Arsenal and Liverpool
Posted on April 9, 2008 - Filed Under Football |
Liverpool 4-2 Arsenal. Liverpool win 5-3 on aggregate.
It was a great match, so it’s a shame that the result casts a pall over my memories of it. It was exciting, had plenty of goals, and both teams gave it their all. In fairness to Liverpool, they didn’t resort to kicking lumps out of Arsenal like so many other sides do, a few tackles from Mascherano aside.
As for the post-mortem, I’m sure it’s obvious to everyone who saw that match that Senderos is not good enough to play for Arsenal. He was at fault for the Hyypia and the Torres goals, and all he can do on the ball is pass it back to the keeper. Gilberto is similarly out of place at Arsenal now that he can’t cover as much ground as he used to, and once Flamini went off the Arsenal midfield suffered hugely. Eboué is useless too; limited ability, and you always feel like he’s only one tantrum away from a red card. Lastly, Adebayor, despite all the poxy goals he’s scored this year, is not very good, to put it mildly.
And now to the positives. I don’t know why Diaby hasn’t played for Arsenal more often this season, because every time I see him in an Arsenal shirt he puts in a great performance. Touré was typically excellent, Hleb demonstrated again to me that he’s one of the most underrated players in Europe, and Theo Walcott finally proved that he might just be worth all that money and hype with a mesmerizing run from his own box that set up Adebayor’s goal. So it wasn’t all bad news.
Still, surgery is required if Arsenal are to do better next year, starting with a new central defender as cover for Touré and Gallas, since Senderos just isn’t up to the task. In midfield, the team could do with an experienced battler and engine in the Essien mould. Flamini is improving, but I don’t think he’s ready quite yet to power them to the Champions League, and Fábregas could probably benefit from playing alongside an experienced, captain-like midfield general (Gallas isn’t really captain material in my mind, and I cannot understand why Wenger didn’t give the captaincy straight to Touré when Henry left last summer). Once Rosicky is fit, a midfield comprised of himself, Hleb, Fábregas, and the experienced workhorse would be the equal of any side in Europe. With the ever-improving Flamini, Diaby, and Walcott as cover, the midfield would then be in excellent shape.
This just leaves the frontline, which definitely needs work. Adebayor is a bottler, gets caught offside way too often, and his finishing is not good enough for an Arsenal forward. Van Persie is good, but he’s been injured all season, and Eduardo got injured just as he was rediscovering his pre-Arsenal form. So that’s two decent forwards who’re injured, and one who’s fit but not very good. Walcott can also play up front, but Wenger seems to prefer deploying him as a winger in the Hleb/Rosicky role. So basically they need another forward, and they need to ship Adebayor off to some club where the manager hasn’t seen him play every week and is impressed by his goal tally. Somebody like Torres would be ideal (like Torres, there’s no way they could get him). So essentially the prescription is a good defender, a good midfielder, and a good forward. Simple.
On a final, minor note, I agree with Liam Brady that it was pretty juvenile of RTÉ to air a video montage of Arsene Wenger looking agitated during Saturday’s match. It didn’t serve any useful purpose and it was grossly unprofessional, particularly Eamon Dunphy’s disingenuous attempt to present as “analysis”. RTÉ’s football coverage is usually miles ahead of other stations’, since firstly, the pundits are relatively articulate and know what they’re talking about, and secondly, they’re not afraid to call a player or manager on being crap (I have to point out that when I praise RTÉ here I’m referring specifically to the big guns like Bill O’Herlihy, Dunphy, Giles, Brady, and Souness, and certainly not clowns like the truly awful Ray Houghton). Nevertheless, the Wenger montage was needless crass, and it illustrated O’Herlihy’s obsession with pinning excessive blame one somebody, usually a manager, every time a team loses, and questioning whether he’s still fit to do his job. Sometimes this line of questioning makes sense, but not when Arsene Wenger is the manager under scrutiny.
Comments
Leave a Reply
