Five Games In, And We Haven't Seen The Winners
Jun 12th, 2010 by 'holic
A brief update is in order at the end of a long Saturday. I’ve now seen four games of the five played in the World Cup so far, and highlights of the opening game that I managed only full radio commentary of yesterday.
Obviously I’m primarily concerned with how the Gunners have played, and it would be unfair to comment too much on Carlos Vela. The radio commentators spoke of him ‘lacking confidence’, which I suppose is not surprising given his lack of action this season. The lad is in a catch-22 situation, and needs a good tournament to put him back in Arsene Wenger’s thinking.
Later on mixed feelings surfaced as France and Uruguay played out a tense, drab 0-0. William Gallas had a tough time up against Diego Forlan, who will surely regret the intermittent service he received. Bacary Sagna fared much better at right-back, although he was not tested too often defensively. Pick of a poor crop though was Abou Diaby, who outshone his senior partner in the centre of midfield, Yoann Gourcuff.
I have seen reports linking us with the Bordeaux midfielder, and there is no doubt he is a more accomplished performer than he demonstrated last night. I am on record elsewhere though as saying that I don’t think he is a player who would fit with the high-tempo game we play at our best. He is a player who usually creates time for himself and controls games at his pace. If the Diaby we saw last night turned up consistently then we already have a player who better suits our style.
I’ll quickly gloss over the South Korean victory over Greece earlier. There was nothing to see there. The only surprise about Argentina’s victory over Nigeria was the margin. A lack of concentration from a corner allowed Heinze to score what proved to be the only goal. A bigger defensive howler would come later. With Spain, Brazil, and Holland yet to start I can’t help feel that the Argies missed a chance to make a statement of intent.
The fifth match of the tournament turned into another below-par stalemate, but held the attention because this was England against USA. Over-estimating England and under-estimating the Americans was seen in equal measure. Last Monday I wrote in my first preview,
“I have a feeling the sides may be more evenly matched than many of my countrymen would have you believe.”
Now, I don’t want to say I told you so, but I told you so! That of course owes a great deal to the Rob Green howler that provided the equaliser after England had made the best possible start. On the balance of play nobody could have complained if England had snatched it in the second-half, but when the commentators are waxing lyrical about Emile Heskey, who was up against a centre-half released by Watford, then you know how good the finishing was.
England should pick Rooney for the next match. I don’t know where he was tonight.
Have a good Sunday ‘holics.
65 Responses to “Five Games In, And We Haven't Seen The Winners”
Last in, first out?
Alright Catalan? Mixed feelings here tonight. Think I’ll polish off the last of this Bushmills.
Maybe I was just locked in to the establishment overnight. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Or maybe I need to get a life. Either is possible!
The wine is all finished. Disaster.
So, Robert Green heh?
Made his reputation on the back of two outstanding games at the Arsenal. Hence why we are always linked with him. It will never happen.
Just how many ordinary keepers have had outstanding games against us? The clown at the lane was the latest.
Is there any substance to the rumours of us making an offer for the French chap?
Offer is probably putting it strongly, if you are talking about Hugo Lloris. No doubt we wil have made tentative enquiries to establish what sort of money would be required.
We won’t pay the money he would cost. If we can buy a solid ‘keeper for not much to contest the berth with Fabianski next season then I am told that is the preferred route. Hence the Schwarzer offer. Believe it or not, the Pole is highly regarded at the club.
I choose NOT to believe it. However, I would support promotion of Wsxscscscsny to learn from Schwarzer. Happy enough with that scenario.
Papers here reporting that Barca have “found” another 30 million to add to the Cesc offer.
Twats.
Family have stopped asking me about it. Think that they, at least, have got the message!
Oh well, that’ll be headline news here tomorrow then. Time to batten down the hatches again.
Tomorrow, Catalan…
Well done Fulham! £65 richer after the Ingerland game. Still holding firm on being an honorary dutchman for this world cup. Feel that Arsenal have done well enough this far. I’m not convinced at all about players like Vela but much bigger names than him have performed worse this far. What I’m trying to say is that we really do have loads of world class (world cup) players and them not winning much yet doesn’t mean much. Too many teams have good players nowadays for competitions not to be somewhat of a lottery, just like the WC.
Sure, better teams will win more OFTEN but there are no guarantees nowadays. 6 points isn’t much in the run of 38 games. I’m into this for the glory, sure, but I’m sane enough to recognice that football is an inexact science and that A doesn’t always lead to B.
Have a great WC, holics from all over the world and look forward to the lottery next season – we are not guaranteed anything but we’ve got more lottery tickets than most.
solid match. good thing capello brought another cb to cover for Rio instead of bringing theo because if Ledley can’t stay fit I wouldn’t be too sure about Carragher as Altidore made him look like a rag doll for a little while out there.
LOL at Rooney comment. The thing is, Capello apparently told him to watch his mouth, and that meant he had two things to think about and the football suffered. I challenge anybody to find a picture of Rooney walking and chewing gum at the same time.
king is never fit ,carragher is a piss poor CB,Terry look average without a great partnership,green is not better than almunia ,Heskey can pass the next 100 years in front of goal and still don’t score…..yep spain ,brazil,germany are really scare facing this lot.thx got the other team in the group are even weaker than USA ( no offence).
After watching the US against Australia, I knew they would be very difficult to beat-they have been expertly prepared. The mistake by Green was straight out of the Fabianski school of goalkeeping. Personally I thought they lacked Theo-I think his pace would have opened up the US midfield-Wright-Phillips was ineffective as I knew he would be. In truth England were disappointing right through the team.
The outstanding performer for me has been the Nigerian keeper. I know we didnt see him on crosses-but he has real presence-now theres a keeper worth getting.
knew someone would bring up the Nigerian keeper… its too early to be looking at him as possible replacement at all. only shown in one match so far. we need established consistency with this team.
but he does look like an exiting prospect though.
All hype and hoopla aside; England, far from Roo-ing it, were pretty much Roo-bish.
And David Beckham contributed more to the game than SWP yesterday.
Watched the England USA game in a pub. Ill be honest , I dont watch mcuh England – mainly because of Sven Goran Erikkson.
With all the world class talent they had, they were THE Most boring team to watch.
However, was pleasantly surprised to see them attack today.
Dont know what Rooney was doing soo deep. Fabio needs to rethink his formation and players.
And honestly, was Lennon that much better than Theo Walcott? I dont think so.
Enyeama, the Nigerian keeper, has already been linked to us a couple of years ago. He’s a superb shot stopper and by far the best keeper in Israel. However, he’s not tall, and he is not being tested on crosses too much in the poor Israeli premier league, so in that regard he’s an unknown quality.
Shades of Fabianski out there from Green today. As a states-side Arsenal supporter it was nice to finally be on the beneficial end of a goalkeeping howler.
Bartender, a Sam Adams!
come on think positive about England – don’t they remind you of Arsenal this season
Forwards who score like Emile, or cant get to good crosses from backs
Mid fielders who work together but cant integrate with forwards or backs
Defenders who’ve never played together because of injuries
Goalkeepers ……..
So England should be able to finish third then (QED)
BTW dont write off SWP who was brought on to replace Milner as a defensive mid-fielder. Apparently he is next sub goalie
Its early so mine’s a Newky Brown barman
I am seeing a bit more mature commentary here than i have seen on another arsenal blog (Desi Gunner). The truth about the Nigerian Goalkeeper is that we dont know how he will perform consistently on the big stage. the best we can do right now is take what we know of him now and observe him in future engagements to make informed opinions. here’s what I know about him.
In the recently concluded Israeli League, He was voted the Best Player? Not best goalkeeper but Best Player. he takes his teams penalties and he doesnt miss. if that is not leadership then tell me what is.
He is transfer listed by his Isreali Club, hapoel Tel Aviv; If i have an oppertunity of cashing in on my best asset why shouldnt i do it? its like saying Wayne rooney is a bad player because Everton were ready to sell a couple of years ago.
He survived 90 minutes on onslaught from Leo Messi: i dont know how many of Lloris, Greens and Schwarzers can survive such barrage of shots from the world best player not in 90 minutes but 45 minutes. Ask Almunia.
I guess all am saying is lets keep our fingers crossed and see if he is worth our atteention . if he is he would be a bargain buy, if not then i guesrr Arsene Knows best.
Perry Groves on BBC Radio 5 Live last night after the game:
“If England can’t get out of a group containing the USA, Algeria and Slovenia, they might as well pack up and go home”.
Brilliant.
“If you continue to target the lowest common denominator when printing news, you’re never going to garner any sort of loyalty”
You won’t believe this ‘holic. Guess who wrote that this morning?
Le Groan, seriously! Don’t do irony, do they?
Are all those that are commenting on Enyeama even from Israel and watch Israeli football? Cause it would be pretty amateur if you’re not.
The guy is a great keeper no doubt about it, but his expertise is shot stopping just like Almunia, he does have a problem with crosses.
He’s a good shot stopper with good instincts but he’s not the real deal yet.
Plus, he’s from Hapoel so fuck him. 😀
And two more things – One, he’s pretty young so he’ll block out Woj.
Two- Today is the election for Barca presidency, I for one would prefer Rossel cause he seems to actually care about Barca’s debt.
Heh!
Morning Snir. I take it you don’t rate Hapoel then 😉
Morning Holic,
Just like your french friend that’s a Bordeaux and Arsenal fan, I’m a Maccabi Tel-Aviv fan so Hapoel Tel-Aviv are my Spurs, so watching Eneyama at Arsenal would be too hard for me 🙂
Even though I’m not denying he’s a good keeper but not too sure whether he’s ready for EPL.
A keeper I would bring is Dudu Awate from Mallorca, our national team’s number one.
He stopped Messi numerous times in his time at La Liga.
And I would pay the whole 30 Million kitty on that Oneywu in needed cause he can stop Drogba!!! 🙂
Hard for me to comment on Oneywu. Haven’t seen much of him until last night, but he was excellent. I never judge on one game though.
It’s not the game itself that I judge upon solely but his appearance and approach.
He’s tall, strong, tough and does read the game well even though was daydreaming on the goal but I really liked how he handled Heskey and Rooney in the air and in the floor.
morning Holic & Holic`s
You have to laugh when the comentators reel out stupid stats when England play crap.
“It was in 42BC when Brazil won the world cup but drew their opening game”
I openly admit that the yanks are not a bad side not that long ago it took Brazil 45mins to come out their coma when they were 2-0 down to them, but came out in the second half and beat them. So when things are not going right they have another gear to slip into, but do we ?
Looking forward to the game tomorrow Holland V Denmark to keep up the Arsenal intrest.
On the note of Diaby, stunning in the first half then dissapeared in the second if only he could get some consistanty.
The most important thing to happen today is the Barca election which quite strangely have a direct impact on our season next year but also the launch of our away kit !
It seems as if we’re going back to yellow….
DAF. if England can’t get out of a group containing USA, Algeria and Slovenia, they’ll HAVE to pack up and go home!
Oops! Sorry. Missed the irony. That’s what you meant.
So, barca elections eh? What are the chances of this Rossel chap actually winning? Am I too late for a postal vote – heh!
Our goalkeeping scouts must have been wetting themselves yesterday. A perfect replacement for Big Al doing a Fab. Welcome aboard Mr Green…
6 games in now and we still haven’t seen the winner. Predicted order of finish: Slovenia, USA, England, Algeria.
Well,
I don’t know how reliable the Sunday Times is but according to that paper Wenger has been telling Cesc he would be sold if Barca increase their offer by only (!!!!!) 7 Million to make it 36 Million Pounds.
If that’s the case it’s an outrage, I for one would be hugely (!!!!) disappointed if Cesc would be sold for ONLY 36 Million…
And Arsenal shouldn’t give in to all that “you shouldn’t keep a player if he’s not happy” crap cause 95 % of footballers want to play somewhere else so frankly I don’t really care that he wants to be somewhere else as long as he’s still very proffesional as I’m sure he will be in case he stays.
‘Holic – “Argies missed a chance to make a statement of intent”
I think they did – the long haired “Geordie” at right back is all you need to know about why they won’t win the tournament. A class act like Zanetti is left at home and the nutjob that is their manager plays an attacking midfielder at full back. Furthermore, the rest of their defence is slower than a week at Butlins.
Snir Geuli @ 36 – I saw that snippet in the Sunday Times as well and nearly choked on my cornflakes – the way they reported it, it was as if Wenger was complicit in the deal saying that all Barcelona just needed to increase their price ever so slightly. The media in this country make me puke.
I was told by an acquaintance – no don’t laugh, because this is an Arsenal fan with no motive to make up nonsense about the club – who has two friends who work for West Ham, that Arsenal were in negotiations for Robert Green about two months ago.
Firstly, let’s hope that this IS nonsense, as I cannot see what Green gives us that we don’t already have.
Stewart Robson has criticised Green on Arsenal TV for a long while, mostly on his decisions about when to come out of his goal for crosses and attempted clearances.
If he has now added fumbling routine shots to his repertoire, we are
a) in deep trouble
b) very overstaffed in the hesitant/rash, fumbly, sad-looking
goalkeeper department.
I quite like, personally, the “Schwarzer to play for a while and teach Szczczczcznynyny” scenario.
He looked confident and assured against us in the last game of the season, despite having a reserve team and no defence in front of him.
He would not “kill” Szczczczczcznyny, and would surely be highly motivated by a last chance of CL football. His experience is obvious.
Finally, Robert Green has reportedly been considering libel proceedings after some of the things written in the papers about his performance yesterday.
He has now, though, dropped all the charges.
Hah!
Excellent Trev 🙂
Cheers ‘Holic, from you, it’s a real compliment, sir.
Cheer up, Robert Green, oh what can it mean to a… sad English keeper and a… you know how that ends. The one — pardon the choice of words here — saving grace is that it happened in the group stage, of a group England will probably still win. If a gaffe of this magnitude had to happen, it’s best for England that it happened in the group stage, not in a knockout round. If something like that does happen, then I hope the United Kingdom has an equivalent to America’s Witness Protection Program, or else “the Hand of Clod” will never be able to set foot on that sceptered isle again.
We’ve seen two keepers we should stay well clear of Schwarzer and Green. Woeful.
Germans looked good tonight, Ozil oozed class
Schwarzer wasn’t woeful apart from the 2nd goal, he was just ditched by his defence.
If not for him it would have been 7.
Barca elections are done, Rosell is the new president, that’s good for us, he actually cares about Barca’s debt and won’t pay our asking price for Cesc.
Why oh why couldn’t John Terry have shagged Robert Green’s wife?????
Despite woeful performances from SWP and Lennon neither apear to have come in for much stick. If a wide player does not play a telling pass in a game I thought it was the law that they got slaughtered by the press???? Or is that just Theo again?????
Now I confess I was rooting for the country where I live and am pretty happy with the result. That being said the best goalkeepers (Buffon, Casillas, Lloris) have all come out and complained about the ball trajectories and rebounds being very hard to read. In the first 4 days 2 keepers have misjudged and miscontrolled the ball in almost the same way and it looks like the sequence is not over.
Of course the gutter press in the UK is too hapy to scapegoat a player. But I thought the most surprising part was how toothless the english team was in the final moves. They looked disjointed, not as much as the french but clearly not playing as a team, very obvious when compared to the US. The fact they could not score a second is far more damning than Green’s error imho.
Doesn’t look like the United fans will win much with their bets on Rooney being the top scorer at the WC…
Matt, is there an email of some sort that I can contact you?
I take it you’re in the US and I’m gonna be there for a large portion of next season so I wanted to know exactly where I’d be able to get a bit of Arsenal action around the US.
Howdy ‘holics
England were awful, there’s no disguising it, the only half decent player was Stevie Me. Most disapointing was the way the players reacted after the Green howler, not a single one of them went to console him after it happened, they just left him standing there looking, well, a bit green! Where’s the team spirit? I saw in an interview later that the players will get behind him and support him, I remember thinking; well that’s a good tactic, get/stand behind him, then there will be no problem if he lets another slip through.
Ze Germans weren’t bad, were they? They made the Aussies look silly, although having the name the Socceroo’s they’re doing a pretty good job of that themselves. Cahill’s sending off was extreamly harsh but the krauts were miles better anyway.
Tomorrow the WC kicks off over here (NL) and I’ve got my bar all done out in Orange, nasty colour, but hey, when in Rome as they say. I’m quite looking forward to it, RvP and the boys were shit hot in the warm up friendlies, so I’m hoping they give a good showing, only problem is that it kicks off at 13:30 local time, so I’ll be getting the drinks in pretty early…….ah, who am I kidding, that’s no problem at all!!!
A quick night cap please sir.
Cheers.
Snir: you can get my email through `Holic although the information you’re looking after is on the official Arsenal US supporters site here: arsenalamerica.com and of course the arsenal site: arsenal.com/supportersclubs
As for how to watch the games on TV, look up the schedule on livesoccertv.com. Unless you spend your whole paycheck to subscribe to 1000s of channels you will likely only be able to watch one premiership game in a while. For the CL it’s easier since almost all the games are shown on ESPN.
Of course you will discover the pleasure of having to wake up at 5am on week-end mornings to watch our beloved team. Let me warn you there are few worse ways to start a week-end than waking up after a handful of drunken sleep hours to watch Arsenal lose a game. Of course on the other hand when we win the positive vibe lasts the whole day, it’s pretty addicting. The naming of that blog 7am kickoff will make sense to you very soon.
On weekdays the best option at the office is of course streaming. I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept and don’t need my help… Now if you’re planning a road trip then get an android phone: you can watch live games on the go with the Ustream android app, pretty neat!
Finally there’s Arsenal TV online, the closest you can get to the players on our side of the pond.
As always there’s tons of expectations from England and frankly using the ball as an excuse is plain wrong. Green made a howler end off and the ball was kicked with some pace and he didn’t read it well.
Just like with Arsenal, England can’t blame Green for not winning the game plenty of chances to go up and remember if it wasn’t for Green it could have ended 1:2
Sorry peeps Fabianski is a good shot stopper and I have never really seen him leak a goal like Green did on Saturday so to use Fabianski name as a blunder TAG is just childish. Yes he made a lot of errors but hey he never really had a run of games. Anyway I don’t want to go on about as I think we definitely need a replacment but something tells me he is not going anywhere.
As for Cesc saga well it won’t stop will it now?
For some fucked up reason Barca are saying he announced it to the public and to them that he wants out of Arsenal.
Now can some please point me to an article where he saying he wants out of Arsenal?
Now if anything is true surely Le Boss is not a liar.
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11670_6205510,00.html
Quite surprising people who should know about football commenting about Enyeama seeming to have a one-off against Argentina. Even so from Arsenal fans when he’s been linked with us for a while (BTW I’m a gunner from Nigeria).
Even more so England fans saying same. Enyeama is no newbie he was in goal against England in the 2002 world cup and made such an awesome save from a Scholes shot that a lot of people nominated it for the save of the tournament.
Anyways that said, he is a good shot stopper largely because he does not lack in confidence however he is sometimes suspect at crosses just like the keepers we have at present.
First time posting. So cheers ‘holic, you are doing a terrific job!!!
I don’t know what credit to bring to sport.co.uk but in this article they claim that:
1) Rosell and Arsene have been in contact and agreed to leave Cesc one more year at Arsenal before letting him sign for Barca at a price close to Arsenal’s valuation
2) Laporta has made it his life mission to sign Fabregas before he steps down at the end of the month so we can expect more banter until then
http://www.sport.co.uk/news/Football/39208/EXCLUSIVE_Rosell_deal_secures_Fabregas_at_Arsenal_for_one_more_year_.aspx
The difference between England winning and the US getting a point was down to the Goalkeeper’s. Howard earned the US team a point. He literally saved them time and again. Our Goalkeeper lost us 2 valuable points. That’s what it feels like following Arsenal. How come Arsenal Goalkeepers never “earn” us points, we’re always giving them away. After seeing Green & Schwartzer this weekend, neither of those 2 are the answer and then reading today that Almunia still believes he’s the No.1 Keeper…we have to get a new Goalkeeper. Help!!!!!
I don’t understand you guys.
Do you really determine a player’s ability upon one performance ?
Why don’t you go by the other 62 matches Schwarzer played in this season?
You don’t decide to buy or not to buy a player on one game.
(And I’m not even starting to talk about the fact that he actually was solid apart from the 2nd goal and prevented 3 goals himself)
If you do that then RVP isn’t the class he is if someone else who hasn’t seen him regularly were to judge him based on today’s match cause he was close to awful – Very slow in decision making, didn’t create any passing lanes for his teammates or for himself and walked a lot on the pitch.
But He is class cause one game doesn’t say a lot.
Another GK howler today. On a very simple corner the paraguayan keeper looked like he was about to collect the ball but missed it under absolutely no pressure.
Fifa asked Adidias to give them a ball which would help score more goals and their wish has been granted. Unfortunately those extra goals are worthy of sunday league and meanwhile we’ve never seen so many missed passes in a WC.
@bernard: Snir is right. Even more so with goalkeepers, unless they perform heroics (think Al vs Barca) no one ever notices the good saves.
Matt: this World Cup is so far the lowest-scoring tournament for ages so if more goals was the purpose of the Jubilani ball then it is a massive failure.
New Away kit has been revealed Holics…
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/new-away-kit-exclusive-picture-gallery
I like it. I hope the new home kit sees a return to the white sleeves.
Lars: Interesting stats. At the same time the first games of the group round has never offered the most attacking football displays as far as I remember. Once it comes to ensure qualification for the knock-out round we’ll se much more intent (and goals hopefully).
As for the ball, it seems Fifa takes a lot of pleasure to come with a new ball at every WC now. I remember as far as 1998 the GKs came out criticizing it. With more training the players will get used to it and shot and pass accuracy will improve. At least it did the previous times.
Good-looking away kit, good blend of modern and old. Agree that the white sleeves are a must for the home kit.
It’s perhaps not exactly like I would have done it, but it really looks good enough for me.
BUT – what I really like is the jacket that Theo wears on that promo pic. Reversed colours, big cannon, small Emirates-logo, yellow neck with that redcurrant-lining. Love it.
http://www.bayareagooners.com/markmywords/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/arsenalawaykit.jpg
BUT – nr 2 – Can’t seem to find it at all on online. It’s probably not for sale, is my guess. If anyone do see one, at the Armoury or Online, please let me know!
Am I the only one watching NK vs Brazil thinking it’s the most enjoyable game today?
That isn’t saying much Matt! But I do agree. In some weird way.
It was almost close! Portugal and Ivory Coast can start worrying now 😉
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