Arsenal Supporters would do well to pursue their non-Arsenal related interests until Arsenal play again in 7 days. In addition to having Eduardo taken off early with a broken leg, Arsenal played poorly against 10-man Birmingham City, going down a goal, before going ahead, only to throw away two points in second-half stoppage time. Shocking.
Clichy - Lost out badly to set up Birmingham's late equalizer. His crossing throughout the game was poor (4).
Cesc - Playing fairly well. Not at the level he was at the start of the season, but a good midfielder (7).
Flamini - Gave away the freekick that led to Birmingham's opener. Poor decisions still find their way into his game to offset his good break-up play (6).
Adebayor - Skillful and hardworking, but had an off day. The Arsenal game plan was to send in crosses for him to head in, and it never looked threatening. When he had well-beaten the offside trap, with a chance to put Arsenal up 3-1, he went for goal instead of picking out Bendtner who was making a good run (6).
Bendtner - Ineffective. With Birmingham City down to 10 men, they were fortunate to have Bendtner come on as he was not able to make any useful contribution, and effectively canceled out the man advantage (4).
Walcott - Arsenal's hero for the day. His goals were great, especially the second one, which is the kind of football Arsenal are supposed to be playing all the time. He ran at the defense, and put them well onto the back foot, and finished himself (8).
Sagna - A steady player, good in defense and going forward, although his crossing wasn't any more effective than Clichy's (7).
Gallas - Good defending. Had a good block. Birmingham couldn't get anything through the central defense, and had to rely on errors from Flamini and Clichy to get their goals. Gallas threw a tantrum when Clichy conceded the late penalty and Arsenal threw away two points, and Arsenal Supporters shared his frustration, even if not all of them would have reacted by kicking the advertising hoardings (7).
Senderos - Sometimes looks like he's about to lose out, but has been doing just enough to deal with danger (7).
Almunia - Might have done better on McFadden's first goal. He got a hand to it. Goalkeeper is not one of Arsenal's strongest positions, and it could have an affect on their attempts to win something this season (6).
Hleb - Continues to be just about Arsenal's best player, as he has the skill and creativity on the ball to create something, but he had a chance to score and wrap up the points, and chose to pass (7).
The beautiful game this was not. Arsenal lowered their level to keep it interesting against 4th-from-bottom, 10-man Birmingham, and dropped points accordingly.
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2 days ago
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23 comments:
That was just the stupidest loss of points. Gallas and Arsene need to give the players a few good kicks to wake them up. Yes they're tired from the midweek encounter with Milan but knowing that they can put more pressure on the closest pursuers in the league, it was time to keep focus especially against a team 4th from bottom and reduced to 10 men. I am practically fuming.
Like I said, Man. U. never mess around with weaker opponents. Haven't the Arsenal players learned anything? They are fortunate that Theo found his scoring boots (a right one and a left one) today; otherwise it would have been 3 points lost.
My thoughts are with Eduardo. We should all wish him a speedy recovery. I need to go cool off before I can become coherent again.
I thought Arsenal started slowly even before the Eduardo injury. It was looking like a Champions League hangover. I thought they were magnificent mid-week by the way; very professional, against a Milan side who understand the game at the highest possible level. I honestly don't think that United could have done as well Arsenal did against Milan. United have great skill and power but I still think they lack the collective brain to figure out the big European teams. I think Ferguson has always lacked something tactically. But I think Arsneal are getting closer to the highest level of play. In England, all the talk seems to be around Arsenal's lack of toughness. But when you see how an aging Milan team practically strolled to victory in last season's Champions League, you have ask if it's toughness Arsenal really lack. I think the missing factor has to do with tactics, positioning and decision-making personally. We'll see how Arsenal stack up in those areas when they play at Milan. Should be a great match.
Incidentally, I noticed from your About page that you don't like Eboue. Can you explain why? Thanks. Nice site...
Johnny Centerback - Thanks a lot for your comment. I'm hopeful Arsenal can win in Milan, or at least get a score draw; hell a 0-0 draw with a win on penalties would be ok too, but, I'd love to see Arsenal score some goals.
About Eboue, I want to be careful, because Arsene has faith in the player, and the player has the talent to reward that faith, and I don't want to discount the possibility that he could have some big performances for Arsenal (he did pretty well in the first leg against Milan); But: I'm often concerned that he exaggerates injuries, and that he under-performs.
My impression is that he often pretends to be hurt, and that has been my biggest concern. When I'm trying to explain to the uninitiated how great Arsenal Football is, and I sit them in front of a game, and then they see Eboue playacting, and slow-motion replays make it obvious that he's pretending, it really hurts my sales pitch.
There have also been a couple incidents this season that alienated some supporters: slapping a Boro player and getting sent off against Man U. These incidents were especially troubling because he also played poorly in those games. I have trouble fathoming why players like Denilson, Walcott,and Diarra, when he was still with Arsenal, weren't preferred to Eboue, or why a new player wasn't brought in.
The comments in the "About" page were from me. kdat mentioned the Eboue situation is one of his recent comments, and, if he's reading, might have a different perspective to share here.
I am a mess. I saw the video of Eduardo's injury and it was sickening. You need a strong stomach to see it. This is the second time in my life that I've seen something like this on TV and I wish I never see it again.
I hope everyone can find a way to express our sorrow and send a message to Eduardo to wish him a full recovery.
As for the rest of the team, I can understand why they reacted the way they did for the rest of that game. They saw something so horrific that one feels football means nothing after one saw that incident. On the other hand, the reason I was so upset was I felt that the team needed to turn that sadness into anger and the anger into energy to tear whatever opponents in front of them into shreds. They are on the football pitch to win games and win they must to show the rest of the league that kicking Arsenal is not the way to stop us.
Now is the time for all of us fans to stand behind our team to support them and urge them on. Let's win it for Eduardo!
Eduardo's injury is nauseating. I hope the player who broke his leg gets more than a 3-game ban.
I only caught the game after the 30th min so I didn't see the injury at the time. I have now, and it is very difficult to stomach. I wish Eduardo the very best.
Eboue is a big talent. He defends well, he goes forward well, and has a great cross when he gets it right. However, we all know he has a very hot head. Van Persie was quite a hothead himself when he first came to Highbury. But time and the Arsenal way has smoothed out the rough edges. I believe Wenger has the same hopes for Eboue. I believe he will get there eventually. He must be noticing how much he lets the team down. I'm sure people like Kolo are advising him.
Walcott has always looked very immature. He has brought very little to our side recently. He does not add to the midfield fluidity and creativity that wins over other good sides. Eboue brings this element. It was clear against Milan. Diarra lacks creativity and is over-confident. Denilson is more of a central midfielder. And of course Diaby dislikes playing wide. In the absence of Thomas, Eboue is our best replacement. Of course that is when he plays seriously and keeps his cool.
His shooting is horrible. That needs work. But even Hleb suffers from that problem. It scares me to think about how great Hleb could be if he looked to score a little more. Anyway, that's besides the point. Eboue is worth being patient with. Especially as he can also play at right back.
Another value-added comment from kdat. I'm impressed by how much you've kept faith in Eboue. That puts you in good company: with Arsene Wenger.
I'll be over the moon if he repays that faith with the winning goal, or the decisive cross, in the Champions League final.
Quite frankly boys there is not much I don't like about Eboue. I think that Arsene would bear me out. He's a big player. Arsene plays him whenever he can. That is proof enough. Alright, he could have finished better v Milan. And that dive? It was immediately after playing in the crazy, zany African Cup. Enough said. He ran at the defender's knee, made contact, then fell. Clever. Not clever enough. Yellow. What I love about Eboue apart from his great skill (remember boys, this was a right back the year before) is that he went after Joey Barton, who clattered Gilberto. (Recall: Newcastle stole points that night.) Now don't get me wrong. I am not at all in favour of violence. Except like the philosopher and Resistance man, Albert Camus, who during WWII finally relented and said "enough": we have to kill evil.
Beautiful FC needs someone to protect its beauty. And Eboue is ready.
Although it would have cost them, I think that an Arsenal player or two should have thrown down or even slugged a Birmingham player after big, lovely, snuggly OAF Martin Taylor broke the beautiful Eduardo.
I am against Wenger's retraction. He should have taken it further, deeper. His instincts were correct: there is something wrong with English/British football.
It is apparent in centreback Martin Taylor's incompetance: he cannot compete. Stay home man. Go to The Championship. The Premiership is becoming the creme de la creme. You cant' be diving around, flailing all over the place just to stay you play in the big league. Either you can move and track and out-think and out-pass the best in the world or you go home. You don't listen to McLeish's pre-game talk: "Get stuck in!"..."Go through them!"..."Get a piece of them and they'll turtle".
I say go home, Martin.
It's sad for England. The centreback really has been such an emblem there. And now ignominy.
What a pathetic figure is Martin Taylor. And it's not his fault.
We know. We know there was no malice. That is precisely the sad thing.
Know what else there was "no" of?
Skill.
Micah Richards is highly over-rated as far as I'm concerned but that centreback would never have broken Eduardo's leg.
Perhaps we just need fewer teams in the Premiership. And that would leave us with fewer Martin Taylors and Alex McLeishes to deal with.
Right Eduardo?
I definitely feel your frustration with Taylor.
There has to be harsher penalties for breaking someone's leg, or breaking someone's skull, as happened to Cech.
A 3-game ban is a joke. A 10-game ban would be lenient. One idea is that the offender can't play again until the injured player recovers. That might not always be fair, if the injured player isn't following his recommended rehab, for example, but it would be more reasonable than a 3-game ban! Sure, it can be said, "He didn't mean to break his leg," but, like involuntary manslaughter, it should be strongly discouraged. Don't drive drunk and risk running over a pedestrian and don't jump into a player studs up under the guise of getting "stuck in."
James Lawton of the Independent has this to say about what the tackle represents:
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/james-lawton-reckless-tackles-leave-ugly-stain-that-apologists-can-no-longer-wipe-away-787310.html
I like what he says about tackling and defending being an art. I was a centreback and always believed this to be true even when managers asked me to go out and break legs.
I am in the camp of the great Milan player and manager Nils Leidholm. This is what he thought about the modern player: "The only trouble is they do not do much to avoid fouling players...It is too easy to stop a player by fouling him. Proper training teaches you how to win the ball without committing a foul, which is much more difficult. I learned that as a youngster and that was why I was rarely booked or suspended."
What was Gallas up to at the end of the fixture? Walking into the other half (like a technical foul in basketball), kicking the adverts, collapsing on the pitch? Was this results of an emotional game, or was he trying to make a point? Viera isn't around to offer the bus-beat-down anymore- was he angry at Clichy? Was it the referee, or Taylor? It all seemed so odd...
When there's big money involved, when the stakes are high, people try to use shortcuts to gain whatever advantage; that's where fouling becomes the easy way out. And then there's the mind game: intimidation, getting into the other player's head using violence. The only to stop this kind of behavior is to enforce strict punishments for dangerous plays.
My heart goes out to Eduardo but before all you Arsenal supporters get too preachy, remember that Eduardo himself was guilty of an even worse tackle just last week.
http://www.d1g.com/video/show/1790408
Thanks for the video link, but the argument that the tackle shown by Eduardo is worse than the tackle that broke his leg might not bear up under close scrutiny. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Eduardo slides into Nani, studs up, Nani carries on uninjured. Taylor puts his studs firmly into Eduardo, Eduardo has a broken leg.
For me, there is simply no metric more effective for assessing the relative severity of tackles than the severity of the resulting injuries.
For cases when there is no injury, as with Nani, that's when I think You Tube clips are at their most useful as a tool to compare and contrast.
About Gallas going mad: I think he has a particular obsession with winning the league. He won it in consecutive years with Chelsea, and thought that he would have a good chance to win it again with Arsenal. He made comments during the season last year about how difficult it was not to be in the title race. When Arsenal failed to see out the victory against Birmingham, he snapped, thinking those points might make the difference in the title race.
To try to get a sense of empathy, try to imagine something that would make you snap: say you have to watch a loved one being tortured. "But," I hear you thinking, "no one would get as worked up about football as they would about something like, unless they were completely crazy." Precisely.
It was a high tackle. Eduardo retracted his leg, though, as soon as he realized he had missed the ball so even if there had been any contact, it would not have resulted in injury.
Football is a contact sport and injuries are unavoidable but something has to change. Serious injuries like Eduardo's should and can be prevented. If every high tackle (or the vast majority of them) are called as fouls, the players will have to learn to play by that rule.
I was more angry than Gallas when I saw Clichy make that mistake. If I had made a similar mistake on my job, I would have been pulled into my boss's office and given a proper tongue-lashing. Football is these guys' lives. For them the money is already there and glory is the only thing that separates the good ones from everyone else.
I am anxious to see what kind of attitude Arsenal come out with in Saturday's game.
Are you guys really going to force me to bust out the attempted murder analogy here? Just because Nani dodged the proverbial bullet fired by Eduardo, it doesn't absolve the Croatian of his reckless tackle. And if Nani's knee had locked upon impact, the outcome could have been awful.
I was not suggesting that Eduardo's challenge was unequivocally "worse" than Taylor's - it's obviously subjective. But the severity of the resulting injury is not the most effective measure of the severity of the challenge. Both of Djibril Cisse's horrific broken legs were "caused" by completely innocuous tackles. Alan Smith's gruesome fracture was the result of...being struck by a John Arne Riise shot. You see players bear the full brunt of terrible tackles all the time and somehow, through pure luck, emerge relatively unscathed.
I'm sorry, but claiming that Eduardo "retracted his leg" or that "it would not have resulted in injury" even if there had been contact with Nani is just grasping at straws. Ridiculous.
Both challenges were extremely dangerous, deserving of red cards. I feel terrible for Eduardo, but too many people have been getting a bit carried away.
All this sermonizing in the wake of an unfortunate incident is pointless. Crude and mistimed challenges cannot be prevented in the sport of football. For the most part, red cards and bans are doled out when they are warranted.
What more can be done? The FA "encouraging" referees to show more red cards? I'm sure that will work wonders...
Try giving out more red card for any dangerous play! I'm sure if that is done for a period of time, players will have to change the way they play. The coaches and the players may complain initially but they'll eventually have to play within the given rules.
There is no denying that injuries do happen but if you can change the "culture", you can reduce the probability of their occurrence.
I did not disagree with you that the Eduardo-Nani (or was it Anderson?) play was a foul. The referee called (or didn't call) based on the current rules and the players played in accordance to the boundaries they have been given. What I am saying is the rules should/must change so these kinds of fouls happen less often.
"the proverbial bullet" - you're havin' a laugh.
Now let's talk about all the great goals, that just didn't quite go in. Just because the ball was wide by a meter doesn't mean it wasn't a great goal?
Sliding clumsily without hurting a player is not nearly as bad as breaking a player's leg, just as, to quote Jules from Pulp Fiction, "Eatin' a bitch out and givin' a bitch a foot massage ain't even the same fuckin' thing...Ain't no fuckin' ballpark neither."
What more can be done? A 10-game ban, rather than a 3-game ban, when the result of a hard tackle puts a player out for months.
Ahhh, Pulp Fiction, one of my favorite movies. Good one, 433. I must dig it out see it again tonight.
I am having trouble following your "great goals that didn't quite go in" line of thinking. I think you might mean that it would be like calling shots that barely missed great goals just because they were close. Or something like that. So I don't really have a response other than general confusion.
Now your Pulp Fiction analogy I follow, but let me help you modify it to properly apply to the situation at hand: Taylor's tackle on Eduardo would be like fucking Marsellus Wallace's wife. Eduardo's tackle on Nani would be like getting Marsellus Wallace's wife drunk and trying to fuck her but ultimately failing.
Either way, Marsellus Wallace is going to take you out on the patio and throw your ass over the balcony.
I do support ten-match bans, for example, but determining it based on whether the foul results in a long-term injury just isn't realistic (See again: Cisse's broken legs).
It seems like heavier sentences have been tied more closely to intent, where the act is clearly malicious - Ben Thatcher's outrageous elbow on Pedro Mendes is a recent example.
I see a couple problems with emphasizing intent.
1. I may intend to kick a player, but if he's too fast, and I can't get anywhere near him, I don't get the red card.
2. There's a distinction to be made between intent and alleged intent.
The satirical comments about "great goals that didn't quite go in" was to the first point. If you prosecute me for intending to kick a player who I couldn't catch, you might also celebrate your center forward who had several shots off target in a losing effort. After all, he intended to score, and you propose giving more weight to intent relative to results.
To the second point, it's difficult to discern intent in most cases. I don't think Taylor intended to break Eduardo's leg, but he did, so I say he should have a 10-game ban.
If you're going to make analogies to criminal law, it would be remiss to overlook involuntary manslaughter.
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