Arsenal 1 Chelsea 2
Torres 20, Gervinho 42, Koscielny o.g. 53
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Wenger got it all wrong on Saturday.
What\’s French for mea culpa ?
He dropped Mertesacker on his 28th birthday after he’d played superbly at Manchester City
last week.
Maybe he thought Chelsea\’s attackers would be too quick and lively for Mertesacker.
Maybe his laptop said it was time to rest the big man.
I wondered: Did Bould and Neil Banfield agree with that decision?
Wenger brought in Vermaelen and moved Koscielny into Mertesacker’s postition, so he made two changes, not one.
And Koscielny had a nightmare.
Both Arsenal’s centreback were clumsily average on Saturday.
Vermaelen fouled Hazard and Mata took the free-kick and Torres volleyed in at waist height with his right foot.
Koscielny was wrestling with Torres, who twisted him, so that the defender wasn\’t even looking at the ball. You have to watch the ball ! Torres couldn\’t believe his luck: he was allowed to volley in from five yards!
I\’ve seen that goal 15 times now and every time I see it I use a different swear word.
It\’s a stupendously bad goal to concede in any game, let alone at home when the score is 0-0 and you\’re playing Chelsea.
Two minutes later, when Torres fiddled around before shooting, after he\’d evaded Koscielny, Torres went to shoot and his foot caught the boot of Koscielny who was trying to make a miraculous recovery tackle. No sane Gooner,seeing a replay, would have complained if ref Martin Atkinson had given a penalty for 2-0.
Arsenal didn\’t step up, didn\’t really play, except in the first 20.
Oxlade had come on for the injured Diaby in 17 but played wide right and his cut-back found Gervinho in 42 and he banged it in nicely for 1-1 at half-time. I\’d backed BTS, so Gervinho had made money for me. Wow! I still can\’t believe that happened.
At half-time my pal Kelvin called from the ground with a question.
“Was the Torres decision a penalty? “
“Yes.â€
“Chelsea are better than us,†he said.
In 50, Gibbs and Podolski combined well, Podolski\’s cross was cleared to Cazorla , who fired wide.
Then Vermaelen clattered Torres when the striker got goalside of him and that foul was not necessary. This isn\’t the Fernando Torres who got 50 goals for Liverpool quicker than Ian Rush and would have walked round Koscielny and smashed his shot into the bottom corner.
This is an average Torres who, at that moment, would have had to beat Koscielny on the inside and then blast home a shot with his weaker left foot.
Vermaelen fouled Torres and Mata took an inswinger again and his free-kick missed Luiz and Terry by yards and was bouncing inside the six-yard box when Koscielny got a touch and scored an own-goal.
That ball might have gone wide and, personally, I think it was going wide, but even if it was bouncing inside the post, Mannone might have saved it. But when Koscielny runs across him, the keeper can\’t move and he has to stop anticipating where and how that ball will bounce.
So Koscielny, who had a superb season last year, had cost Arsenal two goals and might have cost them three.
He’d been moved and given a new partner,Vermaelen. Yes, it makes sense to restore the club captain for a big game at home….
Second half, Gervinho was clueless but Wenger, inexplicably, took Podolski off and brought on Giroud, who hit the side-netting with a golden chance to equalise in 91.
Oxlade, now operating centrally, played the striker in with a pass that was natural, sweet and slickly angled. Giroud eased round Petr Cech, took a second touch, and didn\’t hit the target. His shot went a foot wide of the post into the side-netting and even Wenger said he should have scored.
But the real damage was done long before that.
It looks as if Steve Bould is still working to Wenger\’s template, not George Graham\’s, since George\’s teams never marked zonally. They marked man-to-man and he made his players accountable.
Two days later I can’t get over how bad that first goal was.I hadn’t realised that football can still annoy me so much.
Mine was a John McEnroe reaction : YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!!!
CONCLUSION:
Professional defending can\’t be taught in weeks. It takes years.
As Tony Adams revealed on Goals On Sunday last week, Wenger never practiced set-pieces, either defensive or offensive. I always suspected that and always thought it was gross negligence. If Wenger wasn\’t such a snob, such a purist, he\’d have realised that after Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole left he would have to change his training methods.
But he never did that because he refused to accept that good football must balance fluency with shape, must combine improvisation with good habits and discipline. Skill, speed and quick passing will never win trophies without professional organisation and collective focus
However, Stan Kroenke bought Arsenal on the basis that it ‘s Wenger\’s club and will always be run by him with Gazidis working under Wenger and round him.
Wenger does what he likes and today\’s supporters pay the highest ticket prices in the world to watch the consequences of his follies, while 50-odd reporters turn up to report what the genius says to their readers, listeners and viewers.
It could all have been so much better.