Arsenal America

I agree with much that has been said in the past few posts. Heck, we should have it figured out by now what’s going wrong with our club. The rest of the world seems to have, as well. Sure, injuries have consistently robbed us of cohesion and strength. But there are articles popping up here and everywhere that pretty much say the same thing: big game flops, prone to exasperation and fragility, much of it caused by a confidence-killing lack of defensive acumen which points directly to our lack of consistent leadership and the tactical and personnel decisions (or indecisions) of our manager. All of it amounting to a piling up of frustration among the players (tapping-up, radio hoaxes, club flirtations) and the supporters. Its like watching someone wonderful and poised for even greater heights kill themselves slowly with drugs and booze. We’re the Jimi Hendrix of the EPL.

What we’ve always been accused of with our current mix of players, and I’ll point out our “leaders” as the best examples, is the tendency to bottle, a refusal to make things happen, and in essence, giving up. Right now we have 1st gear (which stalls a lot), and 5th gear. Relying on extremes marks a common psychological hang up: crippling anxiety. Its ruling our season and shortening our list of options?with negative things occurring over and over again only exacerbating the problem. We are playing the equivalent of Wenger’s range of expressions. Where’s “Daddy” to settle us down? Where’s our captain risking his cultured reputation by kicking some a**? Too much has been said about that, so let’s sing another song.

At Highbury against Bayern, we have two options in 4-4-2: play defensively, maybe work the wings and go to the air (if one can even consider this an option), or attack like h*ll in every direction, ping-ponging the ball around and often to our opponents, all the while remaining frighteningly vulnerable in the back. First gear, Fifth gear. If we want out of this cycle, we need to develop some desirous, present, holding midfielders and defenders (come home Gilberto, we miss you), and play with possession a bit more to change up the game in flow with its progress. We have the speed attack down to a science, so I’m not suggesting we drop it. But it appears that a critical balance is needed to succeed in Europe, and these days, in the League.

One need to look no further than the Milan/United tie to see a perfect example of this. They held the ball patiently, attacked when they saw an opportunity, had United on the back foot frequently, and shut them down when it looked like United were getting forward. Then, one mistake during a successful attack, and Crespo snatched that important away goal. He’d been written off by The Blues, and nearly everyone else, but now he’s a hero for being opportunistic and beating the Devils at home. When was the last time we were opportunistic and took advantage of a mistake in a big game? Kolo’s last gasp away goal could qualify if Bayern weren’t already 3 up, with a 4th looking increasingly likely. Then there was the time Reyes caught Van der Sar last year after we’d already won the league but were doing just enough to keep the unbeaten streak going. Kinda fits. But teams do it to us all the time. In fact, I would argue that its been the bane of our season?the even, mindfulness of our less talented opponents nicking the edge from the exact opposite in our ranks.

I’m afraid I hold little hope for any big game for the rest of the season. That calmly determined and collected influence just isn’t there in our squad to handle this mix of youth and jaded experience. Perhaps our manager lacks just enough of it to fail to recognize it’s necessity when choosing players and leaders. I really don’t know for sure. But with the bans and recurring injuries putting players down, my level of expectation is forced to head in the same direction. We’ll most likely get ahead of ourselves off the whistle to compensate, end up tripping, sliding, rushing, and giving up our concentration when things stop on set-pieces. Gifted goals are likely to follow. Its undignified for a club like ours to suffer this fate, but the debits are counting a little too strongly against the credits as we enter the home stretch. We just can’t play chess and/or cat and mouse without patience, leadership and those middle gears, and I’m convinced we’ll need a surplus of each to pull off a 2-0 clean sheet or better at home to go through and beyond.

As always when I post cynically, I hope I’m dead, dead wrong. We are The Arsenal, after all. And if the wind shifts in our favor, and Highbury show the love that our club deserves, the lightning just might escape bottle to unleash the greatest show on earth.