Arsenal beat Glasgow Rangers 3-0 and Jack Wilshere was marvellous.
We know that Wenger loves his stats and his laptop.
ProZone have 14 cameras installed at the Emirates and the company downloads the stats from every game onto Wenger’s laptop half an hour after the final whistle.
But Jack Wilshere’s stats were so easy you that don’t need a laptop to compute them.
Goal attempts : 4 On target : 3 Goals : 2.
Did you see that Arshavin flick after 45 minutes when Arsenal were 2-0 up?
Arshavin is different, different, different class. He’s one of the five best players on this planet. Unlike Henry, he has bottle. Unlike Bergkamp, he flies.
Just before that flick, Fabregas gave Arshavin a shortish forward pass in space, a nice easy ball. The Russian could have controlled the ball and had a shot. Instead of doing that, he dinked the ball over the Rangers No.5 had with a sudden jab of his right foot, to play Eduardo in on the right side. Breathtaking stuff. He wasn’t showboating. It looked flashy but it was serious. It was a killer ball and could have been 3-0.
Arshavin is very direct and Arsenal’s style needs to be more direct to allow him to terrorise defences.
Wenger’s style of play is about co-ordinated movement and one/two-touch passing. But Arshavin could not make that pass to Adebarndoor or RVP. Ade would have been on his heels and Robin would not have read it either.
Robin is a powerful boy with an explosive shot but he needs at least three touches, so he doesn’t really fit into Wenger’s style of play. That’s why Holland play him wide on the right in a 4-3-3. RVP is explosive and he can improvise but 90% of his improvisations are for himself, to create shooting positions.
As the Arsenal players walked off at half-time, Arshavin was talking to Eduardo. When Arshavin walked out to start the second half, he was talking to Wilshere. That was predictable. He would talk to Eduardo and Wilshere. In this game you find that footballers talk to other footballers. They don’t waste time talking to donkeys.