield and contributing positively.

Even more bizarre are the suggestions (admittedly from a small minority of people) claiming Ross Barkley has surpassed Jack Wilshere as a player. Those people need to calm down, he's just on impressive form while Wilshere doesn't look at his best at the moment. Barkley is frankly nowhere near him yet, he's only played a handful of Premier League games with Everton. Has he put in a man of the match performance against Barcelona and outplayed Xavi and Iniesta yet? Has he played in the Champions League yet? Contributed significantly to a top four club over 2 seasons? No, he's been very impressive and might reach Wilshere's level one day, soon maybe, but it's way too premature to say he's better now. Wilshere has a better knowledge of when to pass the ball, when to dribble and is more creative at the moment. He has more authority in midfield and is better defensively. I could go on... Barkley looks a bright spark but looks to lack the composure when dribbling and nouse to know when to shoot, dribble or pass (which will come through experience) that Wilshere has already. You might look at Barkley and think I'm wrong about the composure, as he does look composed on the ball. But I've watched him regularly this season and he often stutters when approaching the opposition's box and keeps the ball at his feet for way too long quite frequently, sometimes looking a bit panicky as to whether to shoot or pass or keep on dribbling. That will improve in time, what I'm saying is it's stuff like this which shows he isn't at Wilshere's level yet.

I would like to emphasize that I think Barkley is a very good player and a terrific prospect who has the potential to be around Wilshere's level, it's just the bizarre suggestions of him being better I find irksome and disrespectful to Wilshere's talent. It's like overall talent goes out of the window in this country with the knee-jerk reactions and all that matters is form.

(Image sources: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/09/17/article-2423871-1BE1F65A000005DC-765_634x421.jpg Accessed 21/09/13, http://answers.bettor.com/images/Articles/thumbs/extralarge/Aaron-Ramsey-disappointed-with-Jack-Wilshere-being-ruled-out-for-three-months-of-action-for-Arsenal-95570.jpg Accessed 21/09/13)