Puxatawny Marseilles

from the Fort Greene bunker

Champions League Group Stage

Arsenal 0–0 Marseilles  1 November 2011

I missed the first 30 minutes of the match, which apparently had the best chances but couldn’t take them. It appeared we’d have a repeat of the trip to Marseilles, so I settled in for another session of teeth gnashing. After the match on Saturday it would be churlish to complain, but we looked jaded, to borrow some Wengerspeak.

Song and Vermaelen were our best players on the pitch. Vermaelen marshaled a clean sheet with 3 players beside him that arrived in the summer, and one of them is a dozy Brazilian left-back with absolutely no positional sense whatsoever [and as seen on Saturday, who also apparently can’t dance]. Though this was his first complete 90 minutes since his return, he did this against a team that was lightning quick on the counter and as such has a reputation for being stronger away from home. Think Aston Villa a few seasons ago. For once a player’s words are backed up by his performances.

Momentum Selector DJ Wenger

"Sometimes if you take a team on a roll there is no need to change it. You can defend any [decision] but when a team is on a positive experience, why not? That is what I have to decide."

On the other hand, if you make one or two changes here and there to the side when the team is on a roll, you can breed that successful mentality and experience into every member of the squad. In this way, when the inevitable injuries, suspensions, and/or absences [say for African Nations Cup in January] occur, those deputizing for the missing are better equipped and there should be a lesser drop in overall performance.

In fact, if done correctly, there will be little to no drop, and those making up the XI would not be considered ‘deputies’ at all. There is a saying about top level managers and coaches that they don’t rebuild [each season after player departures], they reload. There is an opportunity to achieve this cycle even within the season, if the squad and players are used properly.

Chocolate and Salt

from the factory floor
Barclays Premier League

Arsenal 2-1 Sunderland 16 October 2011

Van Persie [.33, 82]      Larsson [31]

For the third time already this season it’s an early kick-off and our sum point total from such matches is a big zilch.  Bearing this in mind and with the fear that we’d run afoul of the fire marshal after the turn-out from the North London derby 2 weeks back, a small band of us descended upon the lower level of Legends where the football is made. I met Ed on the subway platform at that gruesome hour, relieved that we just might get a goal today if only his bladder would cooperate. Proper gooner that he is, Ed informed me of his late night water consumption and early morning coffee.  Good man. However, no Bendtner for the visitors, meaning no barn door was safe.  But it would be the first return to the Grove for Larsson in the colors of his new club, with RVP’s warnings about the kid’s quality a portent of things to come.

Barely had we settled at the bar and exchanged pleasantries with Jack when Van Persie decided it was time to get started on his second century of goals. Turns out that little pow-wow between the Arsenal players right before kickoff wasn’t about post-match dinner plans afterall, it was about, you know, football. I didn’t even have time to air my feeling that RVP would tear shreds from Gervinho if he didn’t release the ball before he did and the captain stretched the net for number one hundred and one.