Arsenal America

English Football Shocker – Other teams have been really good in the past

Oct 31, 2005 by MrZog

Before everybody (fans, media, etc.) get completely apoplectic over the possibility of Chelsea winning, gasp!, two Premiership titles in a row, chew on this:

From 1892-1902 Aston Villa and Sunderland won nine of a possible 11 titles. They should have disbanded the league right there.

Huddersfield Town won three titles in row in the 1920s, and of course then went on to dominate English football for the next?two weeks.

Wolverhampton Wanderers won three of six titles in the ?50s.

Liverpool won a remarkable 10 of 15 titles from 1976 ? 1990. Since then Torquay United, Macclesfield Town and Rushden & Diamonds have won as many titles as the Reds ?zero.

Spurs 1 – 1 Arsenal – Reaction

Oct 30, 2005 by MrZog

Arsenal weren’t outclassed yesterday, but they were outplayed for much of the game. To my eyes Spurs wanted it just a bit more, especially in the first half…

Ledley King was completely unmarked on his goal. That’s inexcusable at this level…

Reyes seems like a nice kid and he tries real hard, but he’s useless. Things just don’t seem to happen when he’s a big part of the attack…

On the flip side, is it just me or does the Arsenal seem far more dangerous when RvP is on the pitch? He seems to be one of the few people who understand that you need to put shots on goal. Sure, you may not score every time, but you have to shoot. Less Reyes, more RvP…

The midfield is weak. I wasn’t a big Vieira fan the last year or two, but clearly a player like him is lacking. Arsenal just don’t have the physical capabilities to boss the midfield with guys like Fabregas and Flamini…

Spurs are a decent side, but we could have won that match with 10 more minutes of RvP…

Spurs 1 v The “Wash Up” 1

Oct 29, 2005 by MrZog

For those who have criticized Robert Pires as a “wash up”, they probably failed to realize a less eye-catching, but important asset of Pires’ game – the ability to hold on to the ball.

Arsenal likes to play an up-tempo attacking game, yet there are times you need to slow down. However, the midfield lineup of our current Arsenal side is too lightweighted to slow the game down. Take the starting midfield against Spurs as an example, Flamini, Cesc, Freddie are all undersized for today’s midfield players. Even they want to hold the ball up, they can’t. ‘Cos the oppositions would simply use their muscle to nick the ball away from them. As a result, they are forced to pass the ball quickly, resulting more mis-passes.