We’d like to thank Rob Kirby, one of our many Arsenal-supporting field agents, for the following take on Arsenal’s “imminent” demise.
Don't look back.
The football media establishment says that Arsenal is out of the title race even before anything’s begun. With the imminent exits of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri (on the heels of the £7M Manchester City signing of left back Gael Clichy), pundits have already decided the Arsenal season is done, dead and buried. Supporters, angry over last season’s utter capitulation, are screaming for Wenger’s head, seeing big names go but none coming in.
For the past two transfer windows, everyone was in agreement. We needed a quality goalkeeper, a rock-solid central defender (or two) and a defensive midfielder as backup and competition to Song. And for the past two transfer windows, we got none of them. And now we need a left back and two attacking midfielders, as well? That’s over half the starting XI!
Reality check:
On the GK-side, Szczesny emerged as a badass last season (regrettable Carling Cup fiasco aside). And even Fabianski showed he wasn’t contractually obligated to suck all the time.
Vermaelan, our first choice center half, spent the entire year injured. But now he’s back. Koscielny enters his second season in the league, better adjusted now to the physicality of the Premiership. Meanwhile, Wenger truly seems be on the reinforcements track this time around. (Perhaps someone will even deliver us from Squillaci, while they’re giving us the upgrade…)
The loss of Fabregas can’t be understated, but it’s been a long time coming. Thankfully, Wilshere had a full season to play beside him and learn from one of the masters. And not only did Song put in a solid shift, adding goal-scoring to his bag of tricks, his body seems largely immune to the team’s uber-susceptibility to injury.
But no one chooses to focus on that. It doesn’t sell papers, and if there’s one thing publishing papersellers like, it’s paper sales. So Fleet Street shrieks with the histrionics and the exclamation points. Doomsayers insist that the exit of three players, all of whom have been tipped to leave from the past six months (Nasri, Clichy) to 2 years ago (Cesc), spells the end of the Arsenal Top Four dynasty, not to mention any title aspirations. And wait, crap, Arshavin may go, too! Not to mention the players the club wants to let go: Denilson, Diaby, Almunia, Eboue, Squillaci, Bendtner and Rosicky. It’s an exodus of mass proportions! Forget Champions League, we’ll be battling relegation!
Nasri out the door for Miami-based chicken fighting league on higher weekly wages than current Arsenal offer.
So, Clichy is off to Man City. Better him than Sagna, for our right back is quite a feisty, efficient, and productive gem. (Ohh, I love me some Sagna! He won’t ever leave, will he?)
In addition to Sagna, “those who won’t leave, or we’ll be in real trouble”: Song, Wilshire, Ramsey, van Persie, Vermaelen, Djourou, Walcott.
The rumour-mill has Nasri and Cesc leaving soon. I want to say “good riddance”, but it just doesn’t feel right to be that angry…
If Nasri leaves, then there is a huge gap in the Gunners’ Clichy-less left side. English-boy Kieren Gibbs can fill left-back or left-midfield, but he needs experience… Another signing would be in order should Nasri flee. The gossip columns mention Villa’s Stuart Downing as a possible signing?
It will be an interesting summer for sure. Wenger has padded-pockets for the first time in a while, so what’s the next chess move in the Professor’s mind? Has his youth-minded strategy backfired, is Arsenal a breeding ground for talent that will eventually leave for greener pastures? Or has he something else up his sleeve?
Is an overhaul in order? Perhaps, but Wenger doesn’t work like that.
Arsene has already enticed two teenagers from Barca’s youth academy to sign for the Gunners this summer, infuriating the Catalans to no end. (So delicious, the off-field rivalry that is Barca-Arsenal).
But Arsene is conservative to a fault. We would love to see Wenger sign 5 more players this summer, but I predict he signs 3 more at most.
I think the consensus is that we need a few big, steely, Brits.
Get Given, get Gary Cahill, get Downing, get Scott Dann, and please, please, please, go after the artist presently known as Leighton Baines.
F— it, I read an article today that suggested Wenger should get Joey Barton! At this point in Arsenal’s history, why not?
May, 1999. I had just experienced three confident days on my own in Madrid. Music, museums, and majesty. The sink in my tiny bedroom was clogged, but my Spanish was up to par. Off to Barcelona!
Barcelona: I departed the overnight train from Madrid and realized I hadn’t brought enough money with me. Worse, the station concierge told me that all the hotels were full. (A couple days later, I learned that Manchester United and Bayern Munich were in town for a thrilling Champs League Final. So many chubby, pale, sunburnt drunkards, spewing their anthems, separated by black-garbed Spanish military/police carrying machine guns.)
I eventually sorted out my funds in the station, and realized that the Catalan language barrier (not Spanish!) had contributed to my confusion. (I was looking for a hostel, not a hotel.) I paid for my room, celebrated, and hit Las Ramblas.
As dusk became darkness, I noticed the increasing cacaphony of car horns. Crowds were gathering; people were hanging from lightposts, lighting flares, and singing. I asked around and learned that FC Barcelona had just won the league title.
Two days later, I happened upon a medium-sized square in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. The Barca team bus arrived to greet the swelling of several hundred adoring fans. The players spoke from a second-story hotel balcony. I remember Figo, and I was in awe of the adoration. (Also on that balcony: Reiziger, Rivaldo, Kluivert…)
(The team that won La Liga during my first night in Catalunya also featured Xavi Hernandez and Josep Guardiola…)
Barcelona showed me Gaudi, as I stopped traffic to take pictures of his organic living spaces. Barcelona gave me La Sagrada Familia, again by Gaudi, perhaps the most beautiful of all unfinished architectural masterpieces.
I stood in line to see Picasso’s early sketches, accompanied by a street-guitarist. I watched young boys, in school uniforms, showing and telling a disturbingly large, silver handgun, out of sight of the cops, directly beneath the towering coastal statue of Columbus/Colon.
My one awkward memory: I had learned that Barca had won the league. People were celebrating all around me that night. There were pre-made cardboard cutouts of the trophy. I saw a woman who had 4 or 5 of those trophy cutouts. I asked her for one, using body language more than words. She shook her head, “no”.
I found my own cardboard trophy on the ground, trampled and dirty, with the handles torn off. I still have it.
The first leg of Arsenal-Barcelona did not disappoint, with the Gunners stunningly coming from behind to win 2-1 three weeks ago at home in London. So the return leg today in Barcelona is even more tantalizing.
As Fabregas indicated in his first leg post-match interview, one should think of these home&away aggregate-goal fixtures as a single 180 minute match. So Arsenal lead 2-1 at “half”; do they come out and try to defend that lead for 90 minutes on the road? That is to say, will they attempt to park the proverbial bus? Many believe Wenger is philosophically incapable of doing so, and he has said this week that Arsenal won’t do so–which perhaps mean they will? It will be interesting to see the starting XIs Wenger and Guardiola will choose, the formations they deploy, and how they instruct their sides to play.
Both teams will be missing key players due to injury or suspension, requiring both managers to start players that haven’t done so most of the season. Barcelona will be without both Pique and Puyol–the solid central back partnership for not only club but also World Cup-winning country. So Barça will have a very different look in the back, which will most likely ripple into midfield. Indications are that Guardiola will move Busquets back from his usual defensive midfield position to partner with Abidal in the center of the defense, and Mascherano will get the start in the holding midfield role.
Beyond that, Barcelona’s lineup should be consist of the usual suspects, arrayed in their usual 4-3-3: the Brazilian wingbacks (Dani Alves and either Maxwell or Adriano) on either side of the center backs; Xavi and Iniesta in the heart of the midfield; Messi, Villa, and Pedro providing the attack.
Though as tactical guru Jonathan Wilson described in a column last fall, it’s not unusual that both of Barca’s wingbacks go forward to provide width in attack–especially against sides that are sitting deep in a firmly parked bus–in which cases Busquets would drop back to stay home and keep Pique/Puyol company (and hence the 4-3-3 would morph to something more like a W-W, i.e.. a 2-3-2-3).
Two points to take away from that. One: central defense is not such a foreign place for Busquets. Two, watch for if/when the wingbacks get far forward, to see if Arsenal can regain possession and counterattack into that space. That’s what Arsenal was able to do at the Emirates–most memorably on the beautiful winning goal, when Fabregas picked out Nasri behind the defense on the right wing, and Nasri waited for Arshavin to come up into the box up the right wing (running past a casually jogging Dani Alves). But it also happened in the first half, when Fabregas and Walcott got behind the defense on two separate occasions.
Indeed, Arsenal could use Walcott on the pitch tomorrow, as his speed is something Barcelona is has worried about in previous matches. Unfortunately for the Gunners, he’s out due to injury, so it will fall to Nasri, Arshavin and most likely Bendnter to make those breaks forward, with Fabregas and Wilshere feeding them from the central midfield. (Recall that in the 2nd leg of last year’s quarterfinals at the Nou Camp, Bendnter scored to put Arsenal up in the match and on aggregate–but shortly thereafter the Messi show started.) Even though Robin van Persie was a late surprise inclusion in the squad, look for him to start on the bench and come on if Arsenal find themselves down.
The battle to watch is in midfield. Arsenal is significantly without their defensive midfield stalwart Alex Song. We expect it will be Abou Diaby to start alongside young Jack Wilshere as the two in Arsenal’s 4-2-3-1 (although Zonal Marking makes a case in his match preview that Wenger might go with Denilson). If you can, simultaneously track Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi when Barcelona have possession (which should of course be most of the time), and watch for who out of Barcelona’s midfield is able to track that trinity, tackle to regain possession–and potentially start counterattacks.
The past few seasons have seen the meeting between Abromovich’s blues and Fergie’s boys in red decide the winner of the Prem. This time around the result will have similar impact, but Chelsea are fighting for different honors. Three points to the home side will lessen the gap to the league leaders (an insurmountable twelve points with a win), but more importantly victory for Chelsea means they leapfrog Spurs into fourth and a place in the Champions League.
What’s more, a win for Chelsea holds United at four points above the Arsenal, who would then have a game in hand. It’s hard to say exactly who comes into the match with more pressure upon them: the holding champions, with their aging foundation of Terry, Cole, Lampard and Drogba, none of them having a particularly stellar season, or United, who paradoxically won an unconvincing 4-0 against Wigan over the weekend.
United have simply not been firing on all cylinders this season, and Ferguson has been hard pressed to name a consistent top XI. Rooney started the season under immense criticism over contract negotiations, and that plus his poor showing at the summer’s World Cup seem to have messed with his mojo. Berbatov has been his usual uncharismatic self who just doesn’t inspire confidence. Nani is a few seasons away from ripe, Ferdinand has had too many injuries, Giggs and Scholes couldn’t have much life left in them (though Giggs…), van der Sar is about to retire though he’s having an amazing season, and good thing too since his backline is unconvincing. Evans, O’Shea, Gibson– who knows who Fergison will settle on. Then there’s a supporting cast that includes the like of Michael Owen and Owen Hargreaves. Between dead wood and raw youngsters Ferguson is caught making it up as he goes along.
You have to admire United, then, for the results they’ve produced this year. Especially considering they were confronted at the onset of the season with a Chelsea team who appeared unstoppable. Malouda looked incredible, Anelka was finding ways to be even smoother than his usually super-smooth self (perhaps as a message to the FFF who had sent him home from South Africa so unceremoniously), Essien was back and playing wherever he was needed, Obi Mikel looked solid in the holding role, even young Josh McEachran had a few run outs encouraging a sense that there was youth in an otherwise aging side.
Then it all got turned around for Chelsea. Somewhere along the way they lost the plot, something that United, though perhaps less talented than their southern neighbors, have not done for any length of time this season. Chalk it up to the management, then. Ancelotti forgot how to inspire his club in February, while Ferguson kept pushing a rather dull team to scrape out wins no matter what.
(When it comes to the Champions League, I can’t help but root for any English team, unless that team is playing against Arsenal… How the Gunners beat Barcelona is not for me to decide, for I’m certainly not an analyst. My best answer is that Arsenal beat Barca the same way Arsenal can be beaten: Solid defending and goalkeeping, making chances count, waiting for a couple sloppy passes and scoring on the break. As for the Spurs, I love to watch them. I’m an American Arsenal fan, so the Gunners/Spurs rivalry is a non-issue. Yeah, I get excited when they play each other, I get a bit worked up, but I watch my soccer on the t.v., not the telly. My villains are United and Chelsea, unless they’re playing in the Champions League, not against Arsenal!)
Dear North London:
Thank you for last week. Thank you for entertaining us in such dramatic fashion. Thank you for showing us the spirit of “The Underdog”.
Thank you for showing us that the EPL elite is comprised of much more than Reds and Blues. Thank you for showing us that English teams might rebound from last year and once again hold their own in Europe, against the most famous and well-established of teams.
Thank you for providing international ingredients, for Russia, Africa, France, Eastern Europe, and two vans from Holland. Thank you for a home-grown finishing dose (Lennon/Crouch), and for unfinished future droplets (Walcott/Wilshire).
Thank you for showing us that it just might be preferable to train and play under clouds and rain, rather than under models and breezy coasts.
Thank you for your fiery managers and coaches.
Thank you, beanpole and diminutive one, for your last minute heroics.
Thank you, North London, not from a supporter but from a fan.
Thank you, North London, for a rivalry I can’t truly understand.
The marquee matchup of the Round of 16 is without a doubt Arsenal vs. Barcelona. That’s partly because Arsenal is the one group-stage favorite that slipped into 2nd place in their group (behind Shakhtar Donetsk, due to losses at Donetsk and at Sporting Braga), and hence had to draw a group winner for the Round of 16. But it’s also because these teams have an affinity, a rivalry, and a history.
Their rivalry comes out of their affinity and their history. Both play what might be called the Dutch style of football–one that emphasizes possession, with the ball on the ground, intricate and sustained buildup (the opposite of “Route one” football), one- and two-touch passing (tiki-taka, if you will), individual technical skill, movement off the ball, a fearful geometry of passing angles..all in all, various aspects of “total” football.
Indeed, this Dutch heritage is real, especially in Barcelona’s case: their spiritual leader is Johan Cryuff, who brought to Barcelona this style–or rather philosophy–from Ajax in the early ’70s, when he was the best player in the world. It was Cryuff who suggested that Barcelona set up a youth academy, similar to the Ajax Academy, which became the famous La Masia–“The House that Built Barca” (h/t to Sumit for the link).
Cryuff & Guardiola: Yoda & the Then-young Jedi
And Cryuff returned to Barcelona in the early ’90s, managing a group of fantastic players called Cryuff’s Dream Team–the “fulcrum” of which was a young midfielder named Pep Guardiola. Now of course Guardiola is manager–and some are saying Guardiola’s current team is better than those Barcelona teams; including some who played alongside Pep back then (“when they won the European Cup for the first time in 1992 and clinched four consecutive league titles between 1991 and 1994. That side featured the likes of Romario, Hristo Stoichkov and Ronald Koeman.)
Cryuff now dispenses his opinions and wisdom with weekly essays that appear in the Barcelona newspaper El Periódico. One of his recent entries was titled “El fútbol total del siglo XXI“–“Total Football for the 21st Century” (“Solo dos equipos, el Madrid de Di Stéfano y el Ajax de los años 70, habían sido capaces hasta ahora de reinventar el fútbol como lo está haciendo el de Guardiola” which translates to: “Only two teams, the Madrid of de Di Stefano and the Ajax of the early ’70s were able to reinvent the game as Guardiola’s team is now doing.”
With Arsenal, a similar “continental” style of play came to north London via France–Arsene Wenger arrived to manage Arsenal in the mid-’90s, after a decade managing in France. Although he’s perhaps best known for bringing to the Premier League French and African (and especially, perhaps, French-African), two of his most influential players in his first decade coaching at Arsenal were Dutch internationals Denis Bergkamps and Marc Overmars–and one of his most important right now is Dutch striker Robin van Persie.
But his most important player, Arsenal’s talisman, if you will, is Cesc Fabregas–a native Catalan whom Wenger signed away from Barcelona’s La Masia seven years ago, when Cesc was only 16. Apparently Cesc was convinced that he wouldn’t have the same opportunities to play at Barcelona that he has had at Arsenal, given the midfield talent that was being groomed at La Masia back then. But now Barcelona now wants to bring Fabregas back–which is one source of conflict between the clubs, and one of the major storylines of these meetings.
As a player, Guardiola was very much the prototype of the modern Spanish midfielder: technically-gifted, balanced and an immaculate passer of the ball.
He was at the heart of Johan Cruyff’s all-conquering Barca side in the 1990s and was idolised by the young Fabregas as he made his way through the academy ranks.
Borrell, who has remained a friend and confidante to Fabregas, tells a story that encapsulates the connection between the Arsenal star and his one-time hero.
In 2001, when Fabregas was going through the pain of his parents’ divorce, Borrell persuaded Guardiola to sign his famous number four shirt for the young protege. On it, he wrote: ‘One day, you will be the number four of Barcelona.’
Guardiola & Xavi
But for now, of course, the heart of the Barcelona midfield, the deus ex machina, is Xavi. Messi scores the goals, gets the press, gets the awards–but many thought it was Xavi that should have received the Balon d’Or this year, instead of Messi (but Xavi finished 3rd in the balloting–with Iniesta finishing 2nd!).
You must read this interview with Xavi that Guardian Football’s Spanish correspondent Sid Lowe conducted last weekend. An excerpt:
Think quickly, look for spaces. That’s what I do: look for spaces. All day. I’m always looking. All day, all day. [Xavi starts gesturing as if he is looking around, swinging his head]. Here? No. There? No. People who haven’t played don’t always realise how hard that is. Space, space, space. It’s like being on the PlayStation. I think shit, the defender’s here, play it there. I see the space and pass. That’s what I do.
That’s at the heart of the Barcelona model and runs all the way through the club, doesn’t it? When you beat Madrid, eight of the starting XI were youth-team products and all three finalists in this year’s Ballon d’Or were too – Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta and you.
Some youth academies worry about winning, we worry about education. You see a kid who lifts his head up, who plays the pass first time, pum, and you think, ‘Yep, he’ll do.’ Bring him in, coach him. Our model was imposed by [Johan] Cruyff; it’s an Ajax model. It’s all about rondos [piggy in the middle]. Rondo, rondo, rondo. Every. Single. Day. It’s the best exercise there is. You learn responsibility and not to lose the ball. If you lose the ball, you go in the middle. Pum-pum-pum-pum, always one touch. If you go in the middle, it’s humiliating, the rest applaud and laugh at you.
Your Barcelona team-mate Dani Alves said that you don’t play to the run, you make the run by obliging team-mates to move into certain areas. “Xavi,” he said, “plays in the future.”
They make it easy. My football is passing but, wow, if I have Dani, Iniesta, Pedro, [David] Villa … there are so many options. Sometimes, I even think to myself: man, so-and-so is going to get annoyed because I’ve played three passes and haven’t given him the ball yet. I’d better give the next one to Dani because he’s gone up the wing three times. When Leo [Messi] doesn’t get involved, it’s like he gets annoyed … and the next pass is for him.
See below for what Xavi has to say about Arsenal and English football. (With apologies to Sid Lowe and the Guardian, we’ve ended up excerpting the majority of the interview–so click thru and give them a pageview. Or even better, make sure you read everything Sid Lowe writes–no better English-language coverage of La Liga exists, as far as we can tell. In fact, click thru to Lowe’s breakdown of “Three lessons for Arsenal before they take on Barcelona“; namely–1: Internazionale, Champions League, 20 Apr 2010; 2: Sporting Gijón, La Liga 12 Feb 2010; 3: Real Madrid, La Liga 29 Nov 2010.)
Firstly, from the Xavi interview, speaking about Spain, but easily parallels Barça:
“Paraguay? What did they do? Built a spectacularly good defensive system and waited for chances – from dead balls. Up it goes, rebound, loose ball. It’s harder than people realise when you’ve got a guy behind you who’s two metres tall and right on top of you.”
I think we all know that Arsenal totally incapable of playing like Paraguay. Also from Xavi: “But now I see Arsenal and Villarreal and they play like us.” That said, certainly Wilshere’s remarks about “getting nasty” indicate a plan, though Xavi suggests an alternate route, “Yes, but this year they’re much better. I think it’s a disadvantage for us that we played last year. They had [too] much respect for us. It was as if they let us have the ball.” So keeping the ball, Arsenal’s preferred routine in Engerland, would do them better according to one of their opponent’s key players.
Realistically, of course, given Nasri’s injury especially, we know both Song and Wilshere will play. In fact, there is little reason to suspect a different line-up than the one that played against Wolves on Saturday (which was, including substitutions: Wojciech Szczesny, Bacary Sagna, Laurent Koscielny, Johan Djourou, Gael Clichy, Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott, Alexandre Song, Jack Wilshere (Pereira Neves Denilson, 77), Andrey Arshavin (Marouane Chamakh, 72), Robin van Persie (Nicklas Bendtner, 72)).
Koscielny and Djourou will have their hands full with Pedro and Villa, but the Gunners must rely on those two as Song, Wilshere, and even Fabregas must neutralize the trinity of Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi. Clichy, of course, must await Alves at his front. Arsenal should consider assigning Wilshere to Messi always and everywhere. Now if Pique decides to get in the mix from the back, van Persie will struggle to help, but at least that places the ball much farther back in the formation. Little will matter if Arsenal’s third-string keeper can’t handle free kicks.
Barça’s shape does provide some opportunity. Sagna must take every chance to get forward and exploit the absence of a true winger on that side. Naturally, this will help push Arshavin forward to provide a link and partner to RvP. What, isn’t that Walcott’s side? Well, certainly, the two have switched flanks, allowing Walcott all the room Alves has vacated, particularly if Wilshere and Song can lay some longer diagonals in front of him.
Should be an interesting match despite every commentator essentially writing off Arsenal since the draw.
May, 1999. I had just experienced three confident days on my own in Madrid. Music, museums, and majesty. The sink in my tiny bedroom was clogged, but my Spanish was up to par. Off to Barcelona!
