By Ian Grant
ANR Reader replies: Seaman/Henry/Man U/Valencia/ Roma/Ajax/ Jeffers/ Bergkamp/Upson and more….
Been away to E.Europe again, but a quick comment before your replies.
There was a moment in the Valencia game which encapsulated Arsenal’s major problem.
One of their players, Carew, perhaps, skinned Cygan so utterly easily for pace and sent over a cross.
Seaman was in two minds whether to come or stay and panic set in among the Arsenal defence, which more clinical finishing would have punished.
Sorry, Arsene and those who think we’ll win the Champions League – not unless we buy a goalkeeper like Rustu and a centre back like Stam or Gallas. And that isn’t likely, given, Arsene is on record that Arsenal aren’t buying anyone during the Winter Transfer Window.
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Andes Tung
Tiredness
I live in Singapore, and thanks to ESPN, we got 5 EPL live match each week. To top it all, got some football “oldies” like Gerry Armstrong, and Alan Brazil to express their “expert opinions”. According to them, Paddy’s “exhasuted” talk early of the season were craps, ‘cos on their playing days, 7 games 10 days, easy. Well yeah, I would like to see how many matches they could last these days.
Anyway, Paddy had probably his best performance against Sunderland. Was it a coincident that he had just “rested” of 2 matches during his suspension?
John Hung
jeffers
Don’t be too quick to judge jeffers, after all it took Henry quite a while to find his feet in the premiership and maybe it will be the same for Jeffers. He’s just returned from a long term injury and this injury apparently has been with him since his move from Everton i.e bone in the foot. So maybe Jeffers needs to play regularly in order to find his touch and finish, i mean premiership football is quite different to reserve grade and under 21 football. i don’t think Jeffers will leave in the summer, like Kanu and Bergkamp they came to realise that leaving Arsenal and playing elsewhere would be a step down. Given the chance I’d rather stay at Arsenal training amongst the likes of Henry, Bergkamp and Vieira, He’d probably learn a lot more in training than playing day in day out at a club like Man City.Inamoto never regreted coming to Arsenal and if Arsene wanted him he’d probably would have stayed. You can see the improvement in Juinichi from one year of training and reserve team footbal with the best, i’m sure Jeffers will do the same. His time will come, he’s still young.
Mark Burland
Jeffers, the library and Robert Palmer
Firstly, I feel the need to defend Jeffers on his performance against Sunderland. He looked hungry all evening and really needed the vision and passing of Vieira or Bergkamp. Positioning wise he looked the part of a striker, with him and Ljungberg in the team we would have two excelent runners, like Freddie, Franny seems to have a good sense of where to move, where to find the space. I’m desperate to see the 10 million pound lad in the the first team. His goal was superb too!
In the same game, Stepanovs showed why Wenger needed to sell him straight after that massacre at the hands of Man Utd. It seems he has never recovered his confidence and the players around him clearly had no confidence in him. Every time he got the ball you could sense a panic amongst his team-mates. The reason Arsenal conceded three sloppy goals was the fact that Toure was woeful at left-back, Stepanovs was awful and Tavliridis is young.
Now, my third point: Highbury library. My brother and I agree, the reason it’s ‘the library’ is because fans are far too busy smoking. I have to remind myself everytime I go to Highbury to wear clothes I don’t like. Now, if people want to smoke (at home) I haven’t got a problem with it, but do they have to do it at what is supposed to be a family event? I could hardly breathe, all the smoke made it a pretty awful experience, I won’t be returning to Highbury any time soon.
Oh and if you want to talk about musicians, thats fine. It was quite an interesting story on Robert Palmer.
Stacey Collins
Passion and shooting etc;
Just a hello and a few more points of view
I’m a daily reader of ANR. Almost agree with everyone really. A blip in our form actually produces more interesting debate, and some of the views here and elsewhere recently show what a diverse but intelligent and knowledgeable crowd Gooners are. My own views on some of this…
1. Passion of English players are the missing ingredient? I think so. Ray may not be the classiest player in midfield but he does go and get ’em if we fall behind. I’ll never forget standing opposite Islington Town Hall. All our foreign imports thanking their mum and dad in halting English. Ray just sings “my old man…”. Parlour is a Gooner. Some players I’m not so sure about.
2. Henry selfish big head. Nope. I’m with Big Ron. Layoff to Luzhny totally unselfish and unhinged Newcastle. What would have happened is Wiltord had skyed it from 5 yards? leading to…
3. Shooting practice. It’s the only training our boys need to do. Everything else about our game is as near flawless as you’ll see in the Premiership (I know that’s gradniose but you should see the criticisms other supproters, including Man U and Liverpool fans, have anbout there own teams. They wish they only had our problems). We winge that there’s something wrong in defence, with the keeper, with midfield communication, the “telepathy isn’t there” etc. I actually think those faults are symptoms, not problems in their own right. They are symptomatic of a loss of confidence in front of goal. No move is worth anything unless you finish it off. As soon as we lose this profligacy in front of goal, someone is going to get such a hiding. Shotting, like any other skill, does improve with practice. If I was Pat Rice I’d spend all day on it.
4. Franny. Typifies the above. We know he’s a natural finisher. let’s not write him off for a failing that is shared by a few more illustrious and experienced team mates.
5. Rooney. Evertonian boy wonders come and go. I saw Michael Branch playing and scoring for Hull City the other day. Not even good enough for Wolves apparently. “Michael Branch is the most natural goalscorer to emerge from Everton’s ranks for years” says the match programme from Feb 1996. Wayne Rooney is just another one off the Mersey production line. I don’t really believe Mr Wenger rates him as the best young English striking talent he’s seen. He’s just making the best of a game we shouldn’t have lost (but for a snapshot from an audacious youngster that, on any given day, should have wound up in row Z). It must be something in the water, how they keep coming up with these kids. But I also think some clubs hype their young strikers because they have little else to get excited about. Then they flog them. Everyone wants Robbie Keane when he plays for someone else. It’s how a player develops and strives at a top club in the top flight that really makes the difference. Wrighty probably benefited from being unheralded until such a late stage. It may be costing Franny a bit. It has certainly heaped undue pressure and unfair expectations on the broad shoulders of Michael Owen. Let the kids grow.
6. Sunderland. I did have a sneaky suspicion Mr Wenger gave a “take your foot off the gas boys we don’t want to stay in the Worthless Cup” half time team talk. Unfair on reflection as Mr Wenger is a winner like his team and they were so obviously dissapointed by the result. But I can’t help feeling relief that we are not involved on 4 fronts.
Lloyd Grey
Sulky Teenager : Tony C
Tony, if you bothered to check properly you would have seen that it was a Chris Cotton who said of Henry,
‘He is like a sulky teenager’.
It wasn’t me.
Apology accepted…
rob
For Mr Damian about my “piece”:
ha! Damian yes, you’re correct. It was slapdash. It was 1.30am and I was a little on the sleepy side with a girlfriend calling me to bed so… but I’m no professional journalist and have no desire to be so you are safe! 🙂
But “uninformed”? How more informed can I be? I was giving my view of the game, not of their careers. Of their careers I am most definitely uninformed. Of the game I am not. I was there. I saw. I judged. That’s the nature of the beast and I can do no more.
Stepanovs *was* terrible. Svard *was* excellent. Taylor *was* average. In my view 🙂
I hope Taylor improves for the coming games – a run in the first team again (The BBC site says Seaman is injured…) will either improve him or give Shabaan a chance.
… and Mr Ian Grant, I never expected you to post it on the site! thanks anyway 🙂 keep up the great work! I promise not to send any more dull articles! except this one oh damn bugger etc.
cheers
rob
MARK
Unfair Views
I would like to comment that Myles has done a great job on this website “ANR”. It gives us an insight of what the players/young players/new signings can do especially those like me from overseas, and those who can’t afford the games weekly or those who can’t get season tickets. It takes alot of commitment to have such an insight on AFC Football. Personally, I think it would be unfair to Myles when someone who reads the stuff from the website and comment that Myles knows hell of nothin’. So to those out there who critise Myles,” Why not start a website on your own and accept criticism?
MARK
Michelle Kenny
Arsenal have nothing to worry about
Dear ANR
I am a recent convert to your web site after several articles were posted on the Liverpool message board and I wanted to react to a couple of things.
Firstly, I think Myles Palmer gives an excellent analysis of Liverpool and I hope this doesn’t stop if the title race develops into Arsenal domination. I don’t view his comments as ‘pandering’ to liverpool fans at all, merely as objective material examining the team. Which is exactly what can be said about his work on Man U and England. (Well maybe he’s not THAT objective about Man U, “Hallelujah!There IS a God!”, but I and I’m sure United fans would agree with the general critique.) I should also add that several people post his articles on the Liverpool message boards, and the majority of them are gooners!
Secondly, some of the feedback from readers is brilliant. But I disagree with recent criticism of Arsenal. The worst recent performance I have seen from Arsenal was home to Deportivo last season. Yet everyone forgets that they had rested key players at the weekend while Arsenal played the full team (perhaps this is why Arsenal achieved domestic success and Deportivo didn’t) and Arsenal had Grimandi in central midfield. Now Arsenal has Edu, Van Bronckhurst, Parlour and the brilliant Gilberto to partner Vieira. So worrying that the same is going to happen again this year is I think missing the point, even if Arsenal had a blip. I also agreed with every word that Alistair Dunsmuir said. When Kily Gonzalez criticised Liverpool at first I was angry with him, and then angry with the Premiership because he was correct!
Alistair Dunsmuir
Euro draw
Any chance of a Myles Palmer preview of the euro draw for England’s three remaining Champions League clubs?
By my reckoning Man U will face Deportivo for the fifth and sixth time in just over a year, plus either Juventus or Inter Milan. This will be therefore be the first time since they won the cup that they will be in a group with more than one other big club. The third team will either be Ajax, Lokomotive Moscow or Basle (but not Ajax if they draw Inter). Their group could easily be Juventus, Deportivo and Ajax – eerily familiar to Arsenal’s group last year.
Newcastle will get one Spanish (but not Deportivo), one Italian (but not Roma) and one German team. An impossible task although Leeds did qualify from a group that included Barcelona and AC Milan two years ago.
And Arsenal. Well we will get Roma – which will see Batistuta up against the club he ripped apart three years ago. Emerson v Gilberto would be worth watching for Scolari and whoever his successor is. We will also get either Barcelona (again painful memories of three years ago) or Valencia (painful memories of two years ago). Valencia v Arsenal is very similar to Deportivo v Arsenal last year – two of the best four teams in Europe up against each other. The final team will either be Lokomotive Moscow (we have an abysmal record anywhere cold), Basle (yes please) or, most likely, Ajax, who have maybe Europe’s best young player in Van der Vaart. They also have the most arrogant player in Ibrahimovic (please visit his web site if you disagree, it would make Veron look like a really down to earth guy).
Steve Saunders
probable teams…
Roma: Antonioli (g)
Cafu, Panucci, Samuel, Candela
Tommassi, Emerson, Totti, Lima
Montella, Cassano (or Batistuta or Delvechio)
Valencia: Canizares (g)
Carboni, Pellegrino, Ayala, Torres
Albelda, Baraja, Aimar, Rufete, Vicente (or Gonzalez or Angulo)
Carew
Ajax: Timmer / Stekelenburg (g)
Bergdolmo, De Jong, Maxwell, Pasanen,
Chivu, Van der Meyde, Sikora, Van der Vaart (or Wischge or Trabelsi)
Ibrahimovic, Mido (or Litmanen, Machlas or Wamberto).
VERY TOUGH
Peter Nyamato
Who’s the greatest of them all??
A funny thing: I almost always invariably find myself agreeing with you miles, but here’s a topic i’d like you to consider if you may.
Recently, the topic of who has been the greatest foreign import to grace these shores has been discussed with more and more regularity, on ITV’s Premiership program and on a few fanzines and weely football magazines. One such Magazine claimed that PV4 was the greatest but, although my blood runs gooner red, I’d like to rule him out at this early stage. (Longevity, and I’m not talking about limbs is, for me, a prerequisite).
Generally, the debate has quiterightly been between Zola, Cantona & Bergkamp. Schmeichel usually gets a mention, deservedly….but back to the Big Three.
First and foremost it is interesting to note that all three played similar positions as the creative link, just behind the main striker. On Mondays ITV premiership programme, the panel chose as follows: Clive Allen went for Bergkamp, Barry Venison couldn’t decide between Bergkamp and Zola, and John Barnes and Robbie Earle both went for Gianfranco. Interesting: nO ONE WENT FOR CANTONA. KING ERIC!
Cantona has been credited with opening the door to the foreign contingent, particularly French players. His controversial switchfrom leeds to Man U. was the catalyst for Man U’s dominance throughout the last decade. They hadn’t seen a player of his genius since george Best, and with him playing alongside Hughes, McClair and later Andy Cole was enough to unlock any defence. He was technically brilliant, had great upper body strength and balance and was more prolific than the other two strikers. But where he was head and shoulders above the other two was personality and leadership. Cantona has charisma and a mysticism which has always been magnetic. He was a personality on and off the pitch, collar popped up, back more arrogant-straight than military straight and a furrowed, almost conceited look on his Gallic features……..a temparament more flighty than seagulls swooping on sardines. Big contrast to Bergkamp’s cool composure and Zola’s bubbly, ever-smiling persona. Cantona was more likely to grab the headlines for his off-field antics as well as for his magic on the pitch. Bergkamp and Zola are more detached from the public eye, Bergkamp especially. Cantona’s brilliance has often been linked to Man U’s dominance, but excessively so. The fact that he was the first real French superstar and won the first ever premiership title has added to his mystique. But Zola is more committed to the cause, more of a team player. Bergkamp is technically superior, just. Granted, Cantona won Player of The Year twice, in comparison to Bergkamp and Zola’s once each. But DB10 and Zola play against bigger and better defenders and better defensive organisation, as the Premiership has evolved. cantona is great, but much of that has to do with the myth as well as the man.
Zola, of all three, is the fittest and most committed. His committment in training is legendary. None of the other two is/was as was committed to the cause as Gianfranco, and his willingness to help younger squad members is well documented. As a genial, fair sportsman, he is the king, the others mere jesters.His goal against Norwich in the FA cup was, for want of a better word, genius. (But IS there a better word, considering the players we’re talking about??) This is a player who learnt his trade deputising for, in my opinion, the greatest player of all time, Maradona, at Napoli. In Comparison to Bergkamp and Cantona, who’ve both been known to put the boot in, in less than sporting contexts, Zola is an Angel.In Contrast to Bergkamps Iceman exterior and Cantona’s combustible charisma, Zola is the equilibrium, the median, the posterboy for soccer moms. Zola’s dead-ball expertise is better than the other two. But unlike the other two, Zola has never helped Chelsea win the league championship. FATAL! Technically, he’s not quite as good as the other two (remember, were talking very, very high standards…) and his whippet, all-action style makes him less elegant and gracefull than the other two. His place in a Chelsea team famed for inconsistency hasnt helped his case. He’s a great player at a greatly inconsistent club. FINAL NAIL.
Dennis Bergkamp. Succeeded internationally where the other two failed, whether for political reasons or otherwise. The all-time leading scorer of Holland, a country that has produced Cryuff and Van Basten, the latter of whom famously said
“If David Beckham is worth 20 million, Bergkamp is worth 100 million”.
Scored one of the greatest goals of all time in the last minute of a very tense World Cup quarter final match. A goal that was recently voted, out of 100, the seventh greates World Cup moment of all time. Top scorer of the ’92 European Championships, where he almost single-handedly hauled Holland and an ailing Van Basten to a semi-final penalty shoot-out loss to Denmark.
Technically, the most gifted player ever to grace these shores. His first touch is incredible, only Zidane’s is as good in world football. His penchant for moments of individual, jaw-dropping brilliance is the stuff of legend. The eleven touch piece of skill against Juventus, The brilliant hatrick against Liecester and the goal against Newcastle, a pice of improvised magic tha had some doubting whether he really meant it, such was it’s splendour. Of the three, he tends to drift in and out of games the most and is the most likely to go AWOL. in games. But no one can turn the game like the Menace Dennis. Of the three, his vision is peerless, as well as his passing. Ask Ian Wright. Ask Anelka………ASK FREDDIE! And his grace;has there ever been a more silky smooth, lighted player? Cantona was graceful, but not Bergkamp graceful. If Zola is Elvis, all action and fast moving, Bergkamp is Sinatra. More style…more suave-and more Menace.
He’s more injury-prone than the other three, less consistent and a touch slow(er). But of all three he has the best football brain, as Clive Allen put it. Therefore, the true Genius. More consistency and he would have been in the top ten players of all time! (I have him in the top 20), and i agree with you Miles when you said he could be as great as Di Stefano. Is it a coincidence that when he’s brilliant, Arsenal win trophies?? If Bergkamp stays fit, healthy and motivated then Arsenal have a great chance of winning the Champions league. More than if the same applied to Henry, though he too is important. Henry demands the stage. BERGKAMP COMMANDS IT!! they call Shaun Goater the GOAT. The same applies to Bergkamp. THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME.
well must say well impressed with arsenals wins
so they got a fan for life no matter they win loose or woteva! gooner thru n thru i am n by the way must get Ljundbergs n henrys signature
soon! even thou my family know Charlie george n some other arsenal people!
keep it up fella’s!
North londons’s Kimberley is proud of ya all xxxxxxxxxxx
much luv
luv Kimberley xxx
edward villiers
Robert Pires
Dear Myles, it seem to me that Pires is playing in a different role since his return from injury. Last season he played not as an out an out winger, because he loved to cut inside, but he only really moved into the middle when he got deep into the opposition’s half, looking to shoot or pass with his right foot. This season so far (and of course on Sat he was replacing DB10), although nominally playing wide he is picking the ball up in the middle of the park, deep in his own half. I am dreaming? Has Aw subtly changed his tactics from last season? Is AW grooming him to play in the middle when DB10 finally hangs up his boots? Is he looking to turn him into another Zidane – he certainly ran the French national side well well ZZ was out injured? What do you think? Regs Eddie