City 3-0 Arsenal; the Good, Bad, and Ugly

I’m publishing this today (Saturday) because I’m taking tomorrow off to gather my thoughts, regroup and start fresh on Monday. After this week’s events, Arsene Wenger might want to follow my lead.

The Good

Here’s what I learned today…

  1. Stephen Ireland was great today.  His work rate and commitment in the match eclipsed the thrashing around of Alex Song and Denilson. Arsene Wenger surely saw that, which means that a change has to be coming, right?
  2. We only lost 3-0, the way that those guys played we probably should have lost 5 or 6 to nil.
  3. If you watch an Arsenal match with Yakity Sax playing in the background the game is much more enjoyable. Turn down the commentators and turn up the Boots Randolph — it’s the only way to get through the rest of the season.
  4. Does anyone still doubt the value of Adebayor? Seriously?
  5. There’s no question now, the experiment has failed. It was audacious to try and kudos to Wenger for having the balls to try it but a youth team just can’t do it. No hard feelings for Arsene trying it — he gets all the leeway he wants from me — but I suspect that he knows that the experiment has failed and will now move on.
  6. Tactically, Arsenal have been found out as well. Teams are now playing the same defensive scheme over and over against us and it works perfectly. Let Arsenal attack, there’s no teeth there, and since the defense is comical, prone to mistakes, and likes to dribble the ball out you don’t need much possession to get a goal. Once you get the first, just sit back and counter, more goals will come: Arsenal play a comically high line and with with 8 Arsenal players in the opponent’s box, you just wait and lob it out to a speedy attacker who will get you a break away goal.

Learning things is always a good but only if you capitalize on what you learned.

The Bad

I totally want to rip Song here but what’s the point? We all can see his limitations.

Same with Bendtner, Arsene says that the sign of a great player is that they know what they want to do with the ball as soon as they receive it and Bendtner hasn’t a clue. That’s pretty much all you need to know about Bendtner. But so? Adebayor can’t play every game, so I guess we’re stuck with Bendtner until Eduardo rides in on his white horse and saves the world.

The Ugly

So, what the hell happened to Clichy? Last year he was a revelation and over the last few matches he’s been completely unreliable at back. Today he had one of his worst matches I’ve ever seen. I’m not mad at him, I don’t want to fire him or anything, but rather, it makes me sad. What the hell is going on at Arsenal that we’re burning out so many talented defenders?

In my mind this whole bizarre defensive merry-go-round started with Campbell. When he walked out after shipping 2 goals against West Ham and we all said that maybe he just didn’t have the mental strength it took to play for Arsenal.

Then we lost Senderos and we all said that maybe he didn’t have the mental strength it took to play at Arsenal.

Then Toure…

Then Gallas…

Now Clichy?

What the living hell is going on with the Arsenal defense? I don’t have an answer, but I suspect that the “total football” approach exposes the defense to attacks that require 100% from our defenders. Since no defender can be perfect, these players are occasionally exposed, then they make a mistake and that leads to them doubting themselves and so on. I hope Arsene sees this and starts making some changes tactically.

Anyway, that’s enough for the weekend. There will no doubt be stories and quotes from the boss but I’m just burned out.

There really isn’t much more to say right now, is there? Try to have a good weekend, I’m going to take my frustrations out on Sunday — I’ve got a match.

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